Here I Come 2017

The last week of 2016 has been an incredibly varied one for me. Part of why I love working here in Pucon is that I get to work on a huge variety of sessions, everything from teaching stand-up paddleboarding on grade 1/2 to one-to-one kayak lessons on some the harder rivers in the area. This week was no exception.

Early in the week, I took a Chilean family down the Middle Liucura in Duckys. The Duckys are great fun because they're really safe and we can take out little kids with their parents, it's also, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful sections of river in the region.

This week I've tried my hand at raft guiding, ish. On Friday we took a big family group of 20 out on the Río Tolten. This involved taking three big rafts, 5 Duckys and 3 Stand-up Paddleboards. It wasn't the first time I've guided a raft, but it's still pretty new to me. Since this was a whole day trip, the rafts were kitted pout with frames to mount oars so that we could row them down the river when the guests didn't want to paddle. It was a really fun day out, which included a huge BBQ at lunchtime. I got the raft with all the kids and we spent the day jumping off the raft, playing loads of wet games and generally having a great time.

This was about a third of the meat that got cooked that day!

This was my office for the day.

The last day of the year was also a busy one. I spent the morning with a family of 10 Argentinians, also rafting, this time on the Middle Liucura. I took the kids boat again, it was absolutely freezing but we still played plenty of games. My Spanish is improving loads, since when you're stuck for 2 hours in a boat with Spanish-speaker that you have to keep entertained, you don't really have a choice.

In the afternoon, I went to the river with Valerie, the shop manager, to show her what our double kayak trip is like. I threw poor Valerie into every single wave and hole on the river, but we're still talking which is a good sign.

She's smiling, but inside she doesn't mean it...

 The whole day Pucón had been filling up with hundreds of people, it turns out that Pucón is the place to be for New Year's Eve. The whole evening and morning was one of the best New Year's celebrations that I've had. At midnight we went to watch the fireworks on the beach, the display was really cool and the shot fireworks which landed on the lake and exploded on the surface. The beach was absolutely packed with people and had a really cool vibe.

The streets filled up really quickly and the whole town turned
into a kind of street party.

All the nightclubs in Pucon were charging loads to get in, so most people in the town just partied in the streets. We wandered around for hours, stopping on various streets, drinking, dancing, eating, getting to know new people and generally having a good time. At about 5:30am we made it back to my room and slept for a few hours before coming to Loncoche. That's where I currently am writing this post, after walking off quite a vicious hangover... Tomorrow I'll be back to work with a full day of kayak lessons, but so far, 2017 is shaping up to be an amazing year. Happy new year to everybody reading this, I hope it's all you want it to be!