Advertisement
Published: April 27th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Ok you can take your clothes off now. As my bare feet touched the cold ground and the wind wrapped around my bikini clad body I questioned again my sanity. I quickly shoved my legs into the wetsuit and looked at my pile of warm clothes on the ground. I swapped my beanie for a helmet and donned a pair of fluoro shorts. I looked across at my friend for a smile of encourgement. Are you sure I am going to be ok? He laughed at me. Reassuring.
We were in Pucon waiting for the weather to clear so we could climb Volcan Villarica. It had been raining for days which made it dangerous to climb on the ice. So we had to be patient and satisy ourselves with other pursuits such as horseriding, swimming in hot springs and of course white water rafting.
The rain had made the river swell and the conditions were ideal. I found myself now standing next to a large inflatable boat, paddle in hand and listening to a guy tell me all the terrible things that could go wrong if you fell out and got washed downstream amongst the trees and sharp
rocks.
My boat buddies were Bruce, a Scottish lad who was part time Engineer, part time mountaineer and had spent the last 18months in Antartica. Matt, a fireman from Seattle and self confessed adrenaline junkie whose workmates had taken out a life insurance policy on him with themselves as the beneficiaries. And the big man from Ireland who was just as terrified as me but with a wicked sense of humour and Irish wit he keept us laughing.
Our pint sized Chilean guide was as nimble as tightrope walker and strong as an ox. He steered the boat from the back and calmly gave us orders amidst information about the local environment and ways of life of the indigenous people.
The first 5 minutes was spent practising technique, forward, backwards and high side left-right which meant everyone piled to one side of the boat in a vain attempt to stop it from flipping when you hit a rock.
The banks of the river were thick with vegetation and the occasional wooden house could be spotted through the trees. I wondered if they spent time on their balcony laughing at the foreigners drowning in the river.
The trees were full of the sounds of birds and the clouds held off from raining on us. Suprisingly I wasnt cold despite the holes in my wetsuit (which to me indicated that the last person had hit some rocks and did nothing for my confidence).
Soon enough it was down to business as we approached the first of the rapids. The rapids ranged from Grade 2 (a little scary) to Grade 4 (more scary). We paddled hard and our boat lurched forward over the drop and skimmed past some rocks. We landed it beautifully and I was hooked. We crossed out paddles in a celebration of success. The fear disappeared and I let out a somewhat Leyton Hewitt-esque “Come On!”. The next rapid was more challenging and we got to unleash our high side techniqure in a tangle of arms, legs, paddles and water up the nose. It was brilliant.
At one stage we had to abanden the boat as the rapid was grade 6. Too much for us to handle but our guide did it with ease on his own. We were forced to clamber up the bank and along a rought track through the forrest.
We were then faced with a 3m leap off the rocks and into the swirling water. My fear returned momentarily as all the warnings of never jumping into water where you cant see the bottom sprang to mind but there was no other way so heart pounding and nose blocked like a girl I leapt off....it felt like an eternity before my feet hit the icy water. My life jacket popped me up and I broke the surface grinning like an idiot. The feeling was exhilirating. I swam over to the boat and the guide hauled me roughly by the shoulders and I slithered like a seal face first into the boat.
We conqured the rest of the rapids and with about 20mins to go the guide handed over the reins to Mr Irish. With 45mins experience under his belt we were in good hands. After a confused start he soon found his groove and had us paddling at “ramming speed”.
Our first real challenge under the new captain was to negotiate between two large rocks. We paddled fursiously and manged to firmly strand ourselves on one of them. Our 45kg guide jumped out to try and push our combined weight of 350kg off the rock but to no avail.
There was nothing to it but to get out. In the middle of the river and perched on top of a rock about 100cm in diameter we hug each other tightly for balance and prayed that no one slipped into the gushing water.
Our guide dislodged the boat and we tried to get in. As it had become like a game of twister none of us could move without pushing someone off balance. Finally someone grabbed my by the ankles and for the second time that day I went face first into the boat.
The others piled in and we set off again with the rightful captain at the helm. Trimphant and bellies aching from laughter we pulled into shore to celebrate with a bottle of Pisco sour and recount the story of how we were stranded on the rocks and nearly died (we didnt nearly die of course but a bit of embellishment never goes astray.....)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0438s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
You have found the Pisco sour, jolly good! That water rafting sounded like the best day ever! Theres always a bit of safety issue around isnt there! Gets the heart going anyway! :) xox