Day 2

We woke up at about 9am and headed to the hotel's breakfast. It was actually quite nice. We had fresh squeezed juice and local fruit. They made us eggs and we made toast. Carlos and Alex, our white water rafting guides picked us up at 9:45 to take us south of Cuzco.

We drove for a few hours in a van with some other people to a nice spot on the Urubamba river. We helped to pump up the rubber rafts and learned a few basics about rafting. Josh was the only person who had been rafting before, so it was a crash course for the rest of us.

We separated into 2 boats (Josh, Joshy, Linze, me, and another girl in one, and 4 girls in the other) and headed down the river. It was so fun. Our guide realized how strong we were (unlike the boat of really skinny girls) and took us right in the middle of strong rapids. We were a little worried about getting many different mouthfuls of water (which was very brown), but stopped worrying when we were having such a good time. Half-way down the river, we stopped the boat just after a bridge. Our guide offered for us to jump off the bridge into the river and swim back to the boat. Of course, Linze, Josh, and I "jumped" at the chance. Joshy was not feeling as adventurous, so he played camera man. (we'll post the pictures later since they were taken on a disposable water camera that has not been developed yet).

After our jump, we rafted further down river to our picnic spot. The picnic was much nicer than we expected. They had chicken, vegetables, bread, Crush orange soda, and hot tea. We gobbled it down, cleaned up, and headed back to the van to go back to the hotel. Unfortunately, we had lots of sunscreen on, but got very burned on our hands (where I didn't even think to put sunscreen). I also got the tops of my feet burned, and my lips. Josh got it the worst. Over the next few days, he developed blisters and today is peeling very badly. My lips also developed blisters and is just now feeling better.

Once at teh hotel, we went to go shopping at an artisan market where we found many more purchases. We then ate dinner at a restaurant next door to the hotel because we were meeting at 8pm with Juan about our hike the next day. The Boheme Cafe was the best place we had eaten yet. Very good Pisco sours and excellent food at great prices.

After dinner, we bought some local wine (the night before we had some local wine that was very sweet and undrinkable). We also bought a back-up wine from Chile in case the Peruvian wine was undrinkable again. We opened it and waited for Juan. He arrived and asked for a glass too, so we drank and chatted about what to pack, what the trail would be like, and what to expect for tomorrow.

Juan left and we got packing. We sorted through our stuff and took more out. Our hotel was going to keep our extra baggage for us so we could leave a lot behind. The company was going to carry our sleeping bags, so that made more room for our stuff.

We went to bed later than I would have liked (about 11) and took one last shower before our trip.

Peru - Day 3