eXtreme Rafting

A while ago (whilst looking for guides to take me round the Torres del Paine) I came across a story of exceptional adventure. A story of a 2 week rafting expedition down the world's deepest canyon located in Peru. A story of 100 miles of continuous grade 4 white water. A story of camping out on undiscovered Inca ruins amongst remains of the dead. And as I looked into this story more, I discovered they were doing it AGAIN! This month! O'Boy O'Boy, how much did I want to do that!?

Needless to say, despite my travelling, I had been involved in close communication with the American organisers attempting to get myself signed up on this epic adventure! It culminated with a phone call this afternoon, it was all going well until...

"So fit are you?" he asked.

Thinking I'm no Olympic athlete but can usually keep up with most I replied, "Um, average I guess." It was the wrong answer.

"Average?" I sensed hostility in his voice. "AVERAGE!?" He was shouting now. "You want to join a two week extreme rafting expedition down the deepest and most treacherous canyon in the world and you're telling me your physical condition is just average?" I thought he was going to hang up at that point, but he sighed instead and added, "So what is average then?"

I suddenly needed to sound super fit. Knowing he knew the South American circuit pretty well I ran through some of my recent escapades, "Well, I recently climbed Huayna Potosí, a mountain in Bolivia over 6,000 metres high complete with a couple of days hiking at 5,000 metres for acclimatisation purposes.

"And I trekked the whole 10 day circuit in Torres del Paine, alone, outside of tourist season and with a couple of extra days tacked on for good measure. And um..."

"Okay then..." he interrupted, sounding very relieved. "You never mentioned any of this in your emails. Obviously your definition of "average" is a hell of lot higher than what we have here in the States."

"Phew!" I gasped out loud.

"Now lets talk payment..."

Sweet! That was it - I was on! I was on the expedition!

The trip was to start in a little under 2 weeks, but there was one little problem... I didn't know how to raft.

Sure the organisers wanted experienced paddlers and in emails I was happy to reel off words like, "Grade 5", "White Nile in Africa" and "Keen Enthusiast" but in reality, I'd only done ½ a day rafting some 7 years ago. Ahem.

I needed to learn and I needed to learn fast. Luckily, Cusco is the gateway to the Apurimac River which is rated among the ten best rafting trips in the world. I just needed to book myself on a long weekend trip to pick up the basics! Sorted.

So while people were venturing in from all over the world to experience rafting on the Apurimac, I was just tagging along to gain some experience before I did some real rafting!

Posted by Steve Eynon