Log – Evrard

We woke up this morning at 6.30am. In the night we heard the anoas running around. We had our first breakfast of oat flakes with raspberries and strawberries. For us it was very good, for Jamil it was a struggle, it made him want to vomit straight away.

We re-distributed everything that the carriers had been carrying. It was not an easy task because we really have too much stuff, we have huge bags, we have to get help every time we have to put them on our backs. So we left at 9.30am.

We attacked the descent on the hillside and reached the river 1h30 later. The path wasn’t the easiest. As usual, we had to hack our way through the mud, with leeches, things that stung, dead trees that cracked when you stepped on them, clay, in short, everything was complicated with 30 or 35kg bags!

So we were very happy to get to the river, which was very beautiful with little basins and waterfalls. From there, we began the descent of the river that would give us access to the whole plain. The beginning of the descent was easier, because it was full of limestone concretions that adhered quite well. But the last kilometre was horrendous, because everything was slipping so badly, there was a lot of soaked moss, nothing was holding. So we hurt ourselves to a greater or lesser extent, and above all we were a bit scared the whole time, not knowing whether we were going to be able to stand up or fall on our sides. It’s exhausting, because you have to keep your balance all the time.

We had lunch at around 1.30pm and left at 2.30pm. We thought we’d give ourselves 3 hours before reaching the next camp. Personally, I didn’t see those 3 hours go by, I had the impression that it was going really fast. We didn’t get very far. Not everyone goes at the same speed and the terrain is super complicated.

We’ve just landed by the river and carved out a small space for our two tents and Ime’s hammock. It’s a bit less cool than the other campsites because we’re in the mud.

We’re so far under the forest that we can’t even send a message from the GPS positioning point to say that everything’s fine.

Tomorrow, I think that if we make a little headway in this complicated terrain for half a day, we should reach a confluence with another major river.

I hope that from then on we’ll be able to climb onto the packrafts, which would be great for dropping the bags!