Rafting in Neretva, Bosnia ǀ 2015

It specified on the website "do not do this if you are seeking excitement" so naturally I expected this to be a relatively chilled experience where we would just drift amongst the scenery, enjoying the view. If you read a lot of my travel posts you will see that often my expectations and reality do not match to say the least and yeah... this time is no different.

Straight after a day out in Mostar, we arrived later on in the day to discover that tea wouldn't be until ten so, we sat down stairs in the bar which I found out in the morning had a view of the river. I was almost dozing off when we hear this piercing scream of horror coming from the toilets which later transpired to be Iona spotting the first of many spiders. She emerged shaking and sat down with us. We had nearly managed to relax and regain calm when she said "Holy crap, its a freaking scorpion!" and, by this stage, I really didn't know whether or not to laugh or cry.

That night we checked the room twice for insects ("a double bugs bust"). Once we had finally gotten ourselves together and gone to bed we hear this cricket noise. In unison we all slowly raised our heads and turned towards the culprit.

Our group was due to leave for the rafting at ten in the morning which was at the same time breakfast was going to be. We couldn't wait that long so we got some teeny tiny plastic spoons used for stirring coffee or something and tried to hack away at the remains of dad's birthday cake. It wasn't long before we had to get kitted up. My wetsuit was okay, Iona was handed a full-length blue one which was secured over each shoulder, when the blue plastic helmets were handed out she looked so funny. But we all drew breath when the guy held up this florescent yellow and pink suit (when this happened I held my own wetsuit almost protectively toward me) and as predicted, it was handed to Pia. I could just imagine her cruising down the river like an extra member of ABBA and suppressed a desperate urge to laugh. Instead she said it was to small and consequently ended up with a huge one with holes in er... many places.

So off we traipsed, past the mildly amused people having breakfast and, towards the minibus. It was a lot later that we actually got into the water; we waited around for the other groups to get together before actually going.

Everyone else there was Bosnian. There were two other groups: one girls boat and one boys boat which was, I'm guessing, the source of all of the beer. The water was so blue yet so transparent that even the deep parts appeared shallow. Rocks and trees towered over us on either side. It was so beautiful. At the first break people climbed the rocks and dived and did flips into the water.

It was fairly calm for the majority of the journey but the difficult parts were fun. I always seemed to end up as the one thrown to the floor as we skimmed past rocks and through currents, even waterfalls at times. After about three hours of rafting we finished of where we started.

❁