Take A Leap

One of the biggest things I’ve learnt in the last couple of months is that it’s a really good thing to step out of your comfort zone and do things that scare you. It’s so easy to get stuck into our daily routines and forget about thinking outside of the box, challenging ourselves or trying something new. However, when you do, you instantly feel like a whole new world of possibilities has opened up for you. You perceive from a whole new perspective, you become more innovative, and you learn and understand more holistically. Life and all of its experiences become more enriched and fulfilling.

Whilst I’ve been out here in Sri Lanka, my team, colleagues, friends and new acquaintances have given me many recommendations of places to visit and things to do. During some rare down time with my team, someone suggested we go white water rafting. Without thinking twice about it, I said yes to joining in. Now, I’ve never been white water rafting, and I’m far from decent at swimming, so I’m not sure why I didn’t think about these things first. But I went along with it anyway. And just like that, a date was picked and the trip was organized. Simple enough, right? Well, I forgot about the trip for a few weeks, as I was so busy with work and all of my projects, and so I didn’t really have time to decide whether I actually wanted to do this or not. The day before the trip, I started to have doubts, but I was still too busy with work to worry about it. In the end, there was no turning back. On Saturday morning at 6:00am, I was standing outside the KFC in Nugegoda, our meeting point, waiting for our van to pick us up. The journey to Kithulgala was long and riddled with traffic, as with any journey in Sri Lanka, no matter how near or far. There’s a small estate near the Kelaniya river where we get ready for our adventure. Equipped with life jackets, helmets and paddles, we’re on our way through the trees down to the river bank. Oh, and mind the leeches! Our guide gives us instructions to begin, all in Sinhalese (thankfully my team are there to translate!), and then we’re into the rafts and off down the river. It’s been raining in the morning, so the water levels are higher and the river is a bit rough, but it makes for a great experience. As we row down the river, our guide instructs us which way and how fast to paddle. We paddle into the rapids and jump into the raft as the water sweeps over us soaking us from head to toe.

Again, we jump back up to the sides of the raft and continue paddling down the river into and down more rapids. Half way down the river, we turn back and paddle back into a rapid that we just came down, fighting against the rush of the river and becoming engulfed in the water. The experience itself is so exhilarating that I almost forget to look around. The lush forests and towering mountains and hill ranges surrounding us on the river are so beautiful. Further down the river, the rapids are now behind us and the flow of the river is more calm. A few of the group jump out of the raft and into the river to float along. At first, I’m not too sure, but I’m kitted out in my trust life jacket, so what’s the worst that could happen? What a feeling, floating along down the open river, not a care in the world, no weight on my feet – I feel so free!

Our journey down the river comes to an end, and we paddle up to the riverbank and head off to our next part of the adventure. I remember the team saying we would be going water sliding and possibly doing a confidence jump, but I hadn’t really given much thought to what that actually was. To me, a water slide is one of those man-made slides in a water park that you zoom down and land into a swimming pool of sorts. But now we’re climbing up somewhere through the forest, and I don’t see anything that looks near what I expect a water slide to look like.

We’re at the top of some waterfalls that are gradually descending down into a river far off in the distance. This is the water slide. Forget about my worries about white water rafting; this is on a completely different level! The first challenge is to jump. Jump into a pool of gushing water. There’s no telling how deep it is, whether your feet will hit the bottom or what’s under the water. One by one, everyone takes their turn, and then it’s my turn. My mind is rushing with so many thoughts; do I jump, do I chicken out, will I be ok once I land in the water, what if I hit something, will I get hurt? And then, impulse kicks in, and I take a leap. My senses are all over the place and I bob up out of the water with the help of my floaty life jacket. One hurdle down, how many more to go? Better not to count.

The rushing water carries me down to the next area where we have to slide through the water further down the current to the next slide where you can’t quite see the direction you’re going or where you’ll end up. Again, I slide down at racing speeds and drop into another pool. The current carries me around and around in a circle three times before I’m able to grab on to someone who’s on the rocks who can help me get out of the water temporarily. We climb up the rocks to the next part. I look down and there’s a drop, maybe 20 feet…? They don’t call it confidence jumping for nothing. Sliding is fine; you just sit down and let the water carry you. You need confidence to free jump 20 feet into a pool of rushing water. Again, my mind starts to race. I see others jumping seemingly with ease, and I begin to debate. Shall I jump? Shall I not jump? And then I figure, I didn’t come all this way to chicken out. Again, the impulse kicks in and I jump off the edge into mid-air and plunge into the pool below. I can’t believe I’ve done it!

There’s one more jump, and it’s even higher than the last one, and again the same internal debate restarts. I pluck up the courage to finish this adventure off properly; not leaving it half done. Ready! Three, two, one!