Well, or as much risk as there is with any adventure sport. This time, it was the turn of white water rafting. I'd never tried it before so I was very excited to try it. Apparently Arequipa is one of the best places to do it.
We arrived to the location by the river in boiling sunshine. A perfect antidote for the freezing cold water. After swiftly putting on wetsuits and life jackets it was time to get in. For the first time, everyone in our tour/activity was a natural English speaker, it's weirdly refreshing. We had two brits and an American join us in our raft, along with the guide of course.
After being given a paddle we were straight onto the river. Thrown straight into the deep end. As we were setting off he started to explain a few of the commands. The amount of commands was like something out of Nazi Germany.
What was quite shocking was how shallow the river was for the majority. Only about a foot at best. You could see the rocks underneath. Thankfully all of the big rocks seemed to be quite smooth and didn't pose too much of a risk for our boat. I only thought the people on the other side of the boat were going to fall out once. Still, not something that you'd want to do. The difficulty grades of the river are classed mostly on how steep the drop almost is. Maybe a bit to do with the speed too. The majority of our ones were middle difficulty - grade III out of V. However, we were treated to a grade IV. At the time I was on the front of the boat so I got the best view of us dropping over the edge of a rapid. It seemed like we were just nose-diving straight into the water and that we'd all fall out. This was definitely the most enjoyable moment. After nearing the end of our trip we were told that we could get out of the boats and have a bit of a rest. Our guide points out a rock to me and says that I should swim over to it, jump off it into the rapids and then return to this side. The water was fairly fast but not the same levels as we had seen. There were no rocks sticking out at all. I asked him how safe it was and assured me that it was fine and they do it all the time. Thankfully I didn't have to swim across and four of us took a boat over to the other side. Danger slightly averted... for now. The climbing up the rock was fairly straight forward. I asked where we were aiming to jump into. They threw a small rock and said aim for the middle. I decided that I may as well go for it, because the longer I waited the more likely I was to chicken out. I took a few steps and leaped (not so gracefully) into the onrushing river. It was very deep. As I plunged I couldn't feel any rocks at all or the bottom. A short fight to climb back to the surface and then a brief swim across to the other side and safety. It was so cold! A quite bask in the sun and I was all good. That was a thrilling moment. No one else did it from my boat, only a few others from other boats. In a way it was a sense of achievement. I thoroughly enjoyed white water rafting and now I can't wait to do it again. That was easily the main highlight of the day, other than having several pisco sours over dinner.
