Effectively the majority of the day was taken up with a rafting trip to the Vilcanota River.
The group of 17 participants and 4 leaders left at 9.00 am and headed back towards Puno for about 1.5 hours. This brought us to a riverside establishment where the guides had the equipment ready for us to put on. This entailed a one-piece wet suit, yellow windproof jacket to make us more visible, helmet and life-jacket. We then drove 12 km further up the river to our starting point.
The guides gave a thorough briefing and explained all emergency procedures and we then split up amongst the 3 inflatable 4m rafts. We had 6 in ours with Tom and Jak as the bow team.
The river was about 50m wide and not very deep and the landscape meant that it was fast flowing within quite steep and rocky banks.
The frequent instructions from our helmsman guide/leader were responded to well and we made encouraging progress through the first kilometre or so without too much trouble. The rapids in this first section were free of big rocks and didn’t have any big drops as were to come later.
With increasing confidence we then entered a deeper gorge section where the current increased and the pathway became more problematic due to large boulders in the river. The passage through here was exhilarating and we made it without incident although the surging waves were enough to soak us all.
We then all had to exit the three inflatables and let the guides take them through a dangerous section where a Swiss tourist drowned last year. The danger is that there are sections where down currents can trap people under rock ledges and the force of the current prevents people from returning to the surface.
We then recommenced our downstream journey and experienced some small waterfalls where we dropped a metre or so amongst large amounts of white water; fun!!
All in all we covered 12 km and were on the water for just under two hours. We finished up fairly close to the guides’ headquarters where a sauna and hot shower were the order of the day. The guides then put on a luncheon for us and then we did the 90 minute trip back to Cusco.
The experience of white water rafting was not a new one for us but this particular trip was more demanding than previous ones as it had some sections classified as 3.5 on the 0 – 5 scale of rafting difficulty.
It is interesting to note that despite the potential danger of the day's activity, the rafting company didn't require us to sign any indemnity forms as surely would have been the case in Australia!