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Published: June 25th 2017
Geo: -41.3265, -72.9882
Wow again, that was an absolute thrill today. A 9am pick up and we join our fellow thrill seekers who are from Germany. Our guide (forgot his name) was a hoot the whole time.
I was quite a cold morning which was of some concern but this was soon laid to rest when we put on our wetsuits and other wet weather gear. Chris and I looked like Captain Kirk and Spock in our black wetsuits and me in blue top and him in yellow.
On arrival at the river we are given our life jackets and helmets and head through the brush to the river. Here we are given basic training and safety instructions including what we should do should someone end up in the fast flowing currents. Little did I know at the time but I'm certainly glad I paid attention.
The river is quite close to Orsono the volcano but views were poor as the clouds were quite low.
we get into our dinghys and off we go, slowly at first but there ahead we spot them, rough and swirling around large boulders and fallen trees. A few times we are told to get down in the brace
position as huge waves crash over us. Pure exhilaration!
Our group consists of two dinghys and one double kayak which covers a couple from the UK. It was this coupls a few Rapids ahead that lost control and ended up in the water and fast being swept away. The woman managed to get back to the kayak with the help of her guide. The guy however was just nowhere near it. With pure team effort and our guides orders we were able to get close to him and I was able to haul him up and onto our craft. It was not easy and thankfully all the others pitched in as we continued swirling about. Phew!
we continued on through the 15 km trip with no further mishaps and towards the end our guide thoroughly recommended that at his call we launch ourselves backwards into the river and allow the current to take us floating on our backs. This was totally safe, (provided that you could swim) as it was not rough, just fast. Absolutely brilliant experience and strangely enough not cold at 15c.
Lots of commaradarie and plenty of laughs and oar waving before we finally stopped for some lunch and of course pisco sour to wash it down. We both Loved every second of today.
no pics of us sorry, we were a bit busy trying survive.
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Tot: 0.103s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0811s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
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Norma
non-member comment
Wow, sounds absolutely exciting. Glad you didn't get hurt and enjoyed the 15km moment.