White Water Raftng!

So it´s about 6 am right now. Leah and I got up at 3 15 am to prepare to climb Mt. Villarrica at 4 am, but apparently the weather wasn´t up for it, so we are going to try again tomorrow. Luckily the group of girls we are with are all UW alums, with half being from Ann Arbor. It honestly doesn´t get much better then a bunch of Michigan badgers.

Yesterday Leah and I arrived in Pucon, Chile after a pretty much uneventful bus ride from Valpo. There was a moment of panic when our tickets weren´t collected, everyone around us was speaking portugeuse, and most of the signs on the bus were in portugeuse. Were we headed towards Brazil? Thankfully we arrived an hour early in Pucon and headed to our hostel. We were greeted by Gustavus who just couldn´t find his glasses(!!!) and was a little crazy, but very helpful. We signed up for white water rafting and settled in to our room.

In the early afternoon we were picked up by a shuttle and taken to a river where an instructer asked who was doing the baja course and who was doing the other. We were like what? and Leah asked what the difference was. He just laughed at us and it was obvious since we didn´t know the difference we were completely inexperienced. That didn´t matter though, because we chose the higher level (d4) anyway.

We were handed wet suits and instructed how to put them on. As expected, I put mine on backwords. Then we were given really cool shorts and an awesome windbreaker type coat and a helmet. Don´t worry, we have a picture of this sexy getup. Everyone was standing around sweating and had to get back into a bus for another 20 minutes, where we made friends with a german couple and a canadian with the thickest accent I have ever heard. Absolutely amazing.

We got in a raft with them and were joined by Carlos, our tough love instructor. He trained us well and by the time we got to the rapids an hour later, we were ready to go against the elements. I was in the middle, but Leah got stuck up front and basically was the leader of our raft with the other German. We battled against mini waterfalls and crazy rapids, and when pictures were being taken over a waterfall, the instructer jumped to the front and basically pushed Leah off the raft. It was kind of hilarious. (I might mention she was the only one who fell off...)

Halfway through the course we had to get out and trek through a forest because the rapids were so intense, a d6 level or something. Lets just say that the crazy water booties we wore were really not compatable with climbing and jumping down from giant rocks and hills. We did get to jump off a cliff edge though, apparently it was about 20 feet tall. Leah went before me and was like, "don´t go until I can turn around and see your face when you jump off." I waited and then jumped off with a crazy grin on my face. One of the germans told me I looked strangely happy when I was going down, so I feel like I pulled off not looking terrified.

We finished off our adventure by jumping into d1 rapids and being carried away. It was a little scary but lots of fun. We paddled our boats to shore and celebrated with beer and cookies. It was absolutely fantastic and I recommend it to anyone. Leah and I now feel like rugged adventurers (and I looking the part with my sunburnt nose). Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to climb up this volcano and make it back alive to tell you all about it!