The unforgettable and mesmerizing TechHub Riga boat trip

2013-07-29

If I remember correctly, it started as a joke. When Madara, the local community activist of TechHub Riga, came up with yet another offer which was not met with much enthusiasm by the tech crowd (I think it was about THR participation in the Big Cleanup), Ernests said that just as likely TechHub could organise a boat trip. And to his own surprise (or maybe not) a whole lot of people were much more positive about a boat trip than they were about cleaning up garbage in a forest. Even more surprising was that this actually turned into an actual boat trip. Or, to be more precise, a raft trip.


Of all the people at TechHub, I&39;m certainly one of the most fond of boat trips, although it&39;s been just a few years since I found out how great this outdoor passtime is. Here&39;s my previous boat experience of 2013:



What one could easily notice, should he/she read the descriptions of all my boat trips this year so far, is that mostly these had involved very few people - normally I go on a boat trip with just one boat participating. Does that make me an introvert person? Not necessarily. All that I&39;m trying to say is that organizing a massive boat trip by myself would be a difficult task - you need a really big pool of potential participants in order to have a reasonable group of people, so you wouldn&39;t pay an inadequate price for one boat (presuming that boats are rented). Thus I&39;m super thankful to TechHub Riga for this event.

As you can guess - I didn&39;t have any doubts whether I should or should not participate. Also - someone should be the official representative of Infogr.am at this event, and that&39;s a role I can handle quite well.

The planned route was not super challenging - Gauja from Rāmnieki to Līgatne, one of the most "mainstream" routes in Latvia, but it&39;s the same as for music festivals - you can&39;t attract a huge audience for a gig of Pupociklu vasara. The route was split in two parts - from Rāmnieki to Cēsis on Friday afternoon, and the rest - on Saturday.

First things first - after the biweekly (once every 2 weeks) Techhub members&39; breakfast (and some pathetic attempts to work afterwards) something around 35 people gathered in a bus that took us to Cēsis. Initially I sat down alone in the last row of the bus, but that wasn&39;t too much one, so quickly I joined the team of Froont, and despite not talking too much over the length of the trip felt as a less socially retarded person there. While at the guesthouse I found out that I had made an almost unforgivable mistake by forgetting all my carefully packed food at home. Luckily there were enough people around of whom I hoped to bum something edible, so I didn&39;t worry about this situation too much.


Before starting rafting we went to a guesthouse where were supposed to stay the night, left most of our stuff there, and while waiting for I don&39;t know what exactly, a significant part of the group (including me) played some frisbee. And then we finally went up to the river. The strange part was that until we got there, most people didn&39;t have an idea, what kind of boats/rafts we would be using. As it turned out, the rafts were normally fit for 9 people each, and there were 4 rafts in total. I joined a raft which mostly consisted of "Froont" people. That would be an exaggeration to say that we rowed intensively. Actually we barely rowed at all and mostly just drifted with the current. It would probably had been a good idea for me to turn off my "I don&39;t drink today" mood, but on the other hand I felt quite comfortable with people around me getting merrier and merrier. I don&39;t want to be a grumpy cat after all - I&39;me fine with others drinking, if they&39;re fine with me not drinking (and they usually are). But I had to be a bit of a grumpy cat, I have to admit that (and I wouldn&39;t be shy to say that to the person in question face to face) I really hate it when someone smokes on a boat without giving a damn whether others are fine with that. Yes, skakri, I&39;m talking about you! That&39;s not cool.


Still that was far from enough to ruin my day, as the day was good. I ate everyone&39;s food, occasionally participated in conversations, but mostly I just enjoyed the day on the river, with all the long stops, lazy progress towards Cēsis and the no pressure atmosphere. Still as the day grew closer to the evening, I kinda promoted to do some rowing, as there were people around who wanted to reach the guesthouse before sunset, as they didn&39;t want to put up tents in the dark. Personally I&39;ve got enough experience of making camp in the dark, but I can the this point. When we got to our daily milestone (a bridge, and not 30&39;000 users, about which Froont people were cheering a lot), we still had to wait a while for the final raft which seemed to be floating at a smaller speed than the current, but that was still fine.


At the guesthouse I found a remote location for my tent, so I could get a good night sleep (as I expected to be one of the first people to go to bed, which didn&39;t exactly prove to be true), and then I began my mission of finding free food (if you&39;re in startups you should be able to find free food anyway), which was challenging enough - most people are way too friendly and hospitable to make this a difficult task, thus I ended up eating more than I should. And I went to sauna, which for some reason didn&39;t seem as hot to me as some others said, and unlike most cases I didn&39;t have a headache after the sauna (maybe it&39;s the positive influence of Startup Sauna - not that I went to sauna there?). It was some time after midnight when I decided to retire to my tent, but on the way from the guesthouse building to the tent I noticed some people sitting in front of a fire and talking, and as I didn&39;t feel sleepy I joined them.


The conversation there flowed so smooth, that I ended up staying up until 4:30AM. The topics of conversation changed a lot, covering religion, tips and tricks of BMX racing, life&39;s values and many other subjects that I could probably remembed if I bothered to do so. When I finally went to sleep, it wasn&39;t because I had grown tired of the conversation, but because I&39;m a very rational person who knows that it is good to get some sleep in order not to become a zombie on the next day.

Four hours of sleep were more than enough for me, thus I was fresh and ready to roll (or to be more precise, to easy somebody else&39;s breakfast). It wasn&39;t exactly early when we left the guesthouse for the rafts, but this time I had a new plan - to secure a place on the fastest raft, as I had an intention of going in a different direction than the others after the raft trip would end. And that&39;s just what I did - there was one place left available on the raft and I didn&39;t bother being polite and asking whether anyone else would be interested in taking it.


And you know what? When all 9 people on a raft are rowing, its speed is quite impressive! We did our fastest kilometer at the average speed of 6.5km/h which is not bad at all. And if we had really wanted to - we could had done better. Although the first day hadn&39;t been bad, the second was definitely better - after all I&39;m more into excercise than floating. Thus I&39;m thankful to the team mates who were willing to row, especially to the "captain" of our boat Guntis who guided the boat along the river masterfully. We got to the finish line (ferry near Līgatne) at 4:15PM and after disembarking the raft I left the others to wait for other rafts to arrive and headed in the direction of the highway, hoping to go to a friend&39;s birthday party in Gaujiena. With the mix of hitchhiking and bus services I got there, but that&39;s a completely different story to be told on a different occasion.


In the conclusion I would like to thank (once again) TechHub Riga for hosting this raft trip, to express my desire to participate in further events in the future.

Photos (just a few)

Pusnakts Zaķusalā
Vatel