Whitewater — Page 3

We were introduced to Kayak 360 through the good people at Kayak Huasteca who had showed us the way down the waterfalls at the Rio Micos only a few short days earlier. Working out the logistics of where to be and when proved to be a bit of a challenge [ad#final-review-ad]was Kayak 360 is located off the beaten track, down by the river, far away from the city of Xalapa where we were staying. Had we had a car, this wouldn’t have been so difficult as Kayaking is just not a public transportation friendly sport.

Once there we had our choice of boats, mostly wavesports which suited us well, and were able to try on PDFs and skirts as well. All gear was in great shape and, even better, dry! Within a matter of minutes we were loading up the truck and hitting the river. As it was only two of us on the trip, one guide was plenty and the other members of the lodge who joined us in a raft were a welcome addition. Our guide, Tio Memo,has been paddling the area for 18 years and knew every nook and cranny of the river. He was a great guide, telling us everything we needed to know in advance. As the river is in Mexico, it was doubly appreciated that Memo spoke fluent English and we never had to be concerned with a language barrier.

For a full trip report click here but suffice to say we had a great day on the river. The folks at Kayak 360 were a pleasure to kayak with and, despite the fact that our group numbered only 2, were willing to handle all logistics and give us a very private day on the river. Thank you Kayak 360!

We used Kayak Huasteca for our trip down the waterfalls of the Rio Micos. I think the best part about kayaking with Kayak Huasteca was simply how flexible they were. With only a day or two of notice we were not only able to join them on the river but were also supplied with all gear and three guides for our group of four. I had heard a great deal about kayaking the waterfalls of Mexico long before I entered the country and could not allow myself to miss it. Aaron, Marjie, and Tomato (Alex) showed our group a fantastic time.

For starters, my wife and I consider ourselves to be intermediate kayakers. [ad#final-review-ad]I shared this with Aaron when working out some details in advance and he told me that the water was low enough that even non-kayakers would be able to handle the water with some minor instruction. I was shocked that he would be willing to take a couple of newbies over waterfalls but after seeing the falls and having such a wonderful time I would have been disappointed if he hadn´t included our inexperienced friends. Instead of it being just my wife and I, two of our backpacker friends were able to join and had the time of their lives.
On the river, the guides took the time to show the newbies how to perform a wet exit (eject from the boat when submerged) and call for help while submerged. The whole time I felt that they really respected the ability of individual group members, never did they push or cajole our inexperienced friends to do anything they did not want to do or were uncomfortable doing.

Once that was taken care of we hit our first fall and were able to run it as many times as we wanted. Where possible the trio of guides took movies (on our own camera) as we went over the falls, gave us a push when we needed it, and told us the easiest way to climb back up to do it over and over again. They also had their own camera to take pictures for us.
In the end we had an absolutely great time while I can say this had more to do with the fact we were running waterfalls than anything else, it was the attitudes of our guides that really made the day. Had they been indifferent or inflexible our group would have been cut in half, the run much much faster, and without all the extra fluff (paddling behind the curtain into caves, jumping over falls, repeating falls backwards, etc) that can really make things memorable. Thank you Kayak Huasteca!

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