A view of the Hollin River rapids and it’s tropical flora.

Story and photos by Wendy Lautner

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Deep in the Northern Oriente of Ecuador lies the Rio Hollin. It cuts a path from the north to the south through dark volcanic rock in a canyon that is as close to unreal as anything I’ve ever seen in my sober life. Misty, white waterfalls drop hundreds of feet over pulsating, green, jagged towers of plants on top of plants pasted to the slippery mud walls that create the banks of the powerful channel. The Hollin is a river of moods. She’ll make you laugh until you cry and cry until you laugh. She’s poised like a prize, demanding stamina, strength and endurance. I love the Rio Hollin.

Scott, my boyfriend of four months, and I had come to Ecuador as two whitewater kayakers on a migratory mission from our wintry home in North America to experience warm whitewater in deep jungle canyons. We talked to an Ecuadorian friend of ours, Genre, to find a ride to the Hollin. He hooked us up with a taxi driver named Josvalto, who picked us up at 8 o’clock sharp the next morning.

Scott and I knew that it was going to be a long, hard day. We had a total of eight daylight hours to complete the 28-mile journey before the sunset, when the jungle gets really dark. The boats we were paddling are known as play boats, not designed for speed. Although we needed to pack food and water, it was imperative that we packed light.

When we arrived at the Hollin Bridge, I felt like we had entered a storybook. Upstream the river cut a deep groove into the black volcanic bedrock, and bright white water poured in off the banks of dark green jungle. Underneath the bridge a 20-foot waterfall roared. We were to meet Josvalto at the bridge in Santo Domingo at 6 p.m.

“Are you sure eight hours is enough?” I quivered.

“No problem,” he shrugged.

The trail to the river was paved with footprint-sucking mud that seemed to have a particular interest in holding my flip-flops hostage. I managed to break free from its hold and by 10:14 a.m., we were on the river and ready to go.

Since the Ecuadorian river gods had graciously bestowed upon me a certain fungus known to the locals as “mushroom ear,” I had decided to wear ear plugs to avoid further infection. The little yellow plastic plugs muffled the static, familiar sounds of rushing water, and instead intensified the sounds in my body. I could hear my heart beating like a drum. My lungs sounded like expanding paper bags.

The first rapid was a shallow technical boulder garden that demanded my full attention. My eyes focused completely on my way of passage, as the waves told me my way. I followed Scott as we methodically negotiated boulder gardens, wave trains, and the forbidding river hydraulic known as the hole. In a “hole,” water re-circulates as it passes over a feature on the riverbed. Big holes are not good places for kayakers trying to do 28 miles in eight hours. We avoided the holes.

I felt like I had entered a boxing ring. Each rapid felt like a good strong punch into the ropes, and with every whistle blow, back into the game I came, in panting, just waiting for another hit to the stomach.

We decided the best line was to weave in and out of three big boulders on the left to avoid the monster hole on the right. I squeezed my boat carefully between the first two big boulders and over a sheet of thick water that dropped about four feet. I tensed all the muscles in my stomach and regained control to square up for the next move. I dug my paddle in hard and focused my whole body on moving left. The tip of my boat hit the eddy I was aiming for, and spun my boat in a quick circle that sent me off balance and underwater. The body memory built in my muscles by long days practicing a roll in turbulent water took over before I even had time to think. I found myself right side up and moving backwards down the shallow, narrow left-hand slot. I scraped by Scott sitting peacefully in an eddy and emerged at the bottom of the rapid unscathed. Whew!

We dared not stop as the sky grew darker and the dark brown water from creeks on the right side of the river flooded in. Every tributary we passed carried a heavier load than the last, we were racing against a major rainstorm and we knew it was just a matter of time before we’d be caught in a flood-stage river screaming down this narrow channel. Every bend was a new world, a new set of dreams fulfilled and nightmares realized.

I don’t know what time it was, but the sky had definitely become the color of twilight when we saw a thick rapid of angry whitewater moving fast toward a car-sized boulder in the middle of the river. Normally, water moving toward a rock will pile up on the rock in front of it. However, if a rock is undercut, that means the river current has eroded the rock below the surface and is now passing underneath the rock. Undercut rocks are famous for trapping kayakers underneath them. We didn’t want to go anywhere near the rock at all. There was also a log stuck in the water in front of the rock, and we didn’t want anything to do with the log either.

We saw a pretty clean line of water going to the right of the rock, with only one small hole to punch through. Most of the water looked to be going past the rock in the middle, so we figured if we started far right at the top and just paddled hard through the hole we would pass the rock and never give it a second look.

I pulled out into the current and buried my paddle in the water to drive me to the right side of the river. I lined up on the wave train, ready to paddle straight through the hole. The water boiled all around me. My boat reached the lip of the hole and my eyes stared straight into the spitting pile of foam that stood before me. The suction of the water seemed to create a wind tunnel and before I could reach my paddle into the chaotic fury the powerful water flipped me over backwards.

I landed with a thud. My brain paused. I had done a back flip and landed flat on my back. I was under water without any wind. I let go of my paddle. My brain turned back on.

“Oh Shit! Where the hell is my paddle,” I thought, beginning to feel the urgency of the situation as my body undulated at the mercy of the river, trapped upside down and inside my boat without a paddle. I grabbed the handle of neoprene that sealed me in my boat. I was free from the hard shell of plastic and swimming.

I remember how wavy the waves were. They carried me fast and furious underneath the water. And then, I popped up for air. I saw Scott on the right side of the river. I saw myself in the middle of the river between the log and the undercut rock. I took a last breath. My eyes locked onto Scott’s across the river as a forceful shove of the river’s heft pushed me underneath the rock. My eyes were still open. I saw the water world around me get very dark. I looked at the whiteness of my legs and arms, curled in the fetal position, riding backwards on a current, destination unknown. I felt like I was in the womb. The water swooshed softly around me and spun my body in circles. I felt a pressure enclose me. How deep was I? A half smile crossed my face as I thought to myself in disbelief, is this it? Is this how easy it can be over? My mind cleared. I knew my body was at the mercy of the river, and I would go where she would take me. I was no longer in control. My body was begging the river to relent, and in the same strange moment, my soul was connected. I felt an awe flood through my veins and I accepted to myself in that short second that if this was to be my last moment on Earth in my body, it had been well spent.

Mist from waterfalls descends on a kayaker paddling through a gentler stretch of the Hollin River.

Just then my body bobbed up to the surface like a cork. I no longer remembered the peace I had felt just seconds before. I gasped for a sharp breath of air that seemed to cut my throat and cause me to cry out, like a baby at birth. I was reborn.

“Scott!” I screamed. I felt my mouth shake. I saw Scott paddling toward me. Relief captured my body, but was quickly replaced with urgency when I realized there was another rapid up ahead. I saw my paddle swept away into the rapid.

“Are you OK?” Scott yelled.

“Yes!” I replied, swimming furiously toward my boat, which was on its way down the rapid as well. Scott raced into the waves to find my paddle. I clung to my boat and used the remaining amount of adrenaline in my body to pull it and myself over to the side of the river. I swam into a calm inlet and climbed out of the water onto the jagged rock and collapsed in a heap, waiting for the sound of my heart to quiet and steady.

The heavens broke overhead and sent a torrent of rain racing toward the Earth. Heavy pellets pounded my face, on the thousands of leaves, on the volcanic rock, on the surface of the river, on everything. I opened my eyes and couldn’t see a thing. The canyon was rumbling with the sounds of rain and thunder. The entire canyon felt as if it could collapse in on itself, and there was nowhere to run or hide or go. I think I cried, but it was raining so hard I couldn’t tell.

“Scott!” I pleaded. “Scott, Scott, Scott!”

The walls in the canyon before me were steep and there was a rapid between Scott and myself. I knew I had no other choice but to enter the river again and swim the next rapid while holding onto my boat. My mind swirled. I wished I could just hit eject and get myself out of this terrible movie. But this was real life. I jumped in.

Each wave pulled me underneath, but I held on. I caught a glimpse of Scott around the bend and swam all the way to him. We held each other for only a minute.

“Scott, I’m so scared,” I said.

He gently pushed me away.

“We’ve got to keep moving,” he said. I nodded.

We paddled on. The water roared around us and the rain did not let up. I felt my body completely moving with the river, no more questions. A few hours later, the river calmed to a fast-flowing, flat bed of water. The Santo Domingo Bridge came into view, and the clouds split to reveal a beautiful pink sunset reflected on the water.

We finished at 6:16 p.m., right on time. Josvalto was waiting for us with celebration beers. But with every inch we traveled away from that river, I felt her stretch with me. As if the Hollin and I were somehow attached inseparably. She had shown me her power and her grace. To her I was equally grateful for both.

After the Hollin, Scott and I paddled for another week and a half in Ecuador. During that time we met and paddled with a good-natured, red-haired boy from North Carolina named Paul. He had just sold his business at 33 years old and was prepared to live the rest of his life in permanent retirement. His first stop was a six-week paddling trip to Ecuador.

One day, not long after Scott and I were on our way back to the States, the river showed Paul her power, but saved her grace. She trapped Paul upside down in his boat underneath an undercut rock, where he spent the last three minutes of his life. I remember trembling at the computer screen when I got the message from a mutual friend in Ecuador. I felt like I needed to vomit. When I had looked at Paul, I saw peace, wisdom and reason. I remembered the last night I had spent with Paul at the community cock-fight we peeked at through the chicken-wire walls of a coop packed with betting Ecuadorians. He had looked over at me after the first round of controlled rooster violence with his sly Southern grin and said, “This is why you travel.” Why him? Why then? Why?

The night I learned of Paul’s death, I dreamed of kayaking. In the dream, I was on the river with Paul when the water caught him underneath the rock. At first, I was scared, but then I saw the half-grin cross his face, as he thought to himself, is this it? Is it really over this easy? And I heard him say with a strange voice of acceptance, “If this is my last moment here in this body, it’s been well-spent.”

I decided there is no other way to understand life but to accept this. The river is merciful and unforgiving all in the same stroke.

And such is life. To me the peace comes from knowing that every last minute has been well-spent.