Salta Rafting

On Saturday morning we drove from  Cafayete to a lake near to Salta.  The drive was certainly not one to fall asleep during, as the scenery was spectacular.  It is described by some as martianlike, because of the variously sized and shaped red rocks that cover the area.  We drove past amazing rock formations for two or three hours, before the scenery changed again.

We arrived at Salta Rafting after lunch, and having got the tents out again, we headed off to try out the zip lines.  We had to clamber up to around 700ft to do our four zip lines, and that was quite an effort on a hot day.  But having got to the lines, the way down was much more fun!

Nic on one of the zip lines

The first line seemed slower than expected, but that may just have been because it was quite long. It was quite windy on the third line. I went first and came in quite fast, but a few of them came to a halt some way before the end and Martin, one of the instructors, had to go along the line and pull them in.  Nic had no such trouble as he came in too fast every time - they kept telling him how to brake, but I'm not sure he ever actually did!

We had a parilla at the site that evening and some of us enjoyed a game of Boonanza afterwards.  Boonanza is a Flemish game that was brought along by some of our fellow travellers, and the basic premise is that you have to plant and harvest beans.  It was fun, though I think the most amusement came from our laughable attempts at pronouncing the Flemish names of the different types of beans.

Nic middle left, Tabitha back left

On the Sunday we went rafting.  Now as some of you will know, I really do not like getting my face under water, so rafting has always seemed like something I should avoid as there is a distinct risk of falling in. But it seems like fun, so I thought I'd brave both the water and wearing a wetsuit to give it a go. So once fully kitted out with wetsuit, rubber boots, orange top, lifejacket, helmet and paddle, we had a bit of a drill about how to paddle and what to do if we fell in, and jumped into the boats.

Tabitha front left, Nic middle left

The first part was calm and gave us a chance to practice our paddling and the switching positions that might be needed if we were heading towards flipping the raft.  Needless to say a couple of people from our raft 'fell' into the water and needed to be rescued - thankfully not me though!  And it seemed that we couldn't go near to any of the other four rafts without a water fight breaking out, so we were all pretty wet long before we hit the rapids.

I have to admit that the idea of trying to swim to safety in the rapids didn't appeal, so I was quite happy that we had one of the two rescue dogs on our raft.  They had their special jackets on so that you can hold on to them and be towed to safety.  I for one had spent some time the previous evening making friends with these dogs, in the hope that it would encourage them to rescue me quickly should the need arise!

Getting very wet!

There were ten rapids in the stretch of river that we did.  They are only a level three in the 1-5 rating, so not that stretching, but still we got thrown about quite a bit and all got completely soaked. I was glad that we didn't flip over and that, though I came close once, I didn't actually fall out, but it was great fun.

On our raft, we agreed that at the end we would all get in the water and float the last bit of river.  Whole others leapt in I got in rather more carefully, but still ended up in a panic when I nearly - or at least felt like nearly - ended up being caught underneath two rafts.  However, with the help of our instructor Victor,  I pulled myself together and floated down the river to the point where we were supposed to get up and walk out.  And I couldn't stand up! Whatever I did, between the life jacket pushing me one way and not being able to get any purchase on the riverbed, I couldn't stand up.  Thankfully someone from one of the other rafts gave me a hand and I managed to get out of the water rather than still be left floating.

So in conclusion, I enjoyed the rafting and will probably do it again sometime, but next time I probably won't get out of the raft until we hit dry land!