Rafting the Rio Apurimac.

Saturday we visited the Museo de Arte Precolumbian where we saw beautifully exhibited silver, gold and ceramic artifacts from before Spanish colonialization, followed by a very short but very ugly red gallery of colonial Catholic paintings of Christ painfully dying on the cross (the transition to this section reminded me of entering Vegas after a 3 day nature trip in the Grand Canyon -peace zen calm NEON LOUD BRIGHT). Very unnerving.

Anyway, later we got our rafting briefing from a dreadlocked, pleasant young dude.

Alain, our rafting guide

We were going to be one of the first groups going down this season and the river had changed since last season, so it was going to be an adventure for everyone - including the guides. Chevere!

The trip was amazing. On the way to the river we stopped in a small town to visit the market, then spent three hours on a dusty dirt road next to the edge of a 1000 foot cliff with stunning views of the farmland...

... and rocks shaped like condors...

... and rushing rivers...

... and Incan faces in the mountains

We reached the river (and sand flies - you will hear a lot about sand flies in this post), and lunched and explored while the guys got the gear ready.

there, I fixed it!

first view of the Rio Apurimac

Naturally, the "Welcome" rapid started us off. From there it was class 2s, 3s and 4s with names like Minefield, Purgatory (where our gear boat flipped and a bottle of tequila was sacrificed to the river), Indiana Jones, Toothache and Last Laugh. We portaged around some of the roughest rapids and plowed through others in the raft under the great guidance of Alain & crew.

a calm spot

safety kayakers Juan and Rubin (not pictured: gear guide Ephraim)

Fun rapids in a beautiful canyon... In some places the walls went up forever and the stones looked like polished silver from the rushing water.

photo does not do it justice, part I

photo does not do it justice, part II

In other places we left the canyon briefly and were surrounded by small dirt cliffs and green trees or cactus.

photo does not do it justice, part III

photo does not do it justice, part IV

The campsites (Space Odyssey and Wake Up) were next to the rushing river, which I could listen to for days, and once the sand flies went away for the evening it was warm enough to sit outside and stare at the highway of stars.

Wake Up campsite

can't imagine why they call it "Wake Up"

We saw a handful of shooting stars and lots of satellites as well... At the second campsite we had a fire and sat in silence enjoying all four earthly elements for a few hours. Nice.

There must have been a million butterflies over the three days, all different sizes and colors. On the second day we saw condors gliding above, torrent ducks diving into and riding the rapids (sooooo cool!), and a fox wandering on the other side of the canyon. That night I saw a few scorpions and got bit by a spider (painful but otherwise harmless, the damn sand flies were much more annoying).

@#$%^&*

At the end Viki got to try her hand at navigating the raft and successfully steered us to our final landing where we lunched and headed back to civilization. All in all, a fabulous trip.

I may have been a river rat in a previous life. The juxtaposition between trekking (up at 5am or 6 at the latest, leave by 7am, travel as light as possible) and rafting (up whenevs, leave by 10am/whenevs, carry a big cooler of beer and a hand-crank blender for mixed drinks - eco-friendly! I might need one of those) was amusing as well.

Viki leaves today... I am a bit jealous that she will have farmer's markets and a kitchen at her disposal in approximately 24 hours, but on the other hand I still have chicha morada and Andean cheese for a few more days. So glad she could share this with me.

Now I am off to figure out what to do for the next week before I meet up with Kim in Salta. The possibilities are exciting but overwhelming! I need three more years in Peru.