White-water rafting can be a spiritual journey
White-water rafting can be a spiritual journey
By Joko Sarwono
BOGOR, West Java (JP): For the nonadventurous and faint of
heart like me, white-water rafting would hardly seem to be an
ideal way to spend the weekend.
The long stream, the strong current and the crashing rapids
frighten me to death. The thought of smashing into the stony
walls of the riverbank, or of drowning should have been enough to
completely dispel any notion of tackling the rapids.
Well, that was until an opportunity, or rather a challenge,
came my way to try it out.
"You can still enjoy white-water rafting even if you can't
swim," an acquaintance from college days, Makmur Affendi, who now
manages Jeram 2000, said. Jeram 2000 organizes rafting trips down
the Cianten River in Bogor.
That still did not entirely convince me, a nonswimmer who is
still haunted by the image of 14 senior high school students
drowning in Cisadane River in April.
"Cianten is ideal for a novice. Besides, every participant
will be equipped with a life jacket and an expert will be present
in each raft," Makmur assured me.
My own ego finally got the better of me. I rose to the
challenge rather than risk being called a coward.
Although my mind was set, I still had second thoughts on the
appointed day. My fear grew on arriving at the awesome Kracak
hydropower plant, the starting point for this adventure. My feet
turned cold upon seeing the strong current and the solid walls of
rock along the riverbanks.
I was assigned to a rubber raft with five other people, one of
whom I soon learned was, to my relief, an instructor. All of my
traveling companions -- Agung, Budi, Hari, Iwan and Dian -- were
also first-timers.
The launch itself was frightening, giving us a foretaste of
things to come. We set off at high-speed, nearly crashing into a
wall and coming dangerously close to turning the raft over.
Once our raft was safely upright again, the instructor slowed
the raft down and began giving us instructions. He could have
given these before we began the journey, but I guess it was
easier explaining things while doing them, sort of like on-the-
job training.
"Try to keep the balance between left and right. It is
essential that we keep the balance," the instructor said.
It did not take us long to learn to keep our balance and we
began to negotiate the rapids and turns with relative ease.
We became so good, or so we thought, that we began to look
forward to each new rapid. There was an ecstatic feeling of
conquering the rapids and we figuratively screamed our heads off
each time we survived the scare.
With such confidence, we also began to absorb the natural
beauty on our left and right along the eight-kilometer stretch of
river. The paddies gave way to plantations, which in turn gave
way to bushes, stony banks and even waterfalls. Although the
water was not all that clear, it was relatively free of garbage.
Half-way through our journey, the instructor decided to give
us a deserved break from our tireless rowing and balancing. He
guided the raft onto the bank and a grassy patch to give us an
opportunity to have something to eat and absorb the scene around
us.
I took the opportunity to reflect on this adventure and
concluded that, personally, this would go down as a spiritual
journey.
Some of my traveling companions saw it as a journey of
discovery.
"This is what I really call living. It's so full of
challenges. I'm really getting tired of my day-to-day work,"
Hari, an executive at a garment company in Jakarta, said.
"What do you say we try the Citarik River in Sukabumi? I hear
the stream is even more challenging," Agung proposed and his
friends readily agreed.