Lunahuana

I haven’t gotten any sleep last night and here I am ready to start my day at 6 am. Today was fun day Sunday. I had just packed my stuff the night before for sneakers, swimwear, and food to bring with me on the bus ride to Lunahuana. It’s about a 3-hour bus ride to Lunahuana. Having spent the night before downloading a mix of hip-hop, country, and Latin music, I placed my headphones on and enjoyed the rest of the ride there. Yes, and this is why I hadn’t slept the night before. I spent it downloading music so I could enjoy a painful 3-hour bus ride.

We finally arrive at Lunahuana and it looks like a complete ghost town. It’s a small dilapidated looking town that all it had were restaurants up and down every street. No residential areas. Just a bunch of random restaurants. It was odd. Good thing is that it sat next to the river where we would prepare ourselves for rafting. It one of the only few attractions the place had to offer. Other than that, I wouldn’t recommend vacationing here. I don’t know how people find out about this place unless it was advertised because you wouldn’t drive by this town and think to start water rafting. We change into our bathing suits and head down to the river. We formed groups of seven and hopped into our rafts. There were five groups. Our group was the first to set sail. We started out strong, just strolling and enjoying the ride until the raft behind us started throwing water at us and started taunts. Ok, guys it’s war. They try to pass us a few times but we would push them away with our oars. They became more and more aggressive as I thought this was all for fun, but I took it personally. I started smacking their raft with my paddle and call them names. It was a petty effort but they knew I meant business. We would eventually come to some adversities in the water when we encountered a pile of rocks. I knew we were screwed as I turned around too late to see that we have just crashed. We starting sinking like the Titanic, and ended up immobilized like sitting ducks. As we cried in despair, other rafts began passing us by laughing. I glared at them with disgust as I knew they were in a whole world of pain when or if we ever got out. We managed to get our raft back up and operating and we set sail again. We had a lot of ground to cover. Thankfully, we had a former rower on our squad. Unfortunately, she was only a coxen so she was essentially useless. Although, I was wrong to think that because she started coxing from the back and was able to get our group to paddle in sync. It was helping. We were pacing ourselves forward faster and faster soon catching up to one of the rafts. We had surprised them. So because I had not forgotten the spite I had, I took my paddle and whipped water at them. They got the message. We move forward to see that one other raft had just hit a giant boulder as well. We took advantage and began creeping up to second and first place. It turned into a race on the Regatta. Gabby, our coxen, began coxing again. 1…2…3…4…5…row! We rowed faster and faster. 1…2…3…4…5…row! We’re now trailing behind the group in second and I could feel the excitement of over taking them! One more push to recapture them! Ready. 1…2…3… *bloop*. What the hell. Why did she stop counting? I yell, “Gabby we need your coxing!” I turn around and she had vanished. Our whole team turned to find Gabby but she was nowhere in sight. Then we see an arm flailing in the river. DAMN! She had fallen out of the raft and no one had noticed. Poor, Gabby. We had to stop and pull her back in and there went our chances of podium finish.

We get to the end of the river and I walk up back to the raft shack in disappointment. Also I was chafing hard. We dry off and change into new clothes to get ready to ride some ATVs. This was going to be great. Cruising on ATVs was just want I needed. We hop on our ATVs and then followed the guide in single file to where I thought we would be able to roam freely. We follow and follow and follow until we get to a dead end road. We turn around and headed back to where we first picked up the ATVs. That was it. That was our ride. I release a heavy sigh. At least we get lunch.

We get back to town to have lunch at one of the 500 restaurants in Lunahuana. How we chose this specific one is beyond me because they were all the same it seemed. We finish up lunch and then headed off to the winery. Could possibly be the best part of the day for me honestly. What better way to cope with my despair than to drown myself in wine? And that’s exactly what I did. We had a small wine tour and the lady had us sample seven different bottle of wine. Of course, having been dissatisfied throughout the day I asked for seconds and thirds of each bottle, including the three Piscos of 40% ABV. I only took 6 shots of that.

Ok wine tour is over and I feel better now. We made our way to the center of Lunahuana for a small tour and pictures. Then headed to the river to take more pictures and enjoy the view. I also bought street meat which probably wasn’t a good idea, but I was really hungry. So, I turned off my security blanket and naively bought two skewers of chicken. I’m going to see a doctor after this.

We then head back to the bus and return home after a long Sunday outing.