I went on a Latvian River Rafting ADVENTURE: An Epic Journey

I had a Latvian river rafting adventure and it was truly an epic journey! The journey started with building the raft, which progressed to riding the raft down the river Gauja from the Latvia/Estonia border all the way to Strenci.

The event happens annually, and is officially called Plostnieku Svetki (Raftsmen Festival) and culminates in a big party at the local open-air theatre.

So that's the festival, here are some details that aren't found in the video:

Accidents: The first day was fairly clean in terms of accidents - just a few trees catching the raft and dragging across the deck, sweeping them clean of people and things! A little bit of drama here, but generally considered normal as far as the rafting goes.

On this note - Gauja is an interesting river. It's slow, but it changes course quite fluidly - and the banks have the scars to show it.

Work: Part of the deal of being on the raft, is maintaining the raft. Tightening wires to make sure the raft is staying together, chopping wood, and keeping the raft moving - pushing it away from the banks, and making sure we dodge obstacles in the water. Which when concentration lapses - the above happens.

Food and Drink: we had snacks on board, and there was a huge cauldron of delicious soup/stew cooked up the front of the raft - thanks to the cooking team for that!

The other big player was alcohol. My goodness, I don't I've had so many different types in the space of 2 days. Whiskey, rum (sweet and spicy), moonshine - I don't know how many varieties, brandies and schnapps. I had more in two days than I've had in two years.

Toilet: We had dinghies to row to the side, but for fluids, you could go or hang off the back of the boat.

Schedule: There really was no schedule - we thought perhaps we'd be done each day by six or seven (and get to the actual checkpoints) - it turns out, its just the speed of the river that determines EVERYTHING. And gauja was very slow this year. The first night, we were done by midnight, and the second day, eleven pm. AKA, very very late. On the first night, it got very cold, and the raft had emptied out slowly throughout the day (People from Riga, and then some others at another checkpoint) until there were maybe twenty-five people on the raft. All of us huddled at either end of the raft, where the fires were, staying warm. Smoke getting in our eyes, drinking and taking in the sheer bizarreness of what we were doing.

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Видео I went on a Latvian River Rafting ADVENTURE: An Epic Journey канала Caster Azucar