David, Sariah, the Dix (Dixner), the boat driver James, and myself were on our way for a quick visit to a community near the Napo lodge. My first opinion of our driver James, (who is acually a good friend now, but at the time...well) was that he was a bit on the overly cautious to the point of obviously not having an effing clue what he's doing side. I guess my feeling was not unwarranted.
One moment we're flying down the middle of the Napo river, the next moment we were stopped, motor sputtering and coughing, the shock from the abrupt and violent jarring ringing in our ears. "what happened!" Did we hit a log (dead head my grandper used to call'em)? Nope. But we appeared to have either gained an ungodly amount of bouyancy, or we were on land covered by 6 inches of water (i.e. a huge sand bar). Obviously it was the ladder.
Here is a picture of the shaken up gringo's, and Dixner. We were all laughs at that point. Look at the white legs on that gringo.
David's Leg...(it wasn't broken, just badly bruised)
When we tried to move the boat, we found that the 12 inches of water currently displaced by the flat bottom hull was not suficient enough to allow it to float (big surprise), and we were unable to move it one iota. Dixner and James tried using a stick to pry it along...but that was unsuccessful as well. Then we realized that the other gringo survey team was 20 minutes behind. To our delight, sure enough they came to our arm-waving rescue with one load welcoming "hola amigos", from the gentle giant Cole Sigmon, who was poking his head out from the side of their boat.
With 5.6 extra people (mariate (third from the left) helped push too :)). we were able to free the boat from the sand bar. However, when questioned if we wanted to get back on board the "amigo" (the boats name) with James behind the wheel, we very freely and justly said in a number of ways:
"Yeah, I think we're gonna ride in the other boat"....
:)
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