Flip Flops and Waterfalls

While I was in Park W I slept outside every night. At the night that we spent in the middle of park my friends and I decided to sleep out in a ranger station on the Burkina Faso side of the park. We had to cross the river which is the boarder between Benin and Burkina to get there. Now this river is pretty tame. Not an excessive current or anything. Although at the point of crossing the park had put a lot of sharp rocks in an attempt to make a bridge. Unfortunately, they had only succeeded in making a shallow spot to walk across that would puncture tires and feet, and they also made a small waterfall. By the time we had decided that we were going to leave for this ranger station it was dark. I forgot my shoes at my house back home, like an idiot. So I go to the waterfall with my flip flops and pack at night. I had two choices, I could either save my feet some pain and walk across with them on, risking the loss of one, or I could take them off possibly tearing my feet apart but keeping my flip flops. I decided that I would try to keep my flip flops on because I was going to have to be walking a little further. This was a bad choice. I managed to gingerly cross the river and keep my flip flops and save my feet until I got to a foot and half from the other side. Then the inevitable happened, I watched as one of my flip flops came off my foot and floated down the waterfall. These were my only shoes! I would have been reduced to walking bare foot in the park. This would have certainly tore my feet to shreds. Not a good idea. Then the world seemed to slow down and I thought to myself I need that shoe, I also cannot get it without getting wet. I then decided that there was only one choice, now remember I had .05 seconds to make and execute this decision. So I stripped down to my underwear and held my lamp above my head as I dove in. I did end up getting my shoe and back to shore, albeit soaking wet and in my underwear. I then realized my triumphant return to shore was marred by the fact that I couldn't put my clothes back on unless I wanted them to be wet. Here's the thing about when you go swimming in your underwear to keep you clothes from getting wet, when you do put your dry clothes back on over your underwear you've only made you clothes wet in the places that take the longest to dry. You might as well have just gone swimming in your clothes. It was then suggested to me that I just walk to the ranger station in my underwear. So we began to hike, in the dark. We hiked for a long time and we never really did find the ranger station. But we did eventually cross the boarder into Niger. After we had done this we realized that we wouldn't be able to find the ranger station. So hike back we did. We crossed the river again only this time I held my flip flops and ended up cutting open my big toe on a sharp rock. We came back into camp, me in underwear with a pagne (wrap skirt) wrapped around me, my big toe bleeding, but we were all laughing about our misadventures running around three different countries in the middle of the night.