Liz,

Now that your trip is over - what was the best part? sickest
riverboarding run? and how long before you go back? Share some
pics.. Glad you had a great trip!

Shane
--- In whitewaterriverboarding@yahoogroups.com, "gingerwatergirl"
<gingerwatergirl@...> wrote:
>
> This fall, I came down to Peru to do some riverboarding and
rafting.
> We planned to do 3 multi-day rivers, the Colca, the Cotahuasi, and
> the Apurimac.
> I ended up rafting the Colca for logistical reasons. It was a
> beautiful canyon, arguably the deepest in the world, next to the
> Cotahuasi river. It was technical class 5 rafting. It was awesome!
> We did the Colca in 5 days. 2 days later, we put on the Cotahuasi.
> I riverboarded the Cotahuasi, which had pretty low water, the
lowest
> our friend Gian Marco had ever seen it. It was steep, technical,
and
> continuous for 5 days, the 6th day being very flat and meandering.
> It was definately a challenging run for riverboarding. The only way
> of stopping was catching micro-eddies and scouting was pretty
> difficult a lot of the time. We had a lot of raft carnage. We
> flipped our paddle raft twice and lost a bunch of food. Then we
> pinned our gear raft, losing more food and quite a bit of gear. It
> was an epic trip to say the least.
> I found out when we got off the river that I was the first
> riverboarded to run the Cotahuasi. That´s pretty cool. I´m stoked.
> We´re working on getting it in the Peru river registry thing right
> now.
> The Cotahuasi is an amazingly beautiful river. It is logistically
> hard to get to, on, and out of the river, but it is a run of a
> lifetime. If you ever head to Peru, be sure to get on the
Cotahuasi.
> Check out my blog about the trip.
> http://findingconsciousness.blogspot.com/2007/11/rio-de-
> cotahuasi.html
>
> After the Cotahuasi, we took some time off the river to hike around
> the jungle and go to Machu Picchu. After 10 days off, we headed to
> the Apurimac river. We put in a little higher and ran the Black
> Canyon section before getting to the commercial section. The entire
> river was so beautiful we didn´t want to leave.
> This trip was smaller than the Colca and Cotahuasi. There were only
> 7 of us, which made the group dynamic a little different and great.
> The first 3 days were pretty flat, with little rapids in between
the
> long pools. Day 4 was when it got big. We ran a pretty beefy rapid,
> we later found out was the Portage rapid, and that was literally
the
> name. Ha ha. I have a video of it on my blog. I´m underwater a lot.
> The rapids were very steep and there was a lot of water. I found
one
> of the hardest things I had to deal with on my riverboard was the
> swirly eddy lines and boils in the middle of rapids, pulling me one
> way, while I was trying to go another way. The volume of water kept
> increasing every day, every tributary. It was some big water in a
> tight canyon.
> I think the Apurimac was my favorite of the3 rivers we did in Peru.
> Just the beautiful scenery, and the contrast of the white granite
> boulders was amazing. The whitewater wasn´t so bad either.
> Check out the blog on that one too....
> http://findingconsciousness.blogspot.com/2007/11/rio-de-
apurimac.html
>