I love the water but don’t want to be a fish

Wild rivers are earth’s renegades, defying gravity, dancing to their own tunes, resisting the authority of humans, always chipping away, and eventually always winning. — (Richard Bangs & Christian Kallen, River Gods)

The following entries and photos are really from past water fun activities as well as from a trip I took to Catatumbo in Venezuela.  As I was looking through other blogger’s entries on Ailsa’s theme.. I couldn’t help but want to revisit my own favorite times on water from Venezuela.  The following pictures and videos were from Merida, Barinas and Catatumbo in Venezuela.  I really miss those times and I really, really miss Venezuela.  I hope you enjoy.

Canyoning in Venezuela – (2 more links you can view) 2nd link , 3rd link – Scared, hot, cold, falling, jumping, sliding, wet.  Energy, Exhaustion and Emotion.  Rushing water. Drowns thought. High-low-tired-wide awake.  Heart racing.  No worries only the moment. No thinking only moving.  Laughter. Fear. Laughter. Memories.

Rafting in Barinas, Venezuela – Tranquil. Floating. Momentary rush. Popping, Falling, Jumping, Pressing, Screaming, Laughing.  Heart racing – muscles burning. Mind high. Jungle around you.  Instructions = movement.  Movement = rush.  No worries.  Unity. Teamwork. Co-operation. Happy. Wet. Memories.

(From my post Extreme Simplicity – July 19, 2012)

“Life is like the river, sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere.” 
― Emma Smith

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Lastly, a shout out to my favorite touring company.

Guamanchi Tours – Merida, Los Llanos, Barinas, Los Nevades

To see more posts featuring rivers go to Ailsa’s Travel Theme page.

1. Travel Theme: Rivers | Wind Against Current
2. Travel theme: Rivers | Antti Johansson photoblog
3. Travel Theme: Rivers | Geophilia Photography
4. Rivers- Provence, France | pdjpix
5. Travel theme: Rivers | Jejak Langkah
6. River Rides | Canoe Communications
7. The Living Thames | Travel with Intent
8. Travel Theme: Rivers | Four Deer Oak
9. Confluence of the Rhine and Mosel Rivers | Tim Wolverson – Photography
10. Hutt River walk : Travel theme :Rivers | scrapydo
11. Travel Theme/WFC: Rivers/On the Move | 2far2shout
12. Travel Theme-Rivers | WoollyMuses

 

“I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still. It’s always changing and is always on the move. And over time the river itself changes too. It widens and deepens as it rubs and scours, gnaws and kneads, eats and bores its way through the land. Even the greatest rivers- the Nile and the Ganges, the Yangtze and he Mississippi, the Amazon and the great grey-green greasy Limpopo all set about with fever trees-must have been no more than trickles and flickering streams before they grew into mighty rivers.

Are people like that? I wondered. Am I like that? Always me, like the river itself, always flowing but always different, like the water flowing in the river, sometimes walking steadily along andante, sometimes surging over rapids furioso, sometimes meandering wit hardly any visible movement tranquilo, lento, ppp pianissimo, sometimes gurgling giacoso with pleasure, sometimes sparkling brillante in the sun, sometimes lacrimoso, sometimes appassionato, sometimes misterioso, sometimes pesante, sometimes legato, sometimes staccato, sometimes sospirando, sometimes vivace, and always, I hope, amoroso.

Do I change like a river, widening and deepening, eddying back on myself sometimes, bursting my banks sometimes when there’s too much water, too much life in me, and sometimes dried up from lack of rain? Will the I that is me grow and widen and deepen? Or will I stagnate and become an arid riverbed? Will I allow people to dam me up and confine me to wall so that I flow only where they want? Will I allow them to turn me into a canal to use for they own purposes? Or will I make sure I flow freely, coursing my way through the land and ploughing a valley of my own?” 
― Aidan Chambers, This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn