River rafting on the Petrohue River, near Puerto Varas, Chile, March 28, 2018

Only three photos from this fairly epic outing.  Brad and I were supposed to go sea kayaking today, but since todays weather was overcast and rainy and tomorrow was going to be a blue sky day, Richard, the owner of Ko Kayak switched the trips around.  We relaxed at the hotel in the morning, and got picked up for our raft trip at 2:30 PM.  The raft trip itself only lasted an hour...but it was nonstop whitewater...class 3 and even 4, a lot of class 4 rapids I think..it was big water (because of high water) rapids the entire time.  Brad and I were in the front of the raft (this was a paddle trip, with our guide in the back, and all of us paddling as instructed).  Marguerite, a 50 year old paramedic from central Chile joined us and was behind Brad.  Couldn't bring a camera and take photos..would have been a good one for a go pro strapped to the helmet...  None of us got thrown out and our guide sent us right down the middle through the largest rapids..although I think it is fairly common to get thrown out.  We also jumped in the river about half way down...Marguerite almost didn't do it but finally jumped on about our guides fifth count to tres.  Our guide was "Cheesco" (Francesco), and he was great.  He was also our guide the next day sea kayaking.  I wish we would have gotten a photo of Marguerite with the two of us, but we forgot.

The next day, we had a great visit with Haley and Brian, two Canadians who rafted the river, and then went back and kayaked the river in an inflatable kayak.  Their raft flipped on the raft trip but amazingly they didn't flip their kayak.  Frankly, I can't imagine how someone with no real experience could do it.  This was a young Canadian couple (she was a new doctor doing a fellowship in Boston..he was going to flight school).

Three photos from before we took off on the raft...I look goofy as hell...but since it shows the river I add it anyway.

One last note:  after the trip we had sandwiches and drinks at the rafting base, and in halting English, Marguerite said I had a movie star face...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Perhaps Marguerite was visually impaired😉