biking and rafting

I’ve been trying to treat myself to at least one fun activity a week.  So yesterday, I went on a mountain biking and white-water rafting trip.  Actually, I primarily wanted to do the rafting but it wasn’t that much more to add the biking so I figured why not.  There were five of us in the van – two girls from France, a woman from Switzerland and a guy from Germany – but we were all doing slightly different things.  Turns out that I was the only one doing the biking and the rafting!  (a few other people were doing a shorter rafting trip).

It took about an hour and a half drive to get to the start of the trip…we started with the mountain biking.  Just me and a guide.  And we started with a really long uphill in hot, hot, hot weather.  I didn’t make it.  I had to walk my bike most of the way up.  I’m sure it was the heat….nothing to do with being horribly out of shape.  Once we got to the downhill and flat parts of the trip, that was fine.  Anyway, the biking was okay, nothing special.  I was expecting that we’d be off-road on trails, but most of the biking was on paved roads.

We finished the biking and stopped for lunch.  And then it was time for the rafting.  Having never been white-water rafting before, I really didn’t know what to expect.  So I was a bit surprised that we left all my stuff behind, including my bag that had my suntan lotion, mosquito spray, change of clothes…and oh yeah…my wallet!!!  That made me nervous needless to say.  We didn’t just leave my bag sitting there, we gave it to someone to look after but I was still nervous.  But the next thing I knew, I was in a truck being driven to the rafting site.

There were only three of us in the boat…myself, the guide from my mountain biking and the captain of the boat.  My task was to basically listen to the captian and follow his instructions….row forward, row backward…stop…and get down (a very important instruction!).  Not sure what else to say…the rafting was lots and lots and lots of fun. The river we were on has some decent rapids and I got totally soaked (which is why we left all my stuff behind).  We also got out of the boat a few times and just floated down the river in our life jackets.  And the scenery…wow…some of the most stunningly beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen.  Worth every dollar I paid!!!

Near the end of the trip, there was a guy along the bank of the river taking photos with a polaroid.  He took two pictures, one of which turned out really nice.  The cost was only $3 and that included a really cool frame.  And in case you’re wondering….my wallet and all its contents were still in my bag.  And here’s the thing….when we got back to the lunch site, there were some other people who had just finished rafting with a different tour company.  Turns out one of them had a fanny pack with them on the boat…the boat overturned, fanny pack came off and was lost in the river.  Not only did this person have money in the fanny pack….they also had their passport!!!  Ouch!!!  Although I was nervous about leaving my wallet behind, having it end up in the river would have been much worse.