Trancura

Thursday afternoon of the conference was set aside for excursions. We had a choice of visiting the hot springs, the volcano caves, or river rafting. I'd already done the hot springs at Huiffe (no pictures to follow of that, though), and I had already climbed the volcano, so burrowing into it didn't hold much appeal. I decided on river rafting.  I'd only ever been tidal bore rafting, which I loved, so I thought rafting was a good choice.

It was 4 rafts of zooplankton people. It was run by an adventure tourism company that operates out of the hotel that the conference was in. We caught buses at the hotel and they took us out to the start of the rafting trip. It was a little unorganized at first, it took awhile for the guides to get out the gear and pass it around. We wore 7mm wetsuit janes/johns, booties, a heavy-duty waterproof jacket, pfds, and helmets. They gave us a crash course on the instructions and what to do if you fall in, and how much the paddles cost if you lose them ($30 USD), then we were off.

It was only a level III rapids, which isn't very high (from what I understand). There was a couple of times where it felt like we'd been swamped, but I never actually thought I'd fall out, or that we'd flip. Although, my paddle did catch on a rock once and I almost lost it. I forget how many rapids we went over, but they had names like Lion and Killer Rock. The company had a photographer on hand to take pictures and sell them back to us, so we all chipped in on a disc of >200 pictures. I've pared that down and you can see ones of (mostly) my boat. I'm in the back, on the starboard side.