Day 16 - Death by Canoe

I thought eleven hours of sleep would prepare me for today.

Not. Even. Close.

I was feeling pretty good when we got there, but the shit hit the fan quite quickly.

We were near the back of our group getting in the “canoes” (they were really kayak-type things. I was lied to!), and our lack of experience didn’t help when the current got strong. Once we finally got the hang of it, we were WAY behind everyone else.

Unfortunately, we weren’t really sure where our stop was. Because the idiot that put this whole trip together showed up at least 30 minutes late to the bus originally, then when he tried to explain what we were going to do on the trip, he gave really, really shitty directions.

So, I commence to lose my paddle when some freaks run into the side of our canoe. Either the lady’s paddle or the canoe hit my arm, and my reflex was to let go of the paddle.

But the current was strong, and we kept right on going. And the paddle was stuck on the opposite side of the river. Cool.

We pulled the boat out of the water, then Alee tried to retrieve it. But someone’s canoe hit it, then it went down stream without us.

Luckily, some Spaniards EVENTUALLY decided to help us, and I got my paddle back. About 20 minutes later.

At this point, I’m just not in a fabulous mood. I’m on my period and made the mistake of not wearing a swimsuit or a tampon.

And my ass is sitting in at least two inches of water in the boat.

I tried to be in a good mood, but it just didn’t seem possible.

So, we boated on, trying to catch up with everyone. We saw a lot of blue boats at the stop with the restaurant, but we didn’t see anyone we knew, so we decided to keep going. We figured they had already eaten and gone on because we were so far behind.

We stopped at the second stop like we were supposed to, but no one was there. Not a soul, and no bus to be found.

So we kept on going.

And going, And going. And going.

Still didn’t see anyone. Then we ran into Grace and Maria, and they said they had been waiting forever for everyone to catch up.

We decided to keep on canoeing until the next and final stop.

Whoops.

We got there, and this man came up and asked us if we were lost. He seemed to know what was up, and it was a rather busy area. We told him we were students with the University of Oviedo, and he told us that we had gone too far. We were supposed to have stopped at the second stop (like we did).

So the four of us decide to get into this van (with a canoe trailer on the back). I figured they would take us back to the second stop where I thought the bus would be.

But we passed Toraño. Then I started to worry. Were these guys legit? What is REALLY happening here?

Finally, they took us back to the main stop where everyone was waiting for us.

Luckily, they really hadn’t been waiting that long. But then we had to wait because they thought two other people were missing.

All in all, it was a huge CF of a day.

The views were gorgeous, absolutely. But I was in a piss-poor mood and now have a ridiculous sunburn on my shins. Cute.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day :\