Waterfalls, Pyramids, and Tacos - Mexico 2008

Hitting the mega boof of La Luminosa on the Salto

In November 2008 an intrepid team consisting of Frankie, Grandad, Katy, Tom, Pete, Donna, and I headed over the Atlantic to travel and boat around Mexico for three weeks. We spent our time in the states of San Luis Posti and Veracruz. I've got to say that it was a superb trip. Mexico has some amazing and unique rivers, (a lot of which are still unexplored), super friendly people, and excellent cuisine. Combine all this with plenty of cultural interest. I've been left wanting a lot more of what Mexico has to offer. I've got to go back.........

We flew into Mexico City (via Charlotte USA), and from there we headed north on one of the excellent executive Mexico buses to get to our first destination - CD Valles. This area is home to the famous Micos Cascade, the Salto, and the Santa Maria river along with a lot more. We stayed at the excellent Expediciones Huaxteca campsite at the bottom of the Micos waterfalls run. If you ever make it out there Expediciones Huaxteca come highly recommended. They sorted all our shuttles as well as providing somewhere to pitch a tent. They also did our food (which was absolutely top notch - some of the best we had in Mexico), at sweet prices. Their staff were excellent and couldn't do enough for us. The campsite was probably the most pleasant we'd ever been to, with great facilities and an excellent setting. This was also a twitchers paradise - with loads of cool birds like parrots flying about. The campsite was pretty central to the rivers of the area and it was really easy just to nip to the top of the Micos Cascades for a quick blast.


Our first campsite on the banks of the Micos river


Our all terrain Huaxteca shuttle bus


Tom at the spectacular Micos put in


Lining up the first fall of the Micos


Frankie heads off down the first few drops of the Micos


Heading off down the Micos whitewater playground


Frankie on a small Micos slide


A 28 foot Micos plunge


Enjoying the final set of cascades on the Micos


Tom takes another route on the final set of falls


Frankie doing some filming

Along with the Micos, this region is also famous for the Salto, a long section of drops and small slides through some pretty Mexican jungle. Have a look below......


The whole gang gathers at the spectacular falls at the take out of the Salto


El Nemo - the first big plunge on the Salto


Tom runs El Nemo


Over-rotating on a 30 foot drop on the the Salto - painful!!!


Frankie takes a much nicer line


Tom flies off the same drop


La Luminosa - one of the most fun drops I've ever done


Pete goes airbone


Grandad goes for it


Grandad runs one of the many Salto falls - El Trampolin....a sweet 20 footer


Getting some more verticality on the same fall


Pete taking a chunky rapid on the Salto


Mexican flora and fauna part 1 - a very pretty flower


Flora and fauna part 2 - Snake!


The team enjoying a delicious meal after a spectacular trip on the Tampaon section of the Santa Maria river

The San Lluis Potsoi area really is amazing. I can't recommend it enough, you need to go! Plenty more from Mexico to come soon - Veracruz State, lost jungle cities, and a good dose of boating...........

Wet West Paddle Fest

In the middle of September a small gang of us headed north to Fort William to see what the Wet West Paddle Fest was all about. I'd not been to any big paddling type events for a while due to a strongly anti-social sense of avoiding crowds on rivers. I've got to say though that it was a superb event - great boating and really really nice people. I would imagine I'll be back up for this festival again. There was a great atmosphere throughout the weekend and we all had loads of fun. Thanks to Jo by the way for letting us make her house look like a squat for the weekend.


Playing on the Garry


Confidence inspiring sign at the Moriston put in


Getting ready to float down stream on the Moriston


Beef decides to melt in the guts of the first drop


Brinky also goes deep


Dave enters one of the longer Moriston rapids


Working my way through a rapid on the Moriston


G Diddy enjoying himself


Beef lines up for the last drop of the Upper Moriston

Turkey - another large portion

The Alara was just over into the next valley from the Manavgat. It was a pretty stunning place, and we ended up spending a few days there. We were well looked after by a local restaurant owner and his staff. We spent our nights sleeping on the roof of his place, after eating copious amounts of food. The Alara river itself was a quick two minute walk down the hill from the restaurant which was handy as it doubled up as our washing facility. The valley was extremely beautiful and there were several sections to do on the river. We didn't managed to get them all done but the stuff we paddled was excellent, especially the middle Alara canyon also known as the Kaiser Gorge which I would dearly love to have running in the hills near my house.


Chilling out at the Alara restaurant - some of us slept on these platfroms


While the rest of us slept up here


A spring at the put in of the top Alara gorge


Deep in the first Alara canyon


Sheer rock walls don't make for fun portages


Beef drops into the Kaiser gorge


Working through the Kaiser gorge


Ali and Beef work their way down stream


Approaching a boof


Beef gets some air


Ali goes for the boof


A tight Alara drop


Heading off into the canyon


After a long day on the river it's bath time


Donna gets to grips with the washing facilities


Frankie messing about in the bathroom

The Alara was truly amazing. The river was so sweet, I wish I could paddle it regularly, we were sad to go. After spending our time at the Alara we headed back to the Dalaman via Alarahan Castle, which was spectacular in itself. Once back at the Dalaman we spent a couple more days enjoying the river there before the trip home.


Alarahan Castle


The only way to get to the castle was to climb through a series of tunnels.......


.........which were full of bats........


..........who loved to flutter round our heads


Another chilled out evening with great food


Nadir tries to relax before more Turkey Euro 2008 action

As it turned out Turkey was an awesome trip.....I think much better than any of us expected to be. The people were amazingly helpful and friendly, the food superb, the weather was awesome, it was cheap, and the boating was excellent. I can't really fault it. The rivers felt remote and were beautiful, and it's hard to believe that there are places like this so close to UK. I can't recommend South West Turkey enough, creeking in blazing sunshine for a fraction of the cost of an Alps trip - sweet.

Thanks to Alternatif Outdoor who set the trip up for us and especially to Nadir our driver who went above and beyond the call of duty to look after us. I'm sure we'll be back to Turkey soon.....


The gang

Turkey - the main course

The Manavgat is quite close to Korpucay but it felt like a world away. The Korpucay area was the most touristy place we went to on our trip, and the river itself was heavily rafted. The Manavgat was just about the complete opposite. Once off the main road you were into a remote unspoiled area. Everyone in this area seemed to be getting by on small scale farming on the rugged terrain surrounding the river. As we got further in the area we realised the boating was going to be committing to say the least.


Getting down to our campsite beside the river


We were surrounded by these......


Moon rise from our campsite

After a good nights sleep and breakfast with a local family, we set off to paddle the "grand canyon" of the Manavgat. We knew that this was probably going to be a long day out......we didn't really comprehend how long. The river started off as a small stream in a steep valley. Once we were in there was clearly no way out. This first section was tough, we would paddle for a hundred metres or so only to come to a boulder choke that we would have to clamber over and around. A couple of times the river would disappear underground. This was hard tiring work. A couple of times we had no choice but jump into the water and swim across pools between the chokes. This was all pretty miserable so there aren't many photos. We had about 3 hours of this before things changed dramatically.


Floating down the top of the river before the boulder choke hell began


Boulder purgatory

The boulder chokes seemed to go on for ever and we were really suffering. Just before it all got too much though we rounded a corner and we saw the welcome sight of huge springs bursting out of the sheer sided gorge which reared up before us. The gorge walls were immense and completely awe inspiring. The spring water flowing between the walls was clean and clear, and the volume of the river increased tenfold. The whitewater really kicked in now. The rapids were long and steep with very short pools in between. Pretty much everything had a line and we started to really enjoy ourselves. The drops kept on coming and the gorge seemed like it was never going to end. Eventually after nine hours on the water we emerged from the canyon to arrive at our campsite. We were absolutely exhausted but we all agreed that we had just experienced one of the best river trips we had ever had.


The walls rise and the springs start to flow.....


With a huge spring to the side of him Frankie fires it up on the first big drop of the canyon


Heading downstream in the gorge


Grandad running the last bit of a double drop


Leaning back a bit too much on the same rapid


Getting ready to get back on the water after one of the few portages in the main canyon


Jamie approaches a nice boof


Approaching a Manavgat 10 footer


Wide view of the same drop


Landing the boof


Frankie lines up the same falls


At the bottom of a nice slide and drop


Grandad lines up on a rapid


Looking back upstream at the canyon


Matt nearing the bottom of a long rapid

The canyon went on and on luckily at the bottom we were able to relax after a long day by looking at yet more Turkish wildlife.


Frogs


Tortoise

After our long day on the Manavgat we soundly for a long long time! We then packed up and headed over to the Alara river where more adventures both on and off the river were in store. More on that soon..........

Another helping of Turkey

After a couple of days at the Dalaman we headed east across the mountains to check out a couple more rivers and some more Turkish culture.

We made our way past Antalya stopping only briefly for a kebab and a much needed visit to a Haman (Turkish bath). After a fairly long drive we arrived at a rafting base on the Korpucay river............


One of the many beautiful mosques we saw on our travels


Gotta love Turkish cooking - kebab time!


Hanging out with the law, and knocking back a few cups of cay (Turkish tea)


View from our campsite at the Korpucay

The Korpucay was the easiest river we did. There were loads of nice little waves to mess around on, and it was perfect to chill out on after a couple of days creeking on the Dalaman. The Korpucay was also the first time that we encountered some of the springs that feed the rivers in the region. These springs flow straight out of the gorge walls adding loads of volume to the rivers. They were always a spectacular sight and it was the first time any of us had seen anything like it..........


Another breath-taking bridge - this time at the top of the Korpucay


Frankie messing about below one of the springs


Matt surfs the Korpucay

One of the best things about Turkey was the food which you could always be sure was fresh. This is illustrated by the meal we had after boating on the Korpucay..........


Always make sure you stay to the middle of the flock


Woolly jumpers for everyone


Took about ten minutes from running about the hills to this stage


I don't know who eventually ate these

After a feast of BBQ lamb, and a great nights sleep we headed off to the Manavgat gorges where we encountered the hardest boating of the trip, more on this soon..............

A Slice of Turkey

In the middle of June 10 of us headed of to paddle in South West Turkey. It was an superb trip. The rivers were amazing, the locals were incredibly welcoming, the scenery was spectacular, and it was very very hot. All in all it was one of the best boating trips I've ever had. We started off at the Dalaman river which was pretty sweet by anyones standards. Deep gorges, crystal clear water, and of course brilliant continuous rapids. All this about an hour away from the airport. We hired our transport and driver through www.alternatifoutdoor.com. Get in touch with them if this has whetted your appetite...........


Going for the boof on the Upper Dalaman


Our Dalaman raft base campsite


Miguel going through the motions on a Lower Dalaman rapid


The finish of the Lower Dalaman - nice bridge


Nadir our driver, welcomes us off the river


Heading off down the Upper Dalaman


Frankie slides.......


.....then boofs his way down the Upper Dalaman


In the middle of a nice section on the Upper Dalaman


Frankie comes to the end of the same section


Matt cruises down the upper section


Miguel squeezes between some Upper Dalaman rocks


Frankie at the get out for the Upper Dalaman


After a long day of boating, Grandad goes into Standby


First bit of Turkish wildlife - land crab


Night time at the Dalaman

More Turkey soon, Korpucay, Manavgat and Alara rivers........

The Archives strike again

I got up this morning ready to go boating only to find that our fickle climate had knocked that idea on the head. So I've been left to day dream about paddling again, which brought me back to our trip to the South East States last summer. Here's a few pictures from those two weeks................


Getting ready to drop on the Tygart



Snowy with yet more cutting edge gear



Grandad signs up for the National Rifle Association


Donna firing off


Donna being political.......


Brinky at the famous Hells Hole - Ocoee river


Brinky cools off after a surf session


In Asheville with our hosts Eli, Megan, and their entourage



Barry Kennon's beach retreat


Brinky pops up in the Slab hole


Night time Slab fun


Eli works the Slab



Woodall Shoals campsite on the Chattooga


Sliding on the Tygart


Ben lines up for a drop on the Tygart


Obligatory wildlife shot