Rafting Trip - Part Two

Rocks By The River

The first encounter with the river was on the riverbank. The water was as cold as the sand was hot. It was a strange experience. One foot in the hot sand, one in the cold water and bob is your uncle. Whatever that means. 


We frolicked around the water for some time. Getting our feet wet, clicking pictures, exploring the shore, etc etc. It was nice for a change. There were some big rocks further off and we sat on them with our feet in the water. I felt like a mermaid or something. Saw some sharks swim by in the river, but they were far away so it was ok. Pretty safe. Unlike the people in the picture below. From some archives. 

Old Image of a river shark (2006). The raft that didn't make it.

The water was cold and it was nice. Then Angie, the co-camp manager, called out to us and told us that lunch was ready. We were all hungry like pigs after eating the shitty food in the train. Bless the cook there, the food was amazing. Now, I mostly don’t know the names of things I eat and this case was not any different. My rule for eating is simple, if it goes down your throat and stays down, its good food. This food at the camp was really good food. 


There was nothing much to do on the camp and after eating we retired to our tents to sleep for a while. It was not easy sleeping there. The tents were burning hot. I went out of my tent and spent some time with my feet in the cold river. Then the heat on my head drove me back in the tent. The sand stuck to my floaters and if I went back in the water to wash the sand off, and back to the tent through the sand, it was the SAME story. There is no escape from the sand when you camp at the sandy shore of a river. There is too much sand and it gets inside all the important places.


Evening fell and all was quiet by the banks of the river. There were a few birds chirping here and there, the sound of the river flowing in the background and other than that there wasn’t a sound anywhere. It was too quiet. I could hear the shrill whine of silence which just made me feel weird. There was no electricity and just a gas lamp in the “dining tent” where we took our dinner. I had eaten a lot that day and I felt like taking a shit. This was my first encounter with THE THUNDERBOX.

Now, as there was no plumbing in the camp, the toilet stuff had to be done in thunderboxes. Why is the strange conception called the thunderbox? I guess that’s cuz its pretty thunderous taking a shit in the jungle. Its primitive and as close to nature as one can get. The thunderbox is a box. A wooden box with a western seat on top of it. The box is open from the backside so that you can throw sand over your business once you’re done. This is pretty cool thing about the camp. Anything you do wrong, you can put sand over it. You don’t like the tea, throw it on the sand and out sand over it. Don't like people making noise, chop em up and bury them and put sand over them. All cool.

Anyway, sitting on and shitting in the thunderbox was a new experience. Not as thunderous as I was expecting, but thunderous enough. It was sweaty and clammy inside the little hut type enclosure and I had to sit while holding the zipper on the door in case someone else wanted to use the thunderbox and didn’t have the common courtesy to ask if someone was already in there.

That done, I got out of the thunderbox and there were two bright yellow eyes staring at me from the woods where the thunderbox was set up. And something growled.


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It getting weird, no? More tomorrow. Did I make it safe from the thunderbox area? Or did I not?