Rapid Adventures

This was a super fun day and we're all glad that it was a part of our trip. Our rafting guide - Alexander - met up with us the night before to do a little prep and go over what we needed to bring for the day which started at 8am. It took about a two hour drive south to get to the point of the river that we would be starting on. The drive was beautiful and along the way we saw Inca ruins, small towns, kids herding cows, and dogs, mules, bulls, and sheep all running wild. The ladies wear some interesting hats that don't seem very practical but Teddy told us later that long ago the hats were a sign of wealth. The rafting guides supplied us with all equipment needed including wetsuits, windbreakers, and helmets. We were only on the water (the sacred river) for less than two hours and the rapids weren't too crazy so we all really enjoyed ourselves. Alexander and our second safety guide, Orlando (aka Loco) were a blast. There was one spot where we had to walk over some shore rocks for maybe 100 yards and I couldn't believe how winded we got from such a short distance! This was the first point where I felt a bit unsure about how I was going to be able to handle the Inca Trail! After the rafting the guides had a dining tent set up for us with a nice picnic lunch. Then it was back to Cusco where Teddy provided us with our trail duffle bags of which I was able to (barely) squeeze in my allowed fifteen pounds of necessities for our trek. We used Trip Advisor again to find a spot for dinner and ended up at Mercelo Batata where each of us had Alpaca but all four of us had it prepared a different way. Another delicious meal and Tim's comments were: (1) the food in Lima was good, but the food in Cusco was terrific!; and (2) if you go hungry in Peru, it's your own fault.