Down and Out in the Bundoks (cont.)

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Down and Out in the Bundoks (cont.)


	A quiet moment on the lower Cagayan River.

When I got out of my tent the next morning the Kalinga guys were collecting freshwater crabs, which they singed on a smoldering log. Anyone in camp at that moment could tell you that trouble was in the air. In addition to the upcoming rapids with their ominous name, it turned out that 14 people had drowned in a flash flood at our camp two years ago. Also, the day before, a man had dropped a squashed, emaciated piglet off a hanging bridge in such a way that it splashed us as we floated past. Taking these events as bad signs, it was with some hesitation that I approached the rapids.

Instead of barreling right in, we pulled over to check out Dead Carabao, which added to the tension. The canyon tightened down, forming a series of steep ledges punctuated by swirling deep pits with rocks. After an hour of watching Greg and Bridget scout the rapids and explain all the obstacles and travails to Anton, Jasper, and Benny, I started to think that a portage seemed perfectly reasonable. The term Class V didn't really mean much to me, but this here was a real carabao killer.

Eventually it was decided that, screw it, we'd go. Greg wanted to take the oar boat with the gear through first. After that, everyone else would follow in the paddle boat. Contingency plans were made to cover any scenario save the river somehow drying up and leaving us stranded in a cloud of dust. Downstream, Bridget and Anton set up safety ropes should we roll, be hung up, or get knocked out. The Kalinga guys spent this preparatory time throwing small rocks at another rock, which they had placed on a large rock in the river.



	Prepping at the Tinglayan put in.

Greg pulled into the current and wet his neck with river water for safe passage. Cindy adjusted her hat over her purple curls. We rode the river around a steep bend and then the sound of the falling water hit, reminding me of the noise made by a massive car wreck. The current carried us smoothly to the first big ledge before it tripped over its own feet and rolled into froth, spilling us forward. Waves crashed up in blinding walls like a snowplow arching slush off a roadway into our windshield, and we hurtled down into watery pits only to be spit upward. Then, very suddenly, I was hit with about a gallon of water up my nose, followed by deep relief: We were on smooth water, and Greg pulled onto shore.

Now everyone standing at the bottom of the run was totally jazzed to scramble back upstream and shoot the rapids with the paddle raft. Just when all the celebrations and high-fiving were winding down, Greg looked up and said, "What's this?"

I looked upriver and saw our Kalinga escorts in the paddle raft, minus the paying customers, minus the raft's captain, spinning uncontrollably. Jasper and Anton stared at the approaching raft like it was an oddly dressed woman walking down the street, but Greg and Bridget wore horrified expressions. The raft's new pilots paddled with extraordinary nonchalance considering the situation. Then they weren't paddling at all, because they had entered Dead Carabao, and it was all they could do to hang on. It didn't seem like they had any particular line in mind, and their run was beautiful in a fatalistic sort of way. They failed to catch the back eddy at the end of the rapids, and they failed to even try grabbing the safety lines, so they ran the next rapids, too, and then finally pulled over on the wrong side of the river, way downstream.

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