Brazil, Day 7: Rafting
December 25th, 2008 at 7:26 am (traveling)
On Monday Iza, Cintia, and I met up with Iza’s godmother and her nephew, Philippe, and we all drove three hours out into the country to a little town called Brotas, which is known for its rafting attraction. I need not mention why we were there.
When we got there, we met our guide, picked up our lifejackets and oars, then took a 10 minute bus ride to the river. He gave us a quick lesson on how to hold the oars and what all his commands meant, and it wasn’t until afterwards that he found out I didn’t understand a word he said. He was a little worried at first, but then he remembered that most of the commands are in English anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
When we all got in the boat, we started out in a small “training lake”, where our guide made us practice following his orders, stopping the boat, doing cookies, etc. After about five minutes of this, we got out, picked up the boat, and walked across a finger of land to the river.
At first the water was pretty calm, but as we went on there were some tough spots. Eventually we got to our first 4-foot waterfall, and I think some of us thought we were going to die (go ahead and laugh). But then a little later on, we came to a series of several larger “cliffs”. Before we went over the edge, our guide had us back-paddle hard to stop the boat… then he dipped his hand in the water, blessed himself, and shouted “FRENTE!”
Fortunately there were photographers stationed on rocks all around.
By the end everyone was completely soaked through (partly because the guide pushed us in!), but we eventually we dried off in the Brazilian weather.
But when we got home, we discovered that while we were paddling down a river three hours away, in São Paulo people were also paddling (or driving?) down a river. In the space of 10 minutes, it rained the amount that it’s supposed to rain in a day!
Author’s note: We’re leaving early tomorrow morning to go stay in their beach apartment about 45 minutes away from here, and internet access may be inaccessible. I apologize to all my readers, but you may have to wait until next year to read about the rest of my trip! (I’ll be back on January 9th, so check sometime after then.)
FELIZ NATAL PARA TODOS!
Tia Rosa, Philippe, Iza, Eamon, Cintia
