White water raftiing on Urubamba River!

I will keep this post short and sweet.  My amazing roomie was kind enough to offer me her laptop whenever it was free to blog, email etc. so I am fortunate enough to be blogging more than I thought.  I decided to take on what seemed to be the inconceivable to a 5 foot 1 and a half, non athletic, un-coordinated Canadian girl, and I decided to go white water rafting this afternoon.  My apologies, not just white water rafting... level 4 white water rafting.  I really had no idea what I was getting myself into but hey I'm only in South America once, and I promised myself I wouldn't pass up on any opportunity.  

I actually had what I will call a bit of a "stomach ache" from staying out too late the night before, so I missed part of the training as I decided I would be better off laying on the grass to ease my pain.  Bad idea, as I later found out I really did need to pay attention.  This trip costed 115 soles or the equivalent to 40 US dollars.  We were taken on a two hour bus ride outside of Cusco, into the glorious Andean mountains.  This was the backdrop to our rafting adventure.  We were split into groups of six and given an instructor.  Manuele was our peruvian guide and he was stellar!  We had to wear wetsuits and helmets with life jackets as well.  I have to say, I was surprised actually at how organized this particular event was, as generally speaking, the Peruvians lack organization.  The Urubamba River actually channels into the Amazon river.  It gives Machu Picchu it's lush green coloured forests as well (just a little tidbit of information).

This adventure was amazing and I would highly recommend it to anyone traveling into Cusco or Peru.  We rafted for approximately two and half hours straight.  It's tremendously hard on the body, but so so so worth it.  We were tossed about, left, right and centre.  We were thrashed into giant boulders.  We chanted while we rafted... "we will rock you".  We took a break half way and went for a dip in the ice cold river.  It was actually surprisingly refreshing.  The guides were well trained.  We had about ten guys with us, very fun loving, free-spirited, cool, calm and almost "surfer" like guys.  There were three of them in kayaks just in case anyone fell out.. which almost happened on more than one occasion.

In the end we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, had a blast, a great workout and we were even served a three course lunch on the riverside.  Definitely something worth doing a second time.  Only time will tell.... till next time people!