SV Me Too received their guest, an old time friend of Jill’s from California. Unfortunately we all were still on the hard but the girls planned a rafting trip…I was talked into it…and was SOOOOO glad I was! It was amazing. We were picked up at 5am and didn’t return home until 9:30pm. It was a long day but worth it! Here are some photos from our trip!
Getting there – We were the farthest away so we were picked up super early. We stopped along the other resorts to pick up other rafters. The scenery was magnificent: Vuda Point was on the dry side of the island while we were headed to the wet side, so the landscape turned into a green lush and jungle like.
The rafting company we took. They are the only ones to raft down this particular river as about 20% of the price goes to the village we go through.Veiw from the bus..you can see how lush it is hereDa bus!We had to go up a dirt road and change buses to a more robust one….
Getting ready and the Safety meeting
We were all put into groups, of course the four of us were together, Group # 2 Jill (front), Kimi (left), Kania (Middle), Briley (right)So after we were all geared up, we had to walk..i don’t know about 1/2 a mile or more to the actual river….Safety meeting…the guides were hilarious and they had such a special connection between them and would play off one another. Here they are explaining it’s basically ok to get the other boats wet by splashing them…YES!
First half – canyons, canyons, and waterfalls!
Just WOW!Every so often the guide would say “raise your paddles in the air and say….(X)” let’s just say we learned a lot of bad words in Fijian : ) Our guide was fantastic! He would tell us stories and the local legends from the river…we had a ton of questions for him and he was great answering them all. The view looking upLove the mirror effect hereyup…we were the first boat to splash another boat…not sure if we were super irritating but we didn’t care much…you only live onceSpectacularWaterfallsOur guide just after the photo above was taken took a mini shower! He would paddle us right underneath waterfalls so we could cool offWe would stop along the way to take a dip, here is our raft guide swimming with us….at one point most of the rafts were together swimming…Briley and I decided to stay in the raft this time. Well that wasn’t the right choice! Another guide and our guide teamed up on us (on more than 1 occasion) and would trick us so they could pull us into the water! We noticed that the guides only did this with our raft…meaning to us that we could “handle” it and of course we were the loud raft laughing and such…it made us feel a bit special!Rapids! not really, the water level was low that day but it had just rained a few days ago. They say in the rainy season the river gets so high it could be many meters above what we saw and it takes only 2 hours to get down the river the rapids are so fast…and at low, you walk the raft alot…glad we didnt have to do either
Lunch stop
nice break…the guides all sat up on a hill which I thought strange….so I joined them.One of the guides told me to follow him, so I did….he told me to get into the hole right underneath the small water fall above…so I did…he siad to put my head as far back as I could…so I didThe water created a bubble around my head and I could see and breathe no problem! Here you can literally see me under the waterThis is a photo from inside I am taking. You can see Jill and the guide taking my photo form the outsideMe completely in awwhhhh!Just sitting in the waterSay hi to my little friend!
Second half – split lip and almost falling out of the raft
So right before this photo was taken, Briley was tricked and pulled into the water by our guides….she took with her the paddle and we called to her to throw it to the raft…well my big fat head got into the way and the handle of the paddle hit right in the middle of my top lip! Split and swollen, they guide had to whistle for the first aid kit….it hurt like hell but it has healed since. This photo is the biggest rapids we saw…you can’t even see us…..Same rapids but coming about…if you notice I am sitting on the floor of the raft as the ladies wanted to me to not do anything for a bit after my lip split…”one of these kids is doing their own thing”More Kimi shit show!!! No big deal…we are coming up to this rock and we haven’t been stuck yet (some of the other rafts had to get to get their rafts unstuck). The technique is that Briley (sitting next me) would scoot to my side so we won’t get stuck, well I went too far to my side to allow Briley to scoot and I didn’t have a good hold on to anything and was of course not going to put my hand between the raft and the rock so I braced myself with my leg…..here is the 1st photo in a set of three where you can see me almost falling out of the raft2nd shotYup..almost off the raft! Nothing was hurt so it’s all good, have to come home with some war wounds right?!The 2nd half of the trip was mellow and we paddled a lot as the waters were calm as we reached the village.Our camera guy would kayak with us and take some of the awesome photos you are seeing. He offered Briley to take the kayak and he joined our raft for a bit.Strange rock formation that looked like an eyeHere you can see the landscape less dramatic but more jungle and wildOur last stop was at this waterfall, where our guide told us it’s where you get a “massage”…so Briley had to check out the quality of this “massage”Group photo by the waterfallOur guide also found this dead cicada….it was beautifulAt the village we helped break down the raft and clean up. We are using our “best qualities” to help gravity deflate the raft
Exhausted, Hangrey, but exhilarated…we finally made it home by 9:30pm where Trevor and Clay had ordered our drinks and pizza so it would be there when arrived back at Vuda Point marina. Thanks you guys..we needed that!
