Bety Brabcová: Through Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty-four Corsican Curves

Right before Easter holiday, me and a group of THE best Slovene paddlers set off to enjoy the beautiful rivers of the magical Mediterranean island Corsica. After hanging around for a day in the cozy and clean docks of Italian port Livotno due to a delay of the ferry, we had finally seen the bank of Corsican shore at the sunset.

Our warm up river was the Travo, because it was one of the few which got water at the time and partly because its allowed to be paddled only mondays and fridays. Nevertheless, the water level was more than satisfying and our rather large multicultural crew of 8 Slovenians, myself and one Hungarian practiced to get nicely organized, so that there was no need to split into smaller groups after all and we could enjoy all together – the rivers:).

Next in the row was the Fium Orbo, river which floats through the most magical valley I have ever seen. For this one, we teamed up with Jakub Šedivý, Jakub Němec and his charming wife Meg Smith, who refused to paddle with anyone else than our cool group with Fizo in the lead :)

This is the entry rapid to Upper Orbo gorge, which every sane earthling portages and the Jakubs just style..Unfortunately, we got here one dislocated shoulder, practiced the rescue action and first aid and Filipko had spent the rest of the trip drinking and smoking like a hell, just not to get mad of watching us all paddling..

Pretty narrow toboggan on lower Orbo. Just do not get scared and hold your paddle on the side so that you don't get stuck...

Enjozing the numerous playful drops in the lower gorge...

After raising our naked bums from the natural hot spring in the middle of a tiny french village, we put on the Taravo in the middle of another warm sunny day. This completely white rapid was one of the sort of "just for the Jakubs and few brave ones" as it got pretty tricky entry and nasty looking rock right under the surface just at the bottom. You don´t wanna flip there...

Here is me and Štricko running the famous "Five-finger Rapid", great fun and as some would say whoop whoop;)!

Chilling like gypsies on da road after lower Taravo.

When we reached the Rizzanesse, we greeted our donkey acquaintance, hesitated a little over the water gauge and than determinedly put on. Despite the low water level, the great slides were simply delightful.

You can see many sober faces at the scouting of a Rizzanesses´ well known seven meter waterfall but also you can hear many shouts of victory at the bottom. Our group made it with only one broken paddle blade, which can be considered as a success.

However, the dam is almost done, so most of the upper part will be flooded together with some rapids of its tributary the Codi. Moreover, the lower part water level will be dependent on the power station, which means, as we all know, sadly dry most of the year...How can they ever allow it...

The beauty of Corsica - the nature changes every few kilometers (from Canadian deep forests to central Bohemian groves) and it takes less than an hour to reach the snowy mountain tops from the sandy sea shore -heaven on earth!

Our last one was the Codi - steep narrow creek running through a "lord-of-the-rings-charming-elf valley". Though it looked like having no water at all from the bridge, it was more than fun when the brook cut into the narrow crack and we were just laughing like mad after every waterfall and slide (except the one where I hurt my back landing too flat...).