WEEK 19 - DURANGO, COLORDO - wednesday 1 september 2010

today we planned to do a bike ride along the river, but we’ve made some nice frinds here and they convinced us to go rafting down the river in the afternoon. a guy called josh weve met took us up a mountain in the morning [just a half hour walk uphill, although i nearly passed out due to the elevation, thought my chest was going to explode, looks like ive become unfit since weve rented a car haha], but the view at the top was exrtremely worth the breathlessness! we sat up there and chatted for about 20mins and then had to head back down so we could make it to rafting in time.

we headed back to the hostel and picked up Maude and Brendan, and headed out to the rafting place. it was SO much fun! i didnt take my little waterproof camera because the battery died [i know! i broke my number one rule! i let a battery run out!], but hey had a photographer along the riverside taking photos who got photos of us going down the rapids, where Maude and i promptly bailed! so funny, im hte one in the yellow helmet, and i had NO idea we were going to tip, i was just like yaaaaaaaaay and then was like what the heck?! when we ended up in the water, we were told to kick our legs up infront of ourselves and try and float, but the current was so strong i couldnt get my legs up and smacked my leg into a rock [ow] and then finally rolled onto my tummy and swam down the river to some rocks and climbed up. the nice tour guides went back and rescued our raft and helped some others who’d also been tipped out, and after ten minutes we were all on our merry way again! it was so much fun, i definately want to do more stuff like this back in nz! :)

in the evening we saw some deer outside the front door!

and we hung out at the hostel with everyone drinking beer and chatting, it was so fun, and we ordered a giant 18” pizza! so massive [of course i was too lazy to take a photo haha]