Bruised and bitten, but having a great time

Hola!

We just got back from our river rafting trip and had a great time on
the rapids. On the first day we drove 5 hours on a dirt road through
the mountains. That was the bumpiest ride of my life. Dramamine
works great, by the way. When we finally got to the river we had
about 2 hours of training through very small rapids and then made
camp. The sun goes down about 5 or 5:30, so first we put up our tents
and then made a fire. The guides made us a wonderful dinner and we
chatted with our new friends. 12 total on the tour.

The second day was the long day. Before the day started, Mark got
stung by a scorpion that was hiding in his wetsuit. They aren't
poisonous, but the rest of us checked our wetsuits very well before
putting them on. We rode though everything from class 0 to class 4
rapids. There were some very technical spots, but we were having a
blast. The water was cold, but we were wearing wetsuits, helmets, and
a splash jacket, so we did not feel that cold. There was one class 5
and one class 6 that we had to walk while the guides took the boats
through. It was a 15 minute walk each through rocks and we were very
glad we bought new closed toe river sandals. On the class 6, the
cargo boat flipped (even though our guide said it was to heavy to ever
flip) and it took 4 of them to flip it back over. At camp that night,
the tents were wet as they were not in dry bags. Also, we found out
that our dry bag had a leak in the middle as our stuff was a bit wet
at the end of the day. We made camp early after 6 hours on the river.
We were sore, but happy. We dried everything out, had a wonderful
dinner and fire.

The third day was rather short at only 3 hours on the river, but we
got to ride though a class 5 rapid which was awesome. We did some
body rafting through a class 2 rapid which was an adrenaline rush,
too. The river is very different at water level and the whole way
down consisted of gulp air, hold breath for wave, gulp air, hold
breath for wave. =) We ended at our tour company's little house and
after lunch took a much shorter 2 hour bus ride back to Cusco.

Tomorrow we are off to the jungle for 4 days. Hasta luego.