As planned, today was the first day of packraft. The first day means a lot of preparation time, to explain how we inflate, how we set up the boats, how we put the equipment inside the boats, and so on. And then a quick safety briefing.

A couple of rapids further on, there was a little problem with his route. He found himself in the current, which was taking him towards a tree trunk that was too low, 20 cm above the water.

Today we stayed in camp all day. Everyone slept more or less at different times of the day. We ate a lot and it seemed to be all we could do. We dried our stuff and washed a few things.

It’s now been a few days since I arrived in Kendari, the capital of the south-eastern province of Sulawesi. A city I know well from having stayed there…

Today we split in two. One group stayed behind to treat their feet and rest. And another group went to see the camp they call the “dua” camp, the “two” camp, people who work on the river, whether for the local industries, particularly Jhonlin, for sugar cane, or for the deer hunters who live up there.

I decided not to make the crossing alone. We packed up the camp and set off, in no hurry, arriving around 12.30pm at the “Dua” camp, where we’d been the day before. We had lunch there, chatted some more, and had a really nice time. At around 2pm we set off again for a slightly longer run than the one we’d done in the morning, but there was a bit more current as well, so it went a bit faster.

When we woke up, Antoine, Ime and I set off to explore the cliff just above our camp. Using machetes to clear a path, we went along the cliff to the right and then to the left, but we didn’t find anything at all. We came back to the camp, and we’d asked Jamyl and Bagus to pack up the tents and prepare to leave, but they hadn’t done anything. Jamyl’s feet were really hurting and he couldn’t move, and Bagus’s feet were hurting too and he wanted to settle down.

The plan was to split in two, one team on foot towards the 4x4s, the other in packraft on the river. We prepared our gear, Antoine and I packed the boats, we took a few things so that they didn’t have to carry everything and we attacked the descent at 8am.