Whitewater Rafting the Chuquicahuana

Throwing on our still damp from the jungle bathing suits, we were picked up not too early for our whitewater rafting expedition with Apurimac Explorer.

Heading a little more than two hours out of Cusco, we arrived at the Chuquicahuana river.

First up was the opportunity to do two short (and sketchy) zip lines across the river. The brake was your gloved hand... Erin and I made it across fine despite our gloves having prominent holes under the pads of our fingers.

Zip! Here's some blurry cell phone video an American lady with her husband and son was super nice enough to take for us and later email.

One girl did not. There was a miscommunication somewhere - either the operator at the start wasn't watching for the operator at the end that had an extra line of rope to help people brake more, or the girl want listening and went early and didn't brake (most likely considering she spent the whole time on her phone and taking selfies). In short, everyone survived but the girl smashed into the brake operator and another member of the tour at full speed at the end of the line. Ouch! To her credit, she did the second shorter line after the mishap, tandem with an operator. 

Erin totally shred her finger open through the gaping hole in her glove while trying to responsibility brake... Also ouch! I feel like we should have seen that coming and done something about it. 

Hoping the rafting would be a little more coordinated, we climbed out of our zip line gear and got into the rafting gear

There was a boat with Spanish speakers, a boat with English speakers, and our boat - the bilingual boat. We got instructions in both or mixed languages which was actually quite fun.  After a briefing, we practiced our commands in the water - paddle forward, back paddle, down (in the boat), dive left, dive right, positions, and stop. 

The rapids were class 1, 2, and 3. We progressed down river more or less (yeah... just less) as a team paddling in unison.

Or not paddling together so well and taking rapids backwards...

Our guide was pretty good at rotating everyone around the positions on the boat. He let us try all sorts of fun things like paddling standing up, surfing where you sink the front of the boat behind a rapid and you kind of get stuck and stay there, and sitting on the bow of the boat and crashing through rapids.  

Oh, and of course we were allowed to jump in for a swim. It was a fair amount of time we careened down the river bobbing around and bumping in to one another. The water was cold, but not take your breath away cold. I gained momentum fairly quickly, but was able to return to the boat.

And they never saw her again.

Erin was abducted by a pirate in an inflatable kayak and we never saw her again. At least we never saw her on our boat again. The photographer in the kayak never came close enough to the raft for Erin to rejoin us. So she spent about the last third of the trip a captive crouched on a kayak. 

We got out at the unmarked end point and were told we supposed to change before getting back in he bus. Umm... there was nowhere to change EXCEPT the bus! So all the girls climbed over a short rock wall to change at the edge of a corn field between cow patties. It was a real test of balance while trying to wriggle out of a wet suit!

Last stop was back at where we put in to the river. There was a little shelter and a wood-fired sauna. Soon lunch was served - at 4 pm. But it was delicious and a welcomed warm up. 

Back on the bus it was two hours back to Cusco and a hot shower. 

Tomorrow is an early start for our quad tour of Moray and Maras archaeological sites. Vroom vroom!! Think they make fun of you when you make the quad noises while on the quad?