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“Sure Dear, let’s go on a river boat ride.”
It was 2012 and our last full day in the Philippines. What would you envision, perhaps a nice relaxing ride on some type of motorboat through a soothing, lush, tropical paradise? Maybe it’s a serene trip on a paddle wheel riverboat, just like riding up the Columbia or the Mississippi? It’s made perfect if we’re seated on deck with a DJ or ukulele band, holding a nice cool boat drink with one of those little umbrellas. Instead of boat drinks on the deck, I got terror on the Pagsanjan river.
The first sign that things wouldn’t go the way I envisioned, was when we were fitted with life jackets and construction grade hard hats. The second sign was when we were led down a rickety staircase to a dock that seemed like it could wash away with the slightest surge. It harbored four boats. They were all built in a dugout tradition that used thin planks, to imitate digging a hull from the trunk of a tree. All of the tree trunks that were big enough for that project were gone a long time ago.
The boats defied at least three laws of physics. How could they possibly stay afloat? All this was before anybody boarded. I was a nervous wreck and we still had the whole adventure ahead of us. What was I going to do, cancel the whole thing? I was never worried about myself or even Rose. But the children, Lord please may we survive this day and give the children a chance to sin.
Then we met Danny, Captain of the boat.
We learned that our boat couldn’t hold our entire family. Cameron had to ride a different boat with two cousins, a teenager and another boy, not much older than Cameron.
My Boy in the other boat was close enough to see, but far enough that I could do nothing in case of disaster. I knew that the children in his boat could never have the wherewithal to protect my son in case of an emergency. It seemed a failure that they had the responsibility. I spent the entire ride with visions of our son being washed away.
We floated while Danny and crew paddled upriver, with about a half-foot of clearance between the lip of the boat and disaster.
As we made our way up river, an important lesson was keeping my butt still. I’m used to those kayaks where we use our hips to balance and manage weight. Every time I moved my hips, the boat rocked this way and that. I compensated by shifting my hips in the opposite direction, setting up a nasty cycle. I succeeded in destabilizing the whole operation. Soon Danny said, “Sir, you will not sink my boat!” This was more of an admonition than a reassurance.
Danny and his crew member paddled up river and past one particular scene that looked eerily familiar. How could anything be familiar?
Soon the calm river turned into a cauldron of rapids. The Crew lifted us up over currents and boulders, working like Carlos Castaneda’s shaman. I casually asked Danny how many rapids we’d be going over. I seem to remember, the number was seventeen.
We survived the gauntlet and made it to Pagsanjan waterfall… the destination.
The ride down river was a little bit more enjoyable. I still worried about The Boy in another boat. On the way downriver we passed that place that looked so familiar.
Something clicked inside my mind, and I knew it was the setting of an all time favorite film, “Apocalypse Now.” I asked Danny about it and he said it was true, Colonel Kurtz’s compound was filmed at this location. I told Danny he needed to make that connection a little bit more obvious, and tell people that right away. Danny noted that most times when he told tourists, they didn’t believe him.
Guests either noticed or they didn’t. They had to see it for themselves.
