A Near-Life Experience

Unlike in Europe, where you can hop a train to Paris from Madrid for the weekend and explore on your own, the Mexico semester provides planned fun with built-in educational opportunities. Snorkelling is a good example of this, as is hiking through a forest looking for monkeys. Today was one of those days, and we went white-water rafting. The morning was cold, as we dressed for it- packing long sleeve shirts in rainjackets, predicting that we could stay dry if we really wanted. That prospect was eliminated before we even took off down the river, when war broke out. Our boat adopted the attitude of the French, put up a weak fight initially, and then just perpetually waved our white flag and submitted to the assault.

After learning how to hold the oar correctly, follow some basic directions and duck into the boat for the waterfalls, we took off down the river with the team cameraman in tow. This paparazzi man, Ernesto, could have given Roberto a run for his money: he has some amazing footage. Unfortunately, none of it is of us because we were in his boat, and Robert has none because we were always first. Its just too bad- our less than flattering expressions will not have the opportunity to echo throughout time on the internet in pixel form.

The highlight of my boating experience was definitely my near-life experience. It’s an early waterfall and not a very big one. In fact, the entire course doesn’t even register to a ½ a point on the scale of white-water. Nevertheless, I’m a little uncomfortable due to the unfamiliarity of the situation. We paddle faster and faster towards the edge before ducking into the boat, and I grab the lifeline in what I swear is the correct position, lean back appropriately, take a deep breath and wait for us to land upright on the other side. Things don’t exactly go as planned, and fortunately or unfortunately, there are no pictures because we are the first boat.

In Fight Club, Jack is arguing with Tyler about why Jack wasn’t included in Project Mayhem, citing the special nature of their relationship, its outgrowth from Fight Club which they began together, and so on. Tyler is incredulous at this and wants Jack to just let go, especially after he can’t robotically produce something he wished he could do before he died. So, speeding down the highway in a car stolen from an airport parking lot by a valet who works there, Tyler lets go of the wheel. He lets go of the wheel, drifts into the lane of an incoming eighteen-wheeler and forces Jack to accept that he’s going to die, not without protest, as the car passes through incoming traffic and off of the highway where it ends in a colossal wreck. They are alive, but battered, having finally experienced something akin to near-life.

The boat flips and despite by best efforts, I am flung out of the grip of the lifeline and into the undercurrent. My first thoughts are, “So this is the undercurrent he was talking about. I should tuck and wait to come out.”  Fifteen seconds later, when I feel the oxygen in my lungs dissipating, and the strength of the current increasing, so  that I feel like I am being thrown around in a washing machine, I start to think that I am not going to make it. My life doesn’t flash before my eyes. I’m obviously a little scared because I think I am going to die, but I don’t have any dramatic thoughts. “So this is what it feels like to drown,” is one thought, and “Well, if I have to die, life hasn’t been so bad.”  Like when my plane to Pennsylvania hit a deep spot of turbulence that pushed the plane down altitude significantly, I just accept death if it’s coming because there is nothing I can do about it. So, anyway, struggling for air but doing my best not to inhale the water, I finally pop out. I swim the that I can towards Dana and Danielle, who were also tossed out of the boat and see from the opposite side of the river that it flipped, and that other boats have come down safely. I just had a near-life experience, and I’m damn resentful none of the other boats were privileged either.

For our boat, the rest of the rafting experience was relatively uneventful, but nevertheless a lot of fun. The weather was miserable- dark, cloudy, rainy and yes, cold, but this didn’t inspire our moods at all, even as we choked back water when we tried to swim individually through some rapids. I was soaked to the bone, freezing cold and having a lot of fun. One of the other boats flipped at one point, but they experience was less dramatic than ours, or maybe just less fun. Cesar, our bus driver, popped out during a waterfall, only to stand up gracefully, slip, and fall back into the water- all caught on video, by the way. In another glorious feat of acrobatics, Hugo, our perpetual guide, rolled out of the boat on a fall with incredible drama, again, caught on tape.

I was sad to reach the end of the river because I knew the weather was going to affect my mood when I did. We got out of the boat, still soaked to the bone and freezing cold, but not excited by the prospect of hiking at least 1.5km to a Mayan site, then back down, up to a waterfall where we could finally eat, and then, at least 5km after that, all through the jungle, to reach our cabins where we could acquire (hypothetically) warm showers and dry clothes. To make matters worse, we had to wear our life jackets, our helmets and carry our oars the entire way, and my shoes were not staying on. My feet slid around in them effortlessly, lubricated by water, mud, and blood from the many sticks that stabbed into them. Who would be in a good mood facing that kind of prospect?

Still, we all sucked it up. Lacanja, the Mayan site was undeniably beautiful for its setting, and as the last site we are visiting on the trip, I felt compelled to appreciate it through what I had learned this semester. After awhile, my teeth stopped chattering and things weren’t so bad. We stopped at a beautiful waterfall we were all too cold to swim in and ate a lunch of delicious cheese, watermelon, Ate de Frutas, which is a fruit-mash-pectin-gel-substance that is great and olives. Some of my classmates played the old ROPES game of passing the team through a spider web with the waterfall setting for beautiful pictures. I changed into my semi-dry clothes, relaxed, and enjoyed myself watching them have fun too. The hike back was long, but enjoyable, and I felt like Raymond K.K.K.K. Hessel after my shower- I will never feel so clean in my life again.