Against all expectations, we had a very nice few days with our kayak. Today the morning starts off cloudy. However, this is not due to bad weather, but rather because the forest fire is making itself felt again and is sending smoke into our eyes. It’s worse than a few days before.

You can see the yellowish tint in the fog. I thought animals fled from smoke. But the smoke doesn’t bother the mosquitoes and they attack us mercilessly early on. Breakfast is short and we are quickly on the river. The merciless Tara Sala, the white water that takes us through Siberia.

We’re making good progress again and have to tow around every now and then. The day is approaching midday, then we come to a fork where the river splits to the right and left to form a rock face. We decide on the left. From a distance it looks like the water is flowing under the rock. But we have often had situations in which the water flows towards a rock face and catapults us forward, like in the curve of a roller coaster.

But my eyes didn’t deceive me and to our horror the water actually dives under the rock. The current doesn’t make a turn in front of the slope, but instead crashes into it mercilessly.

Crap! The water flows under the rock wall!

I turn the boat around in time, but we can’t move. We are hit sideways with full force. Uli tries to lift us off the rock with the paddle, but then it happens very quickly. Our boat is capsized by the strong current. Our kayak tips over and then I dive into the icy water.

An undertow pulls me under the water and in an awfully long and still moment I see the boat and the surface of the water above me.

I pull myself together and channel all my strength into my arms and legs and bring myself up. I emerge, wet and full of adrenaline. My breathing is quick, because of the shock and the cold. To my right I see Uli, who is already floating on the water and is relieved when he sees me. He says I was missing for a very long time.

We swim forward along the boat with the current and try to free it from the rocks. We breathe very quickly. The water thunders loudly against the wall and pulls on the boat and pulls on us. The kayak hangs across the wall and cannot be moved, no matter how hard we pull on the rope. I want to go and turn the boat around myself, but Uli beats me to it and removes the air pump from the stones that were wedged there when they were lashed to our luggage. Now we can free the boat and pull it to the other bank.

The kayak is finally free.

We attach the kayak and take off our clothes to air dry our clothes. Now we can breathe a sigh of relief again and almost laugh about it. However, the laughter is still stuck in our throats. It’s warm enough in the air, but today of all days the sun could have shone like the other days.

Then we check our things. Everything is still there. Our cameras, my guitar – everything was packed perfectly and survived. The musical instrument just got a little wet. The only thing we lost is Uli’s hat. The mosquitoes are already happy.

In the evening we arrive at a large riverbed and camp early to dry our things. The accident happened hours ago and despite that we have covered the longest distance so far. At least we now have beautiful weather again and are enjoying the evening by a big fire.

It’s a good day to be alive.

Our fire is almost burned down and we are getting ready for the night. We were just talking about what the villagers actually do all day when we hear the sound of an engine. It sounds like a very, very large predator – or a tank. Trees and branches bend about two hundred meters away from us and a large Ural breaks out of the bush. We didn’t expect that.

We wave and the monster changes course, leans into a river and simply shovels its way through. With the dark hum of the eight-cylinder engine it rises out of the river again and stops next to us. A funny guy with a baseball cap and a dirty T-shirt steps out and greets us, surprised but friendly, with an outstretched hand and a misty vodka flag.

The man introduces himself and asks us who we are and where we want to go. He is very surprised that we are coming by boat from the Sobopol River and asks us if we would like to accompany him in that direction to fish again. But our enthusiasm to turn around again is very low and we refuse.

Our friend is just a little disappointed. He sees our bait collection and wants to exchange some for a rod. His children climb out of the truck bed and we are introduced to the whole family. His wife is currently looking after the youngest, two rascals are doing gymnastics around the big truck.

The man’s brother lies in the truck bed, unable to stand up. There’s also a strong whiff of alcohol wafting from the grumbling fat guy. But he seems to notice that something is happening.

Life goes through the drunk and he pulls himself over the pallet railing to shake our hands. After taking a few photos together, the driver takes a big sip from his brother’s bottle and the family trip continues. We watch as the deep hum and the plowing of small trees disappear over the horizon and now we have the answer to our question of what the residents of the area are doing here.

The next day is overcast again, but this time with real clouds. It’s even raining lightly. We still pack our things and paddle off.

We know that at the same pace of the last few days we will reach Batagay-Alyta today. But we had cut ourselves off if we thought it would be easy.

We have to master several situations in which we have to slalom through strong currents and through countless chunks. I frantically stick the oar into the water on the left or right to maneuver us around a stone at the last moment, only for two more to suddenly appear and I also have to get past them. If we capsize here we’ll crash into these rocks. That won’t be good for our bones.

I’ll never go to an amusement park again because the experiences there are ridiculous compared to what I have here.

Every water ride in the amusement park is just ridiculous compared to this. In another curve we see the deadly situation from the previous days. The river gushes with full force against a rock wall and then swirls against the corner of another wall.

There also seem to be stones in between… This time we land in time and stroll around our watery grave in a relaxed manner.

A short time later we see a road that leads to Batagay-Alyta. We are back.