Never underestimate a man with a plan, he will find a way to implement it

Two days to build it and half an hour to tear it to pieces, this is the short story of the raft that Folco and I built in Guiping. We had to sail it for about 400km, but we barely managed to make 400 shameful meters before putting our feet back on the ground.

All under Wing’s watchful eyes, our Chinese fixer that we had met in Guangzhou 5 days earlier and who would have supported us until the end of the trip, if only we had left. A little later, while Folco and I were busy piling up the last pieces of the raft in a corner of the river bank, she whispered “It’s raining.

Well, at least the tears will be confused with the rain, and no one will notice if someone cries! ”For her it was a defeat and from the way she looked at us it was clear that she didn’t know what to expect from the future, much less from us. But I had already a plan: I would have bought a boat from a fisherman. I still didn’t know where and how I would buy it, but I had the feeling that this was not the end.

Without wasting time, three hours later we were already negotiating with a local fisherman the price of his old boat, abandoned by the river. At first glance, it seemed like a big deal. But later, after a better analysis, I began to reevaluate that occasion as a new obstacle on our way.

The boat was full of holes and water was entering from everywhere. That meant that we would have sailed the Zhū Jiāng (Pearl river) on a rotten canoe, which was likely to making us sink at any moment.

The next morning, with the help of a group of men, we put the boat in the water and, accompanied by the gentle current of the water that comes down from the mountains, we set sail.

Never underestimate a man with a plan, he will find a way to implement it.