We did our rafting like Real Men: hungover.

We arrived at the hotel on Friday night, after driving over what seemed like an entire range of mountains. In reality, it wasn't that bad. Most of it was highway, for a start. Once that ran out, it's true, the roads were twisty and narrow, without guide rails or even white lines painted on the side to show where the edge of the road actually was. The road was also in poor condition, which didn't add to our general level of confidence. And it was dark. Very dark. And we had no idea where we were or how far we had to go, because none of this was on my roadmap. I contemplated giving Monsieur Michelin a piece of my mind, should we ever make it to civilization. Eventually, we made it, and we did made good time. When we headed back along the same road in the daytime, it was much less intimidating, even with the rain.

We stayed in a "rural" hotel that wasn't terribly rural, although it was on the very edge of town and it had fairly extensive grounds. It was up in the mountains, so the view was excellent. There was also a restaurant on the grounds, and that's where we met for dinner as the others started to arrive-- incredibly, we were the first ones there. No one else went over the mountain; maybe they should have.

The restaurant was small and plain, and stuffed with locals wearing track suits. It was also the only one in town listed in the Red Guide, which was moderately reassuring. The food, as it happens, was very good. I had the "laminated veal", because when you see something laminado on the menu, you can't pass up the opportunity to order it, can you? I can't, in any case. It came sliced and smothered in a tasty sauce. Still, I wish I had ordered the pepper steak, which was NOT served in a cream sauce: I hate it when they do that. This one, as noted, wasn't, just a perfectly cooked steak coated with crushed black peppercorns. The chateaubriand was also perfectly cooked, although it was covered by a bizarre mixture of mushrooms and sliced hot dogs. Or possibly sliced vienna sausages, but it doesn't really matter-- if I was that fine slab of beefy goodness, I would have been insulted. The steak vanished, leaving behind a surprisingly large mound of hot dog coins on the platter.

The next day, on a raft in the middle of the river Paiva, at 3:00 in the afternoon with no lunch in sight, Jester announced that he wished he had eaten those hot dogs.

With our dinner, we drank many bottles of wine. Some drank many bottles of beer. Some drank both. We killed off an entire bottle of port, and made serious inroads into a second. Two of us (but not me) drank all of the aguardente (a type of Portuguese brandy) they had, and were forced to switch to the dwindling supply of port. Finally, because we could tell the owners really, really wanted to go home, we bought four bottles of wine and took them back to the hotel to drink in one of the rooms. The rationale was that we certainly wouldn't drink all four, but that we would have some available for Saturday night.

Seven bottles of wine later, we went to bed.

Saturday morning came very, very early. Our guides brought a big pile of wetsuits to the hotel, and we put them on in our rooms, which was a blessing. I've never worn a wetsuit before, and getting into one was somewhat challenging. Then we stood around in the parking lot, getting hotter and hotter, waiting for some random Portuguese and Italians to arrive so we could get the show on the road. "They do not," stated one of the guides, "possess the English trait of punctuality."

The Jester and the Cook wandered out with bottles of beer from the hotel bar. Finally, the rest of the people showed. Among them was a group of guys on a bachelor party, and they were the most dour lot you are ever likely to meet. The only time they showed any enthusiasm whatsoever was whilst repeatedly ambushing our boat and using their paddles to soak us thoroughly in a dounpour of cold water. Even then, I didn't get the impression that they were doing it because they thought it would be funny, but rather in a spirit of grim viciousness.

We decided that the upcoming marriage is probably an arranged one.

There had been a lot of rain lately, so we ended up going to the Paiva instead of the Minho, as originally scheduled. The Paiva is supposed to be better, if by better you mean more rapids and more excitement, which I certainly do.

I loved it.

As I mentioned, I haven't been rafting in ages, and it was fantastic. It would have been better if the river had been even higher. We would have spent less time trying to dislodge ourselves from rocks, for one thing, and it would have been faster. On the other hand, maybe it's just as well. I ate something at breakfast that really didn't agree with me (a few too many rich, eggy pastries, methinks), and as the day wore on I developed a huge problem with highly acidic indigestion. Seriously, I thought I had sprung an ulcer and expected to start vomiting blood at any second. Add that to my red-wine headache (self inflicted, I know), and my allergies (sadly, I had not brought any antihistamines at all), and I was one hurting camper. Despite my physical woes, however, I enjoyed myself thoroughly and had an absolutely fantastic time.

Can you imagine how much fun I would have had if I hadn't been feeling so sick?

The change in river meant that bungee jumping was out of the question, so that was one less decision I had to make. Actually, I would like to try it. The thing is, I have been warned repeatedly by my eye doctor that I have fragile retinas because of my extreme myopia, and that I shouldn't put them under any strain by lifting heavy objects, etc. I can do a yoga headstand for a bit, but even shoulderstand puts pressure on them after a while. I can feel it, and I know to come out of it right away.

I'm thinking bungee jumping would be a bad, bad idea. I'd hate to see my retinas detach. Knowing my luck, they'd fly off my eyeballs altogether and then where would I be?

Blind and hanging upside down by my ankles, that's where, and that's the point where the notion of bungee jumping loses some of its appeal.

Still, I like to consider it, even though I know I shouldn't even waste my time doing that much.

Even without the bungee jumping, we stopped the rafts a couple of time for some extra activities. Going down the rapids without benefit of a raft, for one thing, which was kind of fun but damn cold. Climbing up on top of an immense, high rock, for another, and jumping off into the water. I loved that one. It wasn't much higher than the standard high dive, if at all, and it was a hell of a lot more fun to climb up than using a boring old ladder. I considered diving in (I've done it before), but I was worried about losing a contact lens and being constructively blind for the rest of the river, so I settled for plain old jumping. Oddly, the water seemed much less cold. I'm not sure why.

In summary, it's two thumbs and a bright red paddle up for the whitewater rafting.

And now I'm off to work on the NaNo-Novel. I've recalculated my daily quotas for the rest of the month, starting from Monday-- to spread out the pain, as it were-- but I still feel as though I've got a lot of catching up to do.