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Showing posts from October, 2012

FDX Day Six

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Day six was a free day, so five of us decided to head to the Saqsaywaman (pronounced Sexy Woman) ruins and explore. Our hotel called us a cab and Ducky, Omey, Limbo, Caesar and I piled out on top of the hill at Sexy Woman. After Ducky and Caesar negotiated us a better rate for our tickets into the ruins, we went inside to explore. I asked a woman to take our picture, and it turned out she was a tour guide as well. We negotiated with Clara and ended up paying her 20 soles to give us a tour of the ruins. Clara told us about the history of Sexy Woman, how it was built and about the Spaniards invading. We tried to soak up all of the history, but were really having more fun taking pictures and enjoying the fact that we were in Peru! At the end of our tour, Clara left us and we did some final exploring on our own, including building a human pyramid and having a guy from Montreal take our pictures. After Sexy Woman we went back to downtown Cusco to do some shopping. Most of the st

FDX Peru Day 5

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The day began with rain, which didn’t seem to matter much since we were just going to get on the river and get wet anyway. It was our last day to raft – at lunchtime we would arrive at the takeout and head back across the mountain roads to Cusco. The faces in the raft changed some as Limbo and Hot Rod joined our raft and Omey and Caesar headed over to the “Noodle” for the day. We went through some big rapids again today, but with fewer rocks. Both days included Class 3 and 4 rapids and ended up being a lot of fun. We hit the deck a few times, bounced off a few rock walls on the side of the river and overall had a great time. Too soon the bridge came into sight and we had arrived at the take out. The “road” was up a steep rocky embankment and was a one-car wide gravel path. We set up another line and passed gear and rafts up the hill to load up. After another great lunch, we piled into the van for the four-hour ride back to Cusco. I hopped into the front seat to avoid any

FDX Peru Day 4

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After breakfast, we broke down our camp and started loading the rafts back up to continue our journey down the river. Apurimac means “the God that speaks” and we enjoyed hearing about the history of the river and Peru from Juanito. Our boat for the day was: Omey, Caesar, Hefty, Sunshine, Carnage and myself. We spent a lot of time laughing, taking surveys and enjoying our time on the river. There were a couple more portages and a few nerve-wracking moments too. Peru has lots of rocks. This particular section of the river seemed to have an abundance. It didn’t help that the river was low; the rainy season will be starting soon. At one point, we though, or I guess Juanito thought, we could squeak through a tight spot surrounded by rocks, and we ended up vertical on a rock. Water was gushing into the boat, but Juanito calmly climbed out of the raft and pushed us back off the rock and into the river. A little while later we ended up in a similar situation with more rocks and H

FDX Peru Day 3

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We loaded into a van early in the morning for the four-hour drive to the put-in on the Apurimac River. I sat near the back with Omey until the switchbacks high on the mountain roads and the gun it/slam on the brakes driving technique of our driver proved fateful to my stomach. I moved up to the front seat (thanks Ducky!) and we continued our drive. The front seat wasn’t much better though; I was slightly horrified to discover that our driver was falling asleep at the wheel while driving us down narrow mountain roads. The road was really only wide enough for one vehicle and one wrong move would send us plummeting over the edge and far beleow. We got out once when the two-wheel drive van couldn’t manage to climb a hill on a “road” with all of us in it. Somehow we managed to arrive safely at the put-in and after a brief downpour while we unloaded the van, we ate lunch and watched while they ferried all of the rafts and gear down the hill to the river. The put-in for the river was

FDX Peru - Day Two

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We had originally tried setting up a one day horseback riding trip with a local outfitter but found out when we arrived that it had fallen through. Our hostel had another outfitter who would take us out for four hours at a fraction of the price. At 9 AM we piled into a small car with the owner of the stable and a guy from Wales named Colin who was also riding that day. We chatted with Colin on the 15 minute drive to the stable and found out he was on a 4 month leave from work that included treks in Peru, Vietnam and several other countries. The quote of the day came from Limbo, who remarked, “You speak English really well.” The car was silent until I pointed out that Colin was from Wales and everyone started laughing. For the rest of the day, Colin called Limbo “Blondie.” When we arrived at the horse farm, we were introduced to a group of five from a Contiki tour who would also be riding that day. Javiar, our guide for the day, started assigning everyone horses. I was riding

FDX Peru - Day One

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It’s hard to know where to begin with my First Descents (FD) trip to Peru. The month (or perhaps more accurately months) leading up to the trip where a whirlwind of activity that left me more than ready for a vacation. Peru, especially Machu Picchu, had been on my “to do” list since my junior year of high school and Mr. Bourquin’s Spanish 4 class. I was excited to finally be going, but also nervous about the adventure that waited – three days of white water rafting and three days of serious hiking at altitude. On Sunday, October 7th I spent the morning packing and then headed to JFK Airport for the red-eye. After changing planes in Lima, I arrived in Cusco slightly tired and unsure of what would happen next. When I got down to baggage claim, Jen or “Caesar” as she is known at FD yelled to me and waved an FD t-shirt. We hadn’t met before, but exchanged a lot of emails prior to the trip planning our extra day in Cusco. I grabbed my luggage and we waited for Shanda (aka Limbo)

Last of the Lord Creek Photos

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Put it on your list for next year...it's worth the drive! Debbie loved the frog bridge in Willimantic, so I took a picture of that too.

More Photos from Lord Creek

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Can you tell I liked this farm?

Lord Creek - 3rd set of photos

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Lord Creek Hunter Pace Photos

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More photos from the Lord Creek Hunter Pace

Lord Creek Hunter Pace

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Two years ago, a friend of mine rode the Lord Creek Hunter Pace in Old Lyme and commented on what a beautiful ride it was. I wanted to go last year, but Hurricane Irene damaged the trails so badly, it was cancelled. This year, I called Debbie and we made it happen. The ride was back in September, but I've been a little busy so am finally posting about it! Secret and Duncan were both at their first hunter pace ever, but behaved really well. The weather was beautiful and Mary was right - it is a gorgeous farm and the perfect location for a hunter pace. Secret was game all day, I credit that with the horse camping trip to Rhode Island and the ride at Tyrone Farm. She is getting much more confident in her abilities. Unlike Tyrone Farm, she also behaved really well all day - there was no bucking at Lord Creek! We rode 9 miles, and passed other horses, were passed by teams, crossed water, sloshed through mud and much more. Hopefully we can return to this ride next year.