White water rafting on the Apurimac river - Day 1
We arrived bright and early at the Mayuc office in Cusco for day 1 of our 3 day white water rafting trip on the Apurimac river. After a delayed start of about 1 1/2 hours we headed off into the mountains on a crazy hair pinned dirt track. The driver was very good, but even still the 4 hour bus ride was quite scary as the track was only just wide enough for the bus we were on. At the end when we were descending, it was just a sheer drop on one side of the bus and the driver had to do several 3 point turns to get us down the track safely.
We arrived at the river, had some lunch and then split ourselves into teams. We had been talking to a group of people outside the office in Cusco and we decided to get into a group with them. It was ourselves, Toby from Switzerland, Nick from Australia and another couple Lincoln from NZ
and Emma from Australia. The other 25 or so people on the trip were ALL from Israel. We then got into our wet suits, packed our stuff into a dry bag which would be going on a cargo raft and met our guide - Pancho.
We got into the rafts and set off. The first day was just gentle rapids (grade 2 & 3) and training - what to do if we were thrown from the raft, how to upright the raft if it flipped and how to respond to the commands that Pancho would give us - forward, back, left back, right back, highside left & right etc.
We spent 3 hours rafting that day and at one stage Pancho flipped the raft, to see how we would handle coming out of the boat and getting back in. After a bit of a shock and some spluttering and coughing we all managed to haul each other back into the raft without any problems.
We then came to our first campsite (a tiny beach at the side of the river) and we tied the boats up and helped carry all the supplies and dry bags to the shore. The Israeli guys in the group were so lazy and didn´t lift a finger, letting us and the girls carry all the heavy equipment, immediately we took a dislike to them!
We set up our tent in the sand, had some dinner and tried to get some sleep on the bumpy sand, looking forward to a 6am start & 7 hours of rafting tomorrow!!
We arrived at the river, had some lunch and then split ourselves into teams. We had been talking to a group of people outside the office in Cusco and we decided to get into a group with them. It was ourselves, Toby from Switzerland, Nick from Australia and another couple Lincoln from NZ
and Emma from Australia. The other 25 or so people on the trip were ALL from Israel. We then got into our wet suits, packed our stuff into a dry bag which would be going on a cargo raft and met our guide - Pancho.We got into the rafts and set off. The first day was just gentle rapids (grade 2 & 3) and training - what to do if we were thrown from the raft, how to upright the raft if it flipped and how to respond to the commands that Pancho would give us - forward, back, left back, right back, highside left & right etc.
We spent 3 hours rafting that day and at one stage Pancho flipped the raft, to see how we would handle coming out of the boat and getting back in. After a bit of a shock and some spluttering and coughing we all managed to haul each other back into the raft without any problems.
We then came to our first campsite (a tiny beach at the side of the river) and we tied the boats up and helped carry all the supplies and dry bags to the shore. The Israeli guys in the group were so lazy and didn´t lift a finger, letting us and the girls carry all the heavy equipment, immediately we took a dislike to them!
We set up our tent in the sand, had some dinner and tried to get some sleep on the bumpy sand, looking forward to a 6am start & 7 hours of rafting tomorrow!!
posted by Ciarán & Elaine at
10:59 AM
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