4th day in Lanquin – The Peters and rafting

So who’s Don Pedro? Well, it turned out that we were three people named Peter staying at El Retiro at the same time, so we needed some way of telling us apart. I honestly don’t remember what we called the third guy, but the reason that I remember Don Pedro (apart from him being a really nice guy) was that he joined us for the rafting trip on my fourth day.

The group before heading out – Don Pedro is the third from the left.

Since the rumour about Lanquin an El Retiro seems to be spreading, there’s a few things happening around here. The new cave in Semuc is one thing and another is rafting. Martin, a dutch guy came by here a few months ago and saw the business opportunity: to set up a rafting business. He and his friend Adam has spent a few months surveying the nerby rivers in kayaks, and the week that I got there it was time for the grand finale: getting some paying customers on the river!

Martin before we set off on the trip. Or Adam? Or Martin? One of them at least...

Of course we didn’t go in kayaks – me and the other beginners would probably had been killed or something! As it turned out the rains the preceding days had made the river really hard. We stopped at one place and checked the water depth – at a place where the guides had never seen more than 180 cm before, the water now was at 270 cm!

The rapids had gotten at least one class harder, so the first real rapid was now a 5+! For those that know there rapid classifications, that is NOT a rapid where you take a boat full of beginners, especially when there is a 4+ right behind it! So we started the rafting by carrying the rubber boats 200 meters downstream. :-(

Myself with some of the easier rapids in the background. And yes, this was before I fell in! :-)

But after that it was GREAT! I fell in two times, one of them when the boat flipped and the other time when I didn’t go down fast enough when we went through a BIG wave. They tell me that I’m not supposed to admit that I fell in twice since the idea is NOT to fall in, but hey: where’s the fun in that!? But to be honest I was a bit afraid at one time when I got caught in a backdraft and had problems getting up again. But all’s well that ends well I guess... And I had the adrenalin running pretty much constantly for two hours – GREAT!

If you never tried rafting before: definitely recommended!

This scary-looking creature is actually very nice: Heather Kenison is a resident ski-bum in Squaw Valley that really made me want to come there for a visit (for the skiing only of course! :-)).