White water rafting

Holy crap, it was awesome!  I’ve never been before, but today we went rafting on the Chili River, which is only about 15 minutes away from downtown Arequipa.

When we booked the tour, the agency said it was a level I river, which was good for beginners, but when we got to the river, our instructor said we’d be going on level I, II, and III rapids.  Incidentally, all the rapids had names, like “Gatekeeper,” “Goal,” and “Low Bridge.”

We got to a point in the river (it was 6km long) where our guide, Roberto, told us that we were going to get out and walk for a bit, because it was too dangerous for beginners to go down the river.  He pointed us to the beach, and told us to paddle hard. Apparently, we didn’t paddle hard enough, since our stern got caught in the current and we started going down the “too dangerous” rapids, backwards!  They turned out to be a level IV rapids, and only one person fell out of the boat (don’t worry, we rescued him).

The highlight were the ducks.  They were swimming along in the river ahead of us, just plunging down through the river, calm as if they were sitting on a couch watching TV.  We caught up with them eventually, sunning themselves on a rock.

So how much did this adventure cost?  $25 per person.  Booked the tour through Bravo Peru, and we liked them enough to book a Colca Canyon tour for tomorrow.