Pt. 4: River Rafting Madness

The meet-up for the rafting was at 9 am, which meant another early morning rise, as we still had to drive half an hour into Futaleufú. From there, a group bus took us to the starting point - which was exactly in the opposite direction, passing our campsite 😑

We were split into two boats of six rafters plus one boat captain, who in our case turned out to be quite the entertainer and reminded us of Captain Jack Sparrow - luckily he was quite sober. Overall, there was quite a lot of manpower involved: For each boat, there was an additional catamaran and a kayak to rescue people who went overboard. Very reassuring 😬 The rapids we were to encounter were class 4 and 5 rapids. That was just one class below the highest!

The first hour was spent with instructions: How to put on our gear (three layers of clothes/wetsuit plus life jacket and helmet), how to sit securely on the boat, commands to shift to the left/right/down and how to pull people back into the boat. We each had to do a trial run of jumping into the ice-cold 🤏 water and getting pulled back on.

And then we were off towards the rapids! With our boat captain shouting commands, we were giving our best to keep the boat on track, while the waves were crashing against us and water was splashing into our faces. After each rapid mastered, we celebrated our group achievement by raising our paddles and shouting in unison. We also had a quick stop at a big rock where everyone got the chance to jump in full gear from 5m height into the stream below. By now, Tim's new alter-ego had been unlocked: Tim Adrenaline was born!

Then came the big one: A strong rapid with big boulders 🪨 and a huge standing wave 🌊 Before approaching it, our captain jumped onto land to have a closer look and make a plan to navigate the rough waters. He told us we would have to paddle HARD to make it through, otherwise we would get stuck and flip. We were anxious but ready. Then suddenly, the boat dipped and the big wave was towering in front of us. Our captain shouted "Adelante!" and we paddled as hard as we possibly could. Our boat was thrown left and right, but we managed to hold on and make it through. Cheers all around! The other boat came after us, hit the wave, got stuck and flipped. But not to worry, the rescue boats arrived in a second, picked everyone up and we continued down the stream.

Initially, we had only booked the bridge-to-bridge tour, but when we reached the exit point, there was no question: We continued to the end! After having mastered the last rapids without problems, we were greeted with a table of drinks and snacks, including some very tasty banana cake that must have been home-made by the organizers mum. What a great adventure!

It was 1 pm when we were back in town and much of the day was still left, but we already felt ready for our hammocks. We made a quick stop for a "Perro Caliente Completo Italiano" 🌭 (a hot dog with diced tomatoes, avocado and mayonnaise) and took a break in a café in town. We decided we would not continue back onto the Carretera Austral, but instead cross over again to Argentina, which offered some interesting national parks on its own, and allowed us to avoid a 150 EUR ferry on the Chilean side.

So we hopped back into our camper towards the border crossing at Los Cipreses, after which the landscape changed dramatically once again. We had planned to drive through the Los Alerces national park, until we found out on Google Maps that there were wildfires in the area 🌲🔥 We stopped in the previous Welsh settlement of Trevelin, where the tourist information told us that our route would be no problem. Thus, we headed into the national park and found an overnight spot at a beautiful lake, with views of the surrounding mountains 🏞️ and unfortunately also the wildfire smoke in the distance. We had a well-deserved local beer with our dinner and fell asleep quickly after this eventful day.

🛶 Boat flips: 0
🌊 Wetness level: 10/10
🎢 Adrenaline level: 11/10 for Tim
🌭 Hot dogs eaten: 2
🛂 Borders crossed: 1
🔥 Wildfires seen: 3Leggi altro