Starts with a K, ends with a gnarly

local in a dugout canoe
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I haven't updated the blog in a while and for good reason. The last ten days or so were spent on a river, rafting. The Karnali River to be exact and it was a great trip. There are really three stories within the trip. The first story is the rafting experience, the second is the other travellers and the third is the bus ride there and back. I'll tell the first and third part of the story on the blog. The stories about the people I met will have to be told in person (at least the good stuff).

wild kids at the put-in
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Unlike the title of this blog entry the gnarly part of the Karnali is in the beginning of the trip. We had three days of Class 4 rapids. Class 6 is unrunnable and Class 5 is for experts, so Class 4 is a good solid exciting rapid to run. There were several times we ran into walls of water.

Speaking of the water, the temperature might be a little warmer than Lake Michigan, so not bath water at all. We paddled for several hours the first couple days, the last couple were spent lazily drifting along.

a glimpse of the river
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The villages were the most scenic I have seen in Nepal. This area is really remote, even for Nepal. When we set up our camp on the beach for the night kids and adults would wander over and just watch us. The first spot we were in the kids went wild over two women from Iceland. They were amazed by their blond hair. It was a different feeling to have people watch us as a group because of the difference of our appearance. There are probably only ten rafting trips down the Karnali a year and the beaches that are camped on alternate so the amount of travellers that come through is minimal and the actual contact is even more minute. Kids would run along the ridges along the river yelling bye bye as we floated past. It's a great place to go to feel interesting.

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As far as wildlife goes we didn't see much, but we did see monkeys and they are always fun. Unfortunately we did not see the freshwater dolphins that sometimes make their way into the area.

The afternoons were spent setting up camp, reading, collecting driftwood, putting our wet clothes on rocks to dry out (only to get wet in dampness overnight) and laying around. At night we sat around the campfire. Several of the kayakers in the group were rafting/kayaking guides back home and they had tons of funny river stories. There was one night when a joke telling session spontaneously occurred, and other than that the time was filled by a guitar getting passed around and the four of five people who could play the guitar exhausting their play list.

sunset
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Most of this probably doesn't qualify as captivating, but like I wrote, a big part of the trip was the people and while I don't mind sharing my stories about them, I don't really feel good putting in on the web, so those stories will have to wait. Fortunately the bus ride is a pretty good story so check out the next entry, it should be pretty entertaining.