Today, a bunch of us were going white-river rafting on the Urabumba river. I was really excited because I have never went river rafting before. We were all meeting at the Plaza des Armas, in front of the Mayuc office at 9am. I was going with Sabine, Hassan, Wes, Danny, Logan, Nassim, and Jessica. Mayuc was the company that serviced the river-rafting. The name comes from Quetchua. "Pachimama" means mother earth and "mayuc" means the veins of pachimama (or the rivers).

We left at 9:30am. It was a long drive (about 90 minutes), but I was in good company. I was sitting next to Jessica, an 18 year old that had just graduated from high school and wanted to become a speech pathologist. I told her about my stuttering and that I thought it was great thjat she wanted to be that. Upon our arrival, I was really excited. We got off the bus, and went to change into our bathing suits. They gave us wet suits and other rafting gear. We had to be in groups of six so I went with Sabine and Jessica, and we were paired with three Americans (Eric, Kevin, and Kacy).

We had a relly good team captain (which was one of the employees of Mayuc). He taught us the different voice commands that we needed to know to survive the rapids. I wasn't going to be that intense since we were only doing class 2 and 3 rapids, which are for beginners. We had to be bear foot in the boat, and the water was REALLY cold! I think it must have been at least 5 degrees Celcius. It was so cold that my feet would hurt when they were in the water for too long. One could easily get hypothermia if they stayed in the water for more than 20 minutes...

The beginning of the rafting seemed easy. I wished that we were doing a higher class of rapids, but I did not know if everyone felt the same way. We were going to be on the water for at least 2 hours. About mid way through the rapids, we stopped at an area that had calm waters and a cliff. Our team captain thought it would be funny to flip the boat and send us all in the water. We were all freezing! We then were offered the chance to jump into the water from the high cliff. I thought to myself, whynot! I have only one life, and I might as well take advantage of it to the maximum. By that time, I was used to the coldness of the water.

When we got to the end of the rapids, we were all proud of ourselves since no one had fallen off the boat (except for that forced time, midway). We were all chivering from the coldness, and hurried to the campsite. Thankfully, there was a sauna at the camp site. Everyone huddled inside the small sauna to warm up (especially the feet). After changing back into my normal clothes, everyone gathered for lunch (and hot tea or coffee).

After lunch, it was time to head back home. Again, Jessica and I had really good conversations (this time about religion) all the way back to Cuzco. After getting back, I had supper at home. There were more people that arrived that day (Winnie, a girl from thte States, and Maria, a girl from Venuzuela). Thank God we had more girls in the house!

That night, after supper, I was meeting up with Sabine and my tandem, Mijheall in front of Bembos at the Plaza des Armas. Paul, my roommate decided to come out with me as well. It was great having Mijheall, a local, come with us, because he got to show us around the real good places in Cuzco. We went to a small bar that usually played live music (but we were too early). He then showed us other placed, but in the end, we ended up at Mythology and Inkateam...

There, we met up with Hassan and his house mates. One of them (the 15 year old named Morgan), seemed like she was really having a good time (probably because it was her first time ever in a club). She introduced herself to me and then tried to come and dance with me. I immediately looked at Hassan and gave him a look that was trying to get him to help me get out of the situation. The more I backed up, the more she approached towards me. I finally crawled my way out and went and danced with Paul, Mijheall and Sabine.

Sabine decided to leave early with Hassan and his friends, while me and Paul and Mijheall decided to go to another place. We went to this place (in which I forgot the name) that was really trendy. I ended talking with these three sisters from Cuzco. I was really feeling comfortable now, speaking in Spanish. We also met this other group of volunteers at the club. I really like Cuzco, because everyone is so welcoming and friendly. you can really talk to anyone! At around 2am, all of us decided to go back home. Paul and I were a bit hungry, but too lazy to walk to a restaurant so we had a piece of bread at home and went to bed.