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We were woken at 8am this morning and told to be ready for breakfast at 8.30 so we all dragged ourselves out of bed, none of us had had enough sleep as the beds were rock hard and our rooms were almost saunas. We had bananas and some sort of rice soup for breakfast which was a bit interesting before we walked through the jungle to the elephant shelter where we played with the baby elephants. They were naughty!! Hitting us with their trunks and kicking us and running after us if we had bananas, but they were so much fun and didn't mean to be rough, they just wanted to play but they were a lot stronger than they thought they were! We then climbed onto a platform in a tree so we could climb onto the backs of the big elephants and rode into the jungle. The elephant that I was on would put its trunk up for food and if you didn't feed it a banana or a piece of sugar cane it refused to walk any further - I learnt pretty quickly. It also liked to walk very close the edge of the cliff...bit scary! After we rode the elephants we walked through the jungle some more before coming to a river and finding that the only way to cross was in a cage on a zip line. So we climbed into this cage three at a time and were pushed to the other side of the river. Here we met a ghetto (or ratrod, which ever you prefer Dexter) ute that was completely rusty and had bits of wood holding it together. We all piled into the tray and the driver had to hold his door closed because there was no way it was going to stay closed. We drove up the mountain by the river through about a million and one bumpy wet muddy puddles to a little homestead where we walked through the jungle for another hour before coming to a beautiful waterfall. The lady that owns the huts that we're staying in made us rice and noodles for lunch wrapped up in banana leaves so after we had had a swim and cuddled a monkey we all sat together to eat lunch. After lunch we walked back through the jungle to the homestead and climbed back into the tray of the ute and bumped our way back down the hill to the river where we got out and the ute left us. Unsure of what was going on we sat by the river and waited. It came back soon after with 4 zodiac type boats for white water rafting! After a very brief safety speech spoken in very broken English consisting of 'paddle', 'stop', 'go', 'hold on' we put on some helmets and life jackets that all had broke straps and clips and were very worn out and climbed into these boats. We rafted for about an hour through rapids and well 'white water' before coming across a bamboo raft that was half sinking just sitting there on its own, let alone with people on it, but we were instructed to sit on them and continue rafting down the river. So sitting on these rafts, on the bottom of the river we rafter for a while. Every now and then out guide would shout snake before hitting the water with his stick. Typically we would all start shrieking and out rafts would tip over and we'd all fall out. Luckily the only snake I saw was sun bathing on a rock, the guides were just teasing us and laughing and laughing at our reactions. Finally we reached the end of our adventure. We were given photos of us riding elephants and rafting along the river, they were framed in framed made out of elephant poo. They collect elephant poo and create all sorts of things out of it which I thought was quite a bit entertaining but I suppose it makes sense...maybe! Haha
Later that evening we ate dinner with the people that live nearby and after dinner we were invited to join them to drink whisky, thinking that this would be a unique experience we joined in... So we drank whisky with the local people, and we drank some more whiskey, and the our glasses were topped up again, and again, until we realised that the only way to escape this was to go to bed, so before they had the chance to refill our glasses we said goodnight and headed off to bed.
Tomorrow we will awake again at 8am and have breakfast before we go on a forest adventure and then drive back to the Gap Medics house!
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