Well, i feel like i have been off this thing for so long i will never be able to catch up. Let´s see... Last wednesday I went rafting down the river under the strange name Urubamba, just like the town out of which i had gone hiking previously. I had always thought that if the water was high, that meant the rapids were better, right? Well, obviously i have no clue, but apparently i have even less of a clue than i had previously suspected. In any case, many of the presumed rapids never had a chance (we were supposed to hit class III-IV), but aside from wishing for more bigger and better, the rest was great. We started off with changing into outfits worthy of versace. well, not quite, but once i finally get to a computer with xp or millienium windows on it you´ll judge for yourself. First you drag yourself into a 6-7mm wetsuit, which is already a rather difficult task, since those suckers dont bend or stretch without much grunting on your behalf. On top of that you add a "poet shirt" of a fluorescent yellow, to be offset in the future by a bright red floatie-jacket and a sky-blue skull protection gear. Far be it from me to knock skull protection but this sucker slid back, forth, sideways and in circles around my head (one size fits all... apparently some more than others). In any case, decked out in such outfits we then all climbed into the rafts--about 7-8 people per raft. i never knew you could fit so many people in. Then of course i also didnt know that 11 grown people could fit into a toyota corolla (i counted today!)... but i digress.
The rapids did turn out to be fun, although i dont think they got past a III. Afterwards, when I was taking the bus to 82nd km to start trekking to machu pichu, i think we drove past grade bizillion. Well, next time. or something. As my raft was mostly floating we could check out the amazing scenery with the snow capped and not snowcapped mountains, lots of random little shacks along the river and partake in the smells of the river, the greenery and of course the manure which took on an almost pleasant quality. did i just type that manure smelled nice?????????
As we went past the last rapid and were told we were done and were feeling so good about keeping shivering to a minimum, we were told that there was a bridge we were about to near where we could jump into the river. Sounds like fun? Well, sounded like fun to me!! Scared as i was i ended up closing my eyes, so i was surprised that it was such a long time before i hit water. And then i wished that i was still in the air because the water was so cold. The current was pretty strong and I got carried past the first raft before i even noticed what was going on, then, when i tried for my raft, i realized i was going to miss it too: did you ever try swimming with a lifejacket on in a current? Plus i was having problems breathing, probably from the freezing water. I did manage to catch the line and got pulled into the raft. Unfortunately the girl that jumped in immediately before me, missed the line by a couple of millimeters and ended up getting picked up from shore much later on. well sort of from shore. She had to swim to the raft, in the process freaking me out because i thought she had gone hypothermic for sure, she was so out of it by the time she was dragged into the boat. She recovered pretty quickly though. So all good.
Have any idea how good dry clothes can feel after that? Well, just imagine. The tour operators took a bunch of pictures and I did spend about a buck to buy a couple of them. though you mostly have no idea who is in the raft, and so there is pretty much no evidence i was ever there. Maybe it was brainwashing?
Well, that was all last wednesday.