Rafting

I was up early to get ready for a trip I had signed up for. The hostel had lots of different trips and tours you could sign up for. I decided that I would spend the day rafting.

We met in the lobby at 7am. Myself and two others from the hostel went. Along the way the driver stopped at a few vantage points for us to stop and take pictures. We drove for about two hours through the country side. We arrived at the meeting site and restaurant. We stopped to have breakfast.

After we ate we suited up and joined with another group of people. Together we got into a bus and drove to the starting point of the rafting adventure. To reach this point we took a small rode with a checkpoint. This checkpoint was where we crossed the boarder into Bosnia and Herzegovina. With the rafting tour we crossed with no problem.

We got the boat into the water and with the guide there were 8 of us in the boat. We travelled down the Tara river that marks the boarder between Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina. Tara River Canyon is 1333m deep, which makes it the deepest in Europe and second in the world, after the Grand canyon of Colorado River. Tara river is 146 km long, and most of the Tara River is under UNESCO protection.

We would raft for a bit and then stop to take pictures. In a few places we stopped in areas where we would cliff jump. I didn’t trust myself to climb the cliffs to do the jumps. My knee was killing me. In the boat I was unable to straiten my leg in a way that would stop the pain from it. I spent the breaks keeping my knee in the cold water to try to lessen the pain.

I may have made a wise decision. One of the others jumped from the cliff and dislocated his shoulder. The guide and no one on the boat was able to set his shoulder. At one point we stopped where there was a first aid attendant but he was also unable to do anything. He was forced to ride with his shoulder dislocated until we reached the end of the trip. From there he was taken by is family to a doctor. I have no idea what happened to him.

The rafting was great. The river had nice calm places where we could take photos and enjoy and the view. The guide was very knowledgeable. The rapids were pretty gentle, no place where you could have been thrown. It took us about 3 hours to get back to the meeting site.

When we arrived back we got out of our wet suits and dried off. Then we had a late lunch on site. Then it was back in the car for the two hour drive back to the hostel. I lasted about 10 minutes before I fell asleep in the car for most of the journey.

Back at the hostel I cleaned up and set out to explore the streets of Old Town. I wandered around for a bit before finding a presentation being put on by a local dance studio. There were all ages of performers. I stayed and watched for a bit for continuing on to find dinner.

After dinner I returned to the hostel and spent some time talking with the other guests. I didn’t last long before the activity of the day had me tired again. Also the lack of movement had my knee causing me problems. I took some painkillers and went to bed.