16 Dec, Baños, Rafting the Rio Pastaza

Baños was having La Festival de Baños yesterday. I woke up and lounged around. At 10:00, I met Andria in front of her Spanish School for the parade. The sun was really hot yesterday so it wasn´t the most comfortable. Michael and Natura showed up and we didn´t stay long after that. We decided that we would check out rafting the Rio Pastaza. After a little persuasion for Andria, we ended up going. It was either four people or no people, so it was good that she went. It was $25 each for the trip which was not too bad, I suppose.

When we got in the van, our guide, Brain, said that we were supposed to do a set of four class III rapids. He made up a deal because he wanted to do something else. He said, "Listen, we can do this set of four class III trip for about a hour and a half, or we can do this set of 16 class VI-V trip which will take about 60 or 70 mins. Which do you guys want to do"? We agreed on the class VI-V trip, of course.

He continued to say, "now, you guys can´t tell the boss because this is supposed to be a more expensive trip, but we´ll do it if you want to". We thought it was kind of funny to know that he was probably bored with lame groups who just wanted to do easier stuff. So we stuck with it.

I hadn´t rafted in a few years, but it´s like riding a bike, it all comes back. We got in the raft and it was great. Just after the fist rapid, we stopped to check out this waterfall on our left. Then we headed down river again. This was great. I had never been in any water that big before. It was crazy. Michael and I got all the big water as we were in front, the girl, in back. About six rapids from the end, we stopped again on the right side of the river.

We got of at a river junction with a bridge over it. We jumped from this platform about six feet high, then Brian took us to one about 10 feet high. Then, we went up near the bridge and jumper from about 20 feet. I would have never expected that this would be in our trip, it was great!

We boarded the raft again, and took off the the biggest rapids to come, the class V. It´s so amazing to think that so much water can move that quickly. We went up and down over these rapids as tall as me. With everybody still in the raft, with smiles on our faces, we arrived at the landing.

We were taken 40 mins back to Baños and we rested a bit. Baños was gearing up for the street dance right outside our hostal, so we waited. As we rested, Natura made speghetti for dinner in the hostal kitchen. About 21:00 (9:00pm), we heard music blarring, so we went out to the street. We danced and danced. About midnight Michael and Natura took off and I tried to stay out with Andria and the gang. I made it to 02:00. That was all I had in me though. What a way to spend the day.