Friday, June 27, 2008

Maseltov

Day 108

Around 3:30 am two of three very drunk girls came very loudly into the room. They seemed to have lost the other girl and had no idea where. Some friends, at least they were not too loud for too long and I was quickly able to get back to sleep.

Around 5 am I felt a heavy pain on my face. The girl in the bunk on top of me had dropped her bag on me, literary on me. The shock caused me to sit up and ask her what the hell was her problem, she was still to groggy and drunk to care. She did apologize though and went right back to sleep, as the pain subsided so did I.


As it turned out the three drunk girls were now the three hungover girls (the 3rd one had turned up) and they were all going canyoning with the same group as me. During the ride up to the canyon one of them puked in her purse. Fun.


The first order of the day was to somehow get on a wet suit. No one had done this before and we all seemed to struggle the same way. Everyone's helmet had a name on it, my nickname for the day was Maseltov. When we were all geared up we drove a short distance to the beginning of our trek. I thought that it was odd that we were just on the side of a road. Then I realized to get to the canyon we had to climb down. Not just climb, we had to repel 50 meters, or 160 feet down a sheer rock face. Holy crap.


Once I was hooked up I started to walk slowly down backwards. Somehow I even managed to take a pictures with my arms off of the rope. About halfway down my feet went out from under me, I don't know how I managed to stay in the correct position while I tried to get my feet back on the wall. Just a bit further from that I thought I was at the bottom, but it was just the ridge that we had been warned about. At this point I started to get really nervous and the rope just kept moving faster. I started to count, telling myself that I only had to take 100 steps before I would hit water. I was right, I found land, not very gracefully might add, around step 60. I figured that if I could do that the rest would be cake, the worst had to be over.


After just a bit of walking we got to our first and biggest slide. We had to slide down about 30 feet of rock into the icy water. I didn't know if I could do it, but after some hesitation I did, plus, there was no way I would be climbing back up! I think the whole thing would have been easier if I had not ended up last. It was exhilarating but also incredibly scary. I was concentrating so hard on closing my eyes and keeping my contacts in place that I forgot to close my mouth and I inhaled a whole bunch of water. I came up sputtering and struggling to catch my breath. One of the guides grabbed my hand and helped me get to a place where I could stand quicker.


The next one was a bit easier, just a ten foot or so jump. I still managed to inhale about half of the river, but I recovered much more quickly this time. There were a few more slides and jumps of various heights, and I was completely terrified the entire time, terrified and exhilarated. Harder than the sliding and jumping was climbing over the slippery rocks. I have very little coordination on a good day, and slipping the wrong way here could have really bad results. At several places we had to attach ourselves to ropes and balance on very thin ledges. On one of these the guy in front of me unhooked his carabiner before he was at the end. The guide yelled at him for it. At the same time my feet went out from beneath me. I wasn't scared of falling, I was holding on and hooked on but I was nervous that my slip would cause the other guy, now unattached to fall. I waited to get up until he was ready for the slide and not going to fall. I didn't have any problems pulling myself back up.


Whenever you slid or jumped you were supposed to do it cannon ball style. This slowed you down when you hit the water and if (when on some jumps) you hit the bottom it would be with your butt and not hurt. On one of the slides about half way through my body simply wouldn't listen and I hit the bottom hard with my right knee. The cold water kept the pain and swelling down. I figured that even though it was sore, it wasn't anything more than badly bruised. Luckily I was right, and I could send you the pictures of my rainbow colored knee if you are interested. It did, however, bug me for the rest of the trip especially when I was climbing over the rocks.


I had never put a wet suit on before and was surprised at how warm they actually keep you. I felt cool, but not cold when I was standing waist deep in water. The only part of me that was cold were my hands when I was in the water, they were so cold that I thought they might fall off.


The last big thing of the day was a rather large drop off from a zip line. Essentially the guide would tie a knot that you would then hold, the knot would hold until you let go. You spent about 4 seconds on the zip line before you would hear “let go” at this point you either let go, or crashed into the rock in front of you. I went with the former. This didn't scare me though, I'm not really sure why. I still looked terrified in the picture though.


The next slide was not high, but it was a bit complicated. We had to jump sideways over a crevice, land on our padded backs and then slide down. I have no idea how I actually pulled this one off, but I did it.


The last slide was short and curvy, like at a water park. To get out of the canyon we had to spend about 10 minutes scooting over rocks. I was really exhausted at this point and absolutely famished. Included in the trip was a traditional Swiss lunch of cheese, bread and beer. It was really refreshing after all of the exertion.


I was exhausted, I think everyone was. Cole (who was kind enough to give me a hand each time I swallowed half the river), Mel and I decided to be lazy and spent the rest of the day watching movies. I left only to grab dinner and pick up my pictures from the trip. I looked absolutely petrified in every single one of the pictures, on top of that the wet suit was none too flattering. I didn't care though, I was just proud that I had done it and I had enjoyed all of it, even the terror. These pictures, and the growing bruise on my knee were proof of it.


I was exhausted and I had to be up early, so after saying goodbye to my new friends and exchanging contact info I headed off to sleep.

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