Trip to Cataluña: Day 2

Defeating the waters

Day 2,  9:12

Standing up at 7 wasn't that bad, although I realised this morning that it would have been at 6 in my island. After breakfast we picked up all our towels and swimming stuff and now we are here on the bus, on the way to the "Noruega Pallesera". There are other schools staying in the hotel, who also do the same activities as us. They went rafting yesterday and told us that a girl broke her teeth and a boy allmost drowned. Sounds great, doesn't it? At least it's finally something really exciting to talk about here.

Day 2,  12:51

Rafting is definetly the coolest think ever. I love the feeling of the water splashing against myself and the adrenaline of rushing down the river. And how we rushed down that river. Equiped with our professional swimming clothes, boots and paddles, we thought we had done a great achivement after the first few rapids. Of course, we didn't know what was yet to come. The first real rapid, left all of us without breath after falling to the floor of our boat. I'm surprised nobody fell into the water. This rapid was called "La Lavadora" which means The Washingmashine. I'm sure that it would be a similar feeling to raft inside a giant washingmashine, specially if you change the cloths in it for tree trunks and rocks.
After this first rapid, we were allowed to go swimming in the river, with the warning that the water was icy. It was, but the strenght of the current would have been a better warning. It was a real challenge to try not to let the current carry you away from the boat. And getting back on the boat without help was simply impossible.
Then we prepared for the next rapid. This was similar to the first one, with a small exeption. It was a kilometre long. The speed of the boat made it difficult to avoid the tree branches banging into our faces and the strong waves made all of us feel stupid when we didn't hit the water with the paddles, because it move away from us.
The whole tour was simply amazing. I loved the rush and the breathtaking speed. At that moment, going with the river, I felt alive for the first time in a lot of time.


Day 2, 23:29

Hydrospeed was amazing. It was much scarier than rafting. In the water, I was alone and my only chance of survival was holding on to the board with all my strength. Of course, there were supervisors, so it was perfectly safe, but at least we all had that feeling in the water. We went through the same rapids as this morning. At least the first one, we only did a part of that journey. On the board I was independent and responsible for myself. I was the only person that I could rely on (ok, so there were supervisors, who cares?). I have one tip to give you before I stop writing. If you ever go hydrospeeding, don't you ever drop your board. You will regret it when the strong currents inmediatly starts turning and pushing you around until you can hardly breath. Just good I was rescued by a supervisor.

Trip to Cataluña: Day 1

Rainy arrival

Day 1,  15:12

So here I am, sitting on the bus, listening to some music, half asleep, but half awake, starting my next adventure. After standing up at half past six and spending two hours at the airport and three at the plane, it doesn't surprise me that we are all so sleepy. And just by thinking of the five hour long bus journey that awaits me makes me want to get out of here and run and jump and scream at the top of my lungs, so I can feel alive again. But of course, I wouldn't be torturing myself like this if it wasn't worth it. Over the next six days I'm going to be such activities as hiking, rafting and paintball in the spanish Pyrenees. And, of course, I'll keep you updated on all events of my journey.
The flight was quite calm. We had no... Ups, have I forgotten to explain who "we" are? This is a school trip. I'm here with all the other students of my year group. However, I don't really go to school trips often, unless the itinerary is cool, and I've never seen one which is this cool.
So, back to were I was:
We had no important incidents worth mentioning there. We had, however, a little missunderstandment when picking up our luggagge. One of our teachers realised that hers had been stolen, as it wasn't were she had left it. After going around looking for it, one of the students exclaimed, "hey, silly, wasn't your suitcase plain, without those caros?" and he was right, the boy had taken the teacher suitcase without even realising it. And the funny thing is that the two suitcases didn't even look alike!


Day 1,  18:06

This bus journey never seems to come to an end. Now it's also started raining. I love the rain. Watching it is so inspiring and relaxing. The sound of rain is so much better than any music in the world. I'm desperate to get out now. It doesn't really rain a lot in Gran Canaria, so right now I just want to get out and feel the soft touch of the drops of water against my face. We were told half an hour ago that in ten minutes we would make a stop to strecht our legs and go to the toilet. That should have happened 20 minutes ago, and I don't think we are stopping soon, as we are in the middle of nowhere, but I really hope that it's still raining when we finally get out of here.

Day 1, 18:43

We finally arrived at a small village, were we spent 20 minutes. It was still raining, when we arrived, but not as heavy as before and it stopped after the first few minutes. Now I'm back on the bus, ready to for another 2 hours of our ride.


Day 1,  23:42

The hotel in which we are staying is wonderful. I'm sharing a room with 4 other girls in the attic, while the rest of the people are all one floor below us. I love our room. It has a mysterious atmosphere. When we first got here the other girls said it was scary, but I think it's simply amazing. And I can hear the rain from here.

We were told at dinner, that we need to stand up at 7 tomorrow. I feel exhausted just by thinking about it... Then another long bus journey awaits us to get to our destination: the river "Noruega Pallaresa" in which we will first go rafting and then do hydrospeed. I've never done rafting before, but I know what it is about, and I know it will be fun, but I don't even know what hydrospeed is. But it sounds really exciting and I'm looking forward to it!

Trip to Cataluña

Last week I went on a trip to Cataluña, first to the spanish Pyrenees, then to Barcelona. I had no access to internet during that time, but I kept a journal, writing as though I would be writeing here, so now I'm going to publish it during the next few days, day by day, starting today. I hope you like it!