Blast from the past: White water rafting

DAVAO CROCODILE PARK/June 5, 2011 -- Exactly 8 a.m. is the pre-departure briefing here which starts with the signing of a waiver dispensing the company from any responsibility for any injury or – God forbid! – death arising from the river rafting. 

Then a five-minute video of the course: the 13-kilometer Tamugan-Lacson – now there’s a familiar name – run of Upper Davao River consisting of 25 rapids, usually finished from three to five hours, depending on the level of the water and the paddling capacity of the “adventurers.”

And finally, the Do’s and Dont’s – Don’t attempt to swim. Do drift with the current, feet front. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
With that it’s off on board jeepneys loaded with all the gears – fully inflated rafts on the roof racks, helmets, life vests, paddles and packed lunch.
A 45-minute drive is the “put-in area” at the boulder-strewn bank just below the confluence of the Tamugan and Davao rivers.

Final instructions there, proper wearing of life vests and helmets, then a quick course in the water: paddling – easy, hard, back; high-five; saving one gone overboard; drifting, then again, Don’t panic.

Then off in a raft, river guide shouting “Drift” and everybody jumping into the water and onto the raft and near-panicking when coming dangerously close to the first rapids before being taken back.
Swirls of brown water then cresting in continuous roil: easy paddling, then hard when the waves rise, and high-five – paddles raised – at each pass through the rapids.
Easy there, then a surge – the whole raft as though pushed out of the water and slammed sideways at sheer vine cluttered rock wall, so that’s what was called “kissing the wall.” Still, not one went overboard.

Passing by a cave, the waters again turned turbulent, in one swell, in one fell swoop, the left side of the raft was devoid of its four paddlers. Bobbing helmets, then laughing faces needed to be picked out of the water, until the team of eight was whole again.
And that was the easy part. Let the imagination run wild with the succeeding rapids sporting monikers as “washing machine” with three cycles at maximum speed; the “rodeo” -- the water’s like a bucking bronco; “double drop” -- two successive free-falls into swirling water; and the piece de resistance – “drop and suck” – where the raft is maneuvered between two boulders to drop into an eddy at top spin.

Falling overboard twice – at the rodeo and the double drop – only maxxed the exhilaration. In less than three hours, the course was finished. So intense was the adrenaline rush that there was no tiredness at all. And really, we wanted more, more, more.

As the seasoned traveler would say: Don’t overdo it the first time. Else there’s nothing to look forward to the next time around.

Yes, the wild water adventure is enough reason to return to Davao City. And I’ve got to smell the waling-waling, and bond with the Philippine eagle yet. Plus, a climb up Mount Apo, for another extreme adventure.

(Excerpted from Doing Davao/Free Zone, July 27, 2012)