For the last three days, I’ve been in the Ecuadorian Amazon, completely unplugged from the internet, and completely tuned in to the abundance of raw life and adventure around me. This is partly due to the fact that I didn’t want to pay for WiFi at our hotel, but mostly because I was truly reveling in being off the grid. As an online entrepreneur, this happens very rarely.
There was something else at work, though. Something bigger than my intentions. As much as I wanted to let my friends and family know I was safe by posting my daily photos to Instagram, my immediate circumstances demanded my attention, and I gave in to them like a moth to a flame. I let the Amazon Rainforest completely consume me, quite literally.
On day one, our white water raft flipped on the Napo River.
I have a very real phobia of wild water. Convincing myself to get into a white water raft at all is hard enough, but flipping in the rapids was something I couldn’t even imagine. When we went head-on into a vertical wave and flipped end-over backwards, two thoughts went through my mind: I knew we had flipped and hit the water, and I knew there was nothing I could physically do to get myself out of the water. I had to let the currents do their thing with my body until they decided to spit me out.
I gave in.
They threw me violently in every direction, and I could do nothing but cling to what little breath I was holding and hope the river didn’t want to keep me under. After a few seconds of being tossed about like a rag in a washing machine, I was hurled into a strong current that thrust me toward the surface. This lasted several seconds, and when the depths of the river finally delivered me, I gasped for air as I bobbed up into the waves like a buoy that had been held under.
Immediately getting my bearings, I realized I was very close to the over-turned raft (thank God I didn’t come up under it), and I was also right next to my friend Garrett, who knew about my phobia. Amidst the chaos of the rolling rapids and with a calm that I couldn’t possibly understand, he looked me straight in the eyes, assured me I was going to be okay, and told me there was no need to panic.
I believed him.
At that moment, even though I was still gasping, my fears disappeared. I’m not even sure where they went or why it makes sense that rolling through the rapids in nothing but my life jacket wasn’t phasing me at the moment. I was simply focused on getting the water out of my lungs so I could replace it with air, and I knew I was going to be okay.
We had to let go of the raft so our guide could flip it back over. It is a strange thing to cling to something for your life, and then have to let it go in order to allow it to truly save you.
Once the raft was flipped and the guide had made his way back on, he grabbed my life jacket and hoisted me into the bottom of the boat where I was finally able to let go. Not two seconds later, he had thrown Garrett right on top of me. Awkward was out the window; we were safe. By the time I climbed to my seat, the others were all gathering themselves bravely in position, paddles at the ready to face whatever came next.
This was the one thing I feared most about getting on the river that day, and it had happened. We had flipped. Seven of us went into the river, involuntarily subjecting ourselves to the chaos of the undercurrents, and came back out alive and well. We survived.
We ended up short a paddle (which we later recovered), with sand and dirt from the river in every crevice of our bodies, but we had made it. While this may not seem a big deal to someone who loves water, to me, it was incredible that I was part of it.
After that, the sun felt warmer, the air fresher, the trees more beautiful, and the light Ecuadorian beer when we were finally done… like sweet nectar of life.
I’m not ready to decide if I’ll get back in a white water raft, but I do know that something stirred in me that made me feel very in the moment, very raw and very alive. I wanted to hold on to that feeling.
We headed to a jungle lodge further down the river for the next two nights, which is where I opted not to connect to the outside world. I wanted to be 100% present in the jungle, just like I was in the rapids.
Once again, I gave in.
Instead of paying for internet, checking my email, and posting to Instagram, I enjoyed beers by the pool, coffee in the rain, a late-night guitar session, a hike through the jungle, a Shaman cleansing ceremony, a chicha-making demonstration, target practice with blow guns, and countless conversations with new friends. Do I feel like I missed out on anything? No. On the contrary, I felt very alive and more in tune to my life in the present, for which I was so thankful.
We left the jungle this morning to go back to the Andes, but I won’t forget these last few days of giving my attention to my physical world and enjoying every second, awake, alive, and fully present.
