November 14: Rest day in Huilo Huilo
I signed up for some rafting today. Apparently the rivers are high this time of year: it's been a wet spring, and maybe the melting snow contributes. So the rafting will be unusually exciting today.
I'm supposed to bring swimming gear: my only options are casual or cycling clothes so it's going to be my cycling outfit. It could probably do with a deeper wash anyway.
There's four safety kayakers with us today, but I rather think they came along more for the river than for us. They're all in short kayaks with waterproof skirts, you could drop a dumptruck of water on them and they wouldn't even slow down. Which is the right choice today because the river is looking wild.
From left to right: the river, seen from a bridge. This is what the day was mostly about; I’m somewhere in there under the water. I’m at the front, which means better views and more splash. The waves did get exciting. Rest day cake!
So the trip is all about paddling like crazy while the raft goes through the biggest waves on the river. The waves were big enough to really tilt the boat, which the photos don't show. They were far bigger than the kayaks. When not on duty paddling I saw some of them doing rolls and spins off the standing waves.
We regularly parked up on the side of the river, partly so people could recover but mostly to slow down - without them we'd get to the end in fifteen minutes flat, not the hour we were supposed to take.
Good times. Also today was rainy, so going rafting was definitely a better choice than riding. Tomorrow I’m riding to Pucon, and the weather should be nicer.
