There was one major concern I had through this section to this point which was the dog that had followed us out of the last TA (a ranch). He would not turn back despite anything I tried to do to scare him back. I suspect is was due to the coddling the rest of the team was showing him and I was concerned we would have the 2016 version of Arthur on our hands. In the deepest sections he would have to swim and the others were resorting to carrying him through. Fortunately as we awoke from our sleep Fenix came by and he joined them for the remainder of the trek.
Just a friendly Caiman Croc cheering us on
As we trekked through the early morning we caught up with Eastwind and a few Brazilian teams. Just like in any deep woods when the birds in the jungle wake up they start singing. You hear a lot of the solo efforts but every 20-30 seconds all of the solo efforts would come together and create what can only be described as a roar, and then it stops and you hear nothing but solos again. One of the coolest things I’ve ever heard.
On one of the more obvious trails
By mid-morning we were approaching the next TA at another ranch. There seemed to be a few options to get there, trails, fence lines, creeks, etc. Unfortunately we couldn’t put it together and we wandered around for hours looking for the next trap door to get out. Eventually we found a way through that required 4 swims through a miserable swamp.
SPF 50 gloves even
As we approached the landing strip for the ranch we were wading through some waist deep water using our trekking poles as advised to ward off the stingrays. Sure enough we ran across two of them in this section. What we ran into next can only be described as something out of a bad horror movie.
Tim was leading through the water and we were following along in line behind him. All of a sudden he stumbles then jumps yelling ‘What the F was that???!!!’ We all stopped frozen in our tracks. A second later it bumped into Charles on his thigh and he jumped. It was obviously moving down the line towards Anita and I. She stepped slightly aside and it missed her. I was now directly in its path and the next few seconds seemed to take forever. I remember stepping aside as well but as I did it bumped squarely into my right leg and nearly knocked me over. It corrected quickly and then glanced off my left knee as it passed between my legs and mercifully kept going. We still have no idea what ‘it’ was but it weighed more than I did. Thankfully it was not hungry.
With renewed urgency we trekked the remaining kms past the cattle now in their pen to the ranch TA. As we arrived we could see a number of teams just hanging out and they cheered as we arrived. We were informed that the next sections were being cancelled and we would be shuttled forward via a bush plane to the bike where we would ride to the finish.
I was somewhat torn by the idea. This would basically lock in our position for the finish. When I heard that Seagate had taken 38 hours to complete the next packraft stage I quickly changed my tune. That was crazy. We were told to plan for 10-22 hrs of food for that section. We had 24 hrs worth and it would most-likely take us 48 hrs +. Obviously there was a disconnect somewhere on the timing.
We settled in for a long night, sleeping within the ranch fence to prevent getting eaten by a jaguar during the night. In the morning the rain started to fall just as the planes were about to start shuttling us out and there was some concern that we would get too much to allow the planes to land when the rain did stop.
Around 2pm the planes started shuttling teams out. We were the last team to leave based on our arrival time the day before but not before the rancher slaughtered a lamb and roasted it with some rice and eggs for lunch. Very good.
Our taxi to the bikes
Cozy quarters