Kayaking

I woke up this morning feeling rather lazy and dehydrated but once I had got something to eat and some water, I began to feel better which was good as today we were going to be going kayaking. For breakfast I had banana pancakes which were strange to look at as the sliced banana was embedded in the pancake, but it tasted amazing plus just to have a wider variety of breakfasts to choose from was great.

Ten of us got in a minibus and we drove the 20 minutes to the place where the kayaks were waiting. The bus journey was eventful with us singing various songs including In the Jungle and Do You Want to Build a Snowman? The poor driver must have wished she had brought earplugs. The minibus can’t be used that often either as inside there were quite a few cobwebs so when there was a spider dangling from the ceiling in front of Hope, she absolutely screamed the roof off, there was also one that got on her back, but thankfully she did not realise me flicking that one off, so it meant we still had our hearing by the time we got to the kayaks. The kayaks were all twin ones, so we had to find a partner to share with, I ended up going with a guy called Josh and without him, I am fairly sure I would still be lost on the river somewhere, but I will explain that in a bit. We were all given life jackets and had to grab a paddle each; where they had been sitting in the sun, the handle was hot and it was a relief to dunk it in the water to cool it down. The kayaks were already in the water, so I got in the front with Josh in the seat behind me; again, the seats were burning from the sun. The kayak trip was meant to take about an hour down the river back to our hotel, however we managed to stretch it out to an hour and a half due to my terrible skills – or maybe I should say lack of skills. When we were paddling, we just ended up keep going around in circles, I have no idea why as we were paddling on both sides and in time together. I never realised how hard kayaking was, I am sure my arms will be aching tomorrow. When I took a break to allow my arms a rest, and Josh was paddling by himself, he managed to go in a straight line with no problem; we thought our teamwork must be the problem but nope, when I paddled alone, we still just kept spinning around. After a while, Josh ended up trying to teach me how to kayak in a straight line and it did help a bit as now, I was just zig zagging down the river rather than circling; I think it must be the boats fault though. So, yes between us we decided that I would have not got back to the hotel today if I had been by myself.

This afternoon, after we got back, most of us just spent the time around the pool while a couple of people went to the water park or zoo. In the pool there was a rubber ring, so I managed to claim that and spent a good hour just floating around whilst I read my book before I came upstairs to get out of the sun for a bit.

Tonight, for dinner I had my chicken pad Thai in the restaurant as I had planned and it tasted amazing, the presentation was also good with a carrot being cut into a flower. Whilst waiting for my dinner, I also noticed loads of little lizards on the ceiling and me being me, had a strange thought about how amazing it is that these little creatures, along with many other insects, can just defy gravity and be upside down on the ceiling and we, as humans, could never do that. I am not sure that had to be said but at least I guess it gives you an insight into how my brain works.

Anyway, I think I am going to catch an early night ready and recharged for the waterfalls tomorrow.