Chile Is sweet

After arriving in Santiago with boats, the team went about renting a truck for travel south. We decided that we would rather go straight to Pucon by bus in stead of renting another car as we had already arranged for a truck in Pucon. We took two taxis to the bus terminal only to realize that the buses would not accept our boats either above or below the coach. Parkito and Cabro left the rest of the gang at the bus terminal for many hours while they searched for a rental. They finally returned with a blue Nissan Terrano pick up truck and the team left Santiago for the Rio Claro.

We slept on the side of a dirt road near a National Park called Siete Tazas or seven teacups the name of the first section of river we planned on running. When we arrived in the park the river looked kind of low but good. We encountered many waterfalls and grand canyons that we had only ever dreamed of running. We found food in the park and ate some great steak and eggs for breakfast before finding put in. We decided on running a section called 22 Teacups and then went on a long hike along a gnarly canyon to scout a feasible put in. After we got boats and headed back to the put in we started running waterfalls. The first was a ten footer, then a thirty followed by insane clean falls with kickers and ramps. The highlight was following Canejos off a blind 30 plus footer into a big pool. Ormiga had an excellent day and several of us ran waterfalls that were bigger than any we had ever ran in Cali.

After our awesome descent Cabro ran the shuttle and then got the truck stuck trying to do a thirty point turn. We pushed the car out of the rocks and then proceed to attempt one more run on our first day of Kayaking in Chile before the sun went down. We put in at a bridge just before dark thinking that we were at the putin for Siete Tazas proper and would be easily able to descend one more canyon before dark. We were unfortunately at the wrong put in and ran several drops before realizing that we were at an unportagable crack falls with little room for escape. Lobo climbed up and set up ropes to get the boats and everybody out safely in the dark. It was a true test for Team Mas Profundo as we found our shuttle driver Parkito and got everyone out to the road. Lesson learned Know your putins and Take outs.