White Water Rafting and Hot Springs Resort

Today we left Florianopolis and traveled to Santo Amaro to go white water rafting with Apuama Rafting. This was the first time that I ever tried to white water raft. Since there was an odd number in our group, we split up and 4 people went into one raft and 3 people were in the other one. I was in the raft with 3 people. 

 

Everything started out pretty well until we came to our first big rapids/waterfall. Our raft tipped over throwing all of us into the river. I was pretty scared since I can't swim and there was very fast moving water and a lot of rock obstacles. I think the reason that we flipped is because we didn't have the weight in our raft balanced out very well; I was on one side by myself. As soon as I hit the water, most of my body was under the raft, and I was afraid of getting trapped under it so I was struggling to get away from it. I also didn't wanna get too far because I wanted to be able to grab the raft rope so that I could hold onto something. So basically this translated into me flailing around in the water basically panicking because I didn't know what to do and the water was going pretty fast and I didn't know where I was in relation to anything. I'm pretty sure that the guy in our group, Rob, grabbed me at one point and said "your ok" (or something similar) which was very reassuring because I didn't feel so helpless because someone else was there. Eventually I ended up getting to some partially submerged rocks that the guys helped me get onto while they got the raft all situated and flipped back over. While on the rock, I proceeded to cry... Probably just because I was so scared and everything.

The guides were pretty nice about it. None of them spoke English but they kept checking to make sure I was okay (basically giving me a thumbs up sign lol). I did get back in the raft and finished our rafting trip. We didn't have any more mishaps after that first one and we rearranged ourselves in the raft to distribute our weight a little better.  

After a while, I noticed that my leg was a little sore. I must have scrapped my leg against some rocks and bruised my ankle during the raft tipping. I'll probably have a nice looking bruise covering the majority of the front of my  lower leg for a little while and my ankle is tender when walking. My chin is a little sore too, but I dont think its gonna bruise. 

Even after that bad experience at the beginning, I would still try white water rafting again. Next time I hope the guides are English speaking and that the weight in the raft is balanced out. 

The exit point for our rafting trip was right on a farm. It was really cool because one of the cows came up to say hi to us. It was really cute, and was a light milky tan color. 

After rafting, we went to our hotel which is at Áquas Mornas which is a hot spring resort. 

It's not what you think when you hear hot springs. I guess they take the water from the spring and put it in outdoor pools and they also had some pools indoors too. The resort is very nice! I think that I had the best dinner on this Brazil trip so far at the hotel. It was buffet style and they had soo many options. I got some beef, salmon, shrimp, veggies, potatoes, and tons of desserts.  I spent my afternoon/evening just relaxing at the resort.