Tracy Johnston
Nonfiction 1992 | 356 pages
This is an amazing true adventure book. The author, Tracy Johnston, is part of a small group of people to raft the Boh in Borneo ... the first trip EVER down the Boh. It is such an adventure because there are no maps, no guides, no notes from those who have gone before. All they have are stories from native Borneo people who believe the river to be un-navigable and are fearful of the spirits who inhabit the Boh.
A few guides and a few experienced rafters have chosen to take on the Boh. What they anticipate to be a three-day trip turns into ten days. The rapids are much more difficult than anticipated, the rains can raise the level of the river as much as 20 feet in one hour, and the bugs! Oh my, the stories of the bugs! I will never look on a honeybee with quite the same eyes.
Tracy begins this adventure by losing her luggage. So, her well thought out boxes with medicines, salves, and various pills, along with her box that includes her sleeping bag, air mattress, shoes, underwear, flashlight, and all her clothes, end up in the LA airport when she arrives in Borneo. She has to beg, borrow, and steal all her supplies for this serious adventure.
The tale is a quick read. Johnston uses very short chapters which keep the pace moving. At times, the book drags a bit, because the rafting trip drags a bit. There are days when the three boats travel only yards instead of miles. The difficulty of staying kind and stable and compassionate in the midst of innumerable delays, and bodies that are constantly sweating and becoming the home base to numerous bugs, is unimaginable.
Tracy is in her 40s, which makes her story even more amazing. She us not a young super-jock.
Again, if you love real-life wilderness adventure stories as I do, you cannot go wrong with this one. It reads like no other. This won't be the fifth book you have read about Everest, or another tale of canoeists in the great north. Thank you to my friend Joanne for the loan of this not-very-well-known tale.
July 2024