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Mendoza Zip Line and Rafting
On Day two in Mendoza we took an adventure tour into the Mendoza river, set between huge canyon, with the snow-capped as the backdrop.
Initially we did the zip lining which involved 6 different lines, with the ultimate one being the largest at 480m across the widest section of the canyon. 480m might not sound a huge deal but when you are stood half way up a mountain and you cant see the other end, its pretty scary…especially given my fear of heights.
We were given our safety equipment and several instructions by the guides all of which me and Rina forgot by the first practice zip line. I went first and completely screwed it up, pulling on the line like we were told not too and sent myself into spin and didn't move particularly fast. Rina on the other hand shot across the first line like a bullet and forgot to manually break by pulling on the line and hit the safety stop thing at the end which nearly propelled hear into a loop…pretty funny.
Next line, Rina nails it and I once again messed up by doing the cardinal sin of zip lining, which was putting my hand in front of the gizmo your attached to and makes you move, nearly taking my hand off. By the third I had got the hang just in time for the bigger lines and Rina was on good form.
The final line was in its own league though, we climbed to the point of no return and were both wetting it looking over the edge. Unfortunately by the time it was Rina's turn the wind had picked up across the canyon and when she set off you could hear from the noise in the zip line that she didn't have enough pace to make it to the other end, which resulted in one of the instructors going to get her cliff hanger style.
I started it pretty well but as I approached the end I began to spin because of the wind, and partly because of the mega friction burns as one of my gloves had wore down to far, which meant that I also had to be rescued.
After lunch we tackled the Mendoza river white water rafting, supposedly level 4 out of 6, however were told by someone that it was more like level 3. Again we were given the safety talk that scared us out of our skins, as we were both first timers.
I initially shotgun the front of the raft which was far more fun as you get drenched and thrown around every time you go down a rapid. We both found it real good fun and it wasn't really scary in the slightest…think the safety talks are a bit OTT.
That said as we hit a pretty big rock an Aussie flew out of the boat and everyone panicked a little, but being a true action hero I dragged him in…lucky for him it was prior to the test match.
Despite being our first time I couldn't help feeling that I wanted it to be a higher grade, as it was a little to innocent. Although from talking to others we had the best experience because our instructor was a bit of a legend and purposely crashed into rocks and made us all jump into the river towards the end…bloody cold!
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