Canyoning Adventure!

What a weekend! We seem to be cramming as much fun and excitement into the last few weeks possible, made evident by this last weekend. It began Saturday with a BBQ at a friend’s aunt’s house. She technically lives right next to the auto route, but it felt like French suburbia. It was this lovely house, with a large yard and deck and even a pool. So, while the meat eaters roasted themselves up some chicken, Leah and I and Peter made ourselves some lovely vegetables. We cut up tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, squash, broccoli, red, green, and orange peppers, and mushrooms, threw some sweet and sour sauce over them, wrapped them in foil, and t hrew it on the grill.

While those were cooking, we began with all kinds of salads, followed by our main course, followed by roasted bananas, (which were SO good), then tea and coffee, then ice cream : ) This was broken up by a nice walk in the woods near her house where we stopped to take many pictures in the flowery fields. Afterwards, some swam in the pool and others just soaked up the sunshine while we talked in French and enjoyed the afternoon. The aunt’s son was there with his friend, and they had been riding around on their motorbikes, which Leah and I were quite jealous of. So the boys offered to take us to “faire un tour” and go for a little ride. We went to a parking lot and drove around and did tricks, and they even let us drive around! It was spectacular and Leah and I have decided we need to get motorbikes they are so much fun. We didn’t get back till about 10:00 that night and we were so tired, from I don’t know what, that we went to bed shortly after.

It was a good thing we did, since we had to get up quite early the next morning to leave for our canyoning outing at 8:00 AM! We drove for about an hour or so through the French countryside, with our driver (the director of campus sports) blasting the music and taking all the many roundabouts quite fast to give us a little thrill and get us all hyped up for the big day. We finally arrived at our destination in the mountains. It was there that we divided into groups, with the first group going in the morning and the second group going after lunch. The first group began the ridiculous and impossible task of trying to get their wetsuits on, while we in the second group laughed. We in the second group stood and watched as they went. It got a little tiresome after a while, so Leah and I took a picture of us being bored waiting for them to be done. When they finished, we had our picnic lunch, and then it was our turn! We strapped ourselves in, looking ever so good in those lovely wetsuits, put our helmets on, (which we were quite grateful for), and we were good to go! Into the frigid water we dove with our guides leading the way. It began quite simply, just sliding down the river and down little tiny waterfalls.

Things got a little more interesting when we roped in and rappelled down a waterfall. They got even more interesting when we went down some of the waterfalls backwards or on our stomachs head first. We had many a water fight, many a dunking and tossing of people into the water, and large amounts of mud were thrown. We then traversed a log about 7 meters in the air that stretched across the river, and when we nearly got to the other side, we stood atop the log, and jumped : ) It was incredible! I’ve never been cliff jumping, so this was great to do something like this for the first time with guides who knew what they were doing and where it was safe to do stuff. Then we went back up to the same waterfall we had rappelled down, and this time we slid down it! It was like a giant water slide at a water park; so much fun! There was also a part towards the end where we could slide under some rocks where you couldn’t see anything and you just had to swim under this little tunnel thing to come out on the other side. At this point, the guides said it was over. Leah and I were upset by this announcement, because the group in the morning had had the opportunity to jump from an even higher jump. The only ones who had done it were Stephen, Sarah, and one other guy.

Two other girls had gotten up there to do it, but stood there debating about it for a good ten minutes before finally chickening out. Leah and I had made fun of them and they didn’t believe we would do it. So we begged and pleaded with the guides that we wanted ‘the big jump’, and they surprisingly asked, “really? You want the big one?” Uh, yes! So we got to go all the way back through the river from the beginning, just Leah and I and the guides, which no one else had gotten to do. It was really fun. Then we got to the place where the big jump was. We had to climb up the rocks to do it. We get to the top and he’s explaining where to jump from and how to jump. Leah is starting to get a panicky look on her face. I ask her if she’d rather if I go first or does she want. She states that I should go first, and I question her as to whether she’ll actually go after me and she assures me that I will. I ask the guide if it’s ok to go, he says whenever you’re ready. So I take one more peek off this 8 meter (26 feet) ledge, and off I go! It was incredible! I was flyin’ so fast!! What a rush!! (I think I’m a thrill seeker…) I hit the water hard and came up with a huge grin on my face, high fived the guide waiting at the bottom for me and looked up for Leah. Leah did not jump. It was quite sad. But it was still an amazing day, with the sole tragedy being that my favorite flip-flops that I wear everywhere and have been to India, Africa, Europe, and the States broke.

I took many pictures and a few videos, one of which I will try to add, and I’ve also added a couple of pictures of Leo’s haircutting. Afterwards, we headed back to campus, exhausted but content, until we hit an unusual sight for our region, a traffic jam. Cars were lined up for miles. We turned on the radio and apparently a car had exploded in a nearby tunnel and they were in the process of clearing out the smoke. So we played games on the highway while we waited, and our guide kindly called the caf and asked them to arrange something since we were going to miss dinner and were quite hungry. We finally got back to campus to find a lovely dinner waiting for us, and we stayed there for quite some time recounting the highlights of the day. The laughter was loud as we told and retold the story of one girl who had jumped off the cliff and accidentally ended up going in the water head first (she’s ok), and of another girl, a little bit larger black girl who jumped right, but mid air leaned her body forward a bit and unintentionally formed her hands into kind of claw like shapes, and kind of did this roaring sound as she went into the water, making quite a canny bear imitation.