One of these being unlimited amounts of power, every little bit we got was like gold. You needed to conserve every ounce of power for the classes you had and any project involving your laptop. Which most of these we learned to live without even writing 6 page papers all on loose leaf so you could turn it in. Now, that we’re back I doubt you don’t take a second thought about just plugging in your computer or phone. This is definitely a convenience-thing

The consumption of food we eat in America is absolutely ridiculous along with how much of it turns into trash anyway because we also throw away so much of it. The intake of watching how many people were just eating so much food at the airport was absolutely mind-blowing. All that food could’ve fed all those kids on the rocks we see everyday for months on end. Where does all that uneaten food go anyway? It doesn’t go to good use or get used; it just gets thrown in the trash. When there could be people for sure eating most of that food. A lot of it is still good such as, the bread they throw away at the grocery stores because it’s a day old in the bakery. There is nothing wrong with that bread yet it gets thrown away.

When we’re struggling through the airports with all our bags and boats and gear no one stops to help you when everything falls off your cart or in some airports you don’t even get a cart to make you life easier. Everyone just watches you struggle tremendously trying to maneuver your stuff around. I love when people will look right at you and not even offer you a helping hand. If you were in Africa or any place other than America someone would stop and go out of their way to assist you.

The lack of stuff everyone in Africa needs to be happy is absolutely amazing the have never seen an iPod nor heard of one yet they will leave the rest of their lives content and perfectly fine. They need very little to actually be happy. Everything there is a new experience or adventure for them. They appreciate the absolutely littlest things and take it all wonderfully and one day at a time. Everything is simple and right to the point it has its purpose and that’s that.  There is no need for extravagance. There is absolutely not enough money for that. Everything needs to do its purpose and cost as little as possible to get it done yet work and last for a long time.

The order maintained in our road systems is absolutely something to behold. There are rules that you need to follow and you need to keep a certain speed and control. There is no room for chaos; everyone would crash in our society the fact of “just going with it” is not existent. A tree in the road would block it for hours here. While there a group of people would work together and just move it or cut it up and again just move it. The mass of everyone moving down the streets in Uganda was mind-blowing how everyone gets to where they need to go without crashing is crazy.

Its also a comfort to see our society is in order like we’re not in a strife with our government. It’s also nice to know things aren’t rigged like they are there. Its lovely that people don’t just randomly start breaking out into riots and start getting tear gassed to keep it under control. The safety here or what you feel is more safety here is great. Guys aren’t just walking around with a big gun strapped to their back and you better hope the right guy is carrying it there. Here there in the US are forms and codes you have to maintain to keep it.

We do have our benefits and much more order to our society because we already went through many things to get to that order. While they are still trying to figure out how get up in the world and develop a modern society. But, do they really need to? The simplicity of everything there was absolutely phenomenal and those were some of the happiest people I’ve ever seen.

A llegar a la isla ‘Hairy Lemon’, tu tienes conducir en un autobus y pasar todos los ninos Africanos. Son reyendo a ti con dientas grandes y blancas. Duepues, la calle termina al rio y lamas para un barcito te llevas a la isla. Tu pones todos tus equipajes para remamos a la isla. Depues, tu llegas a la playa. Tu ves la cocina y mesas para comer. cuando nosotros llegamos lo y nosotros comemos almuerzo como un buffet. Tu puedes ver arboles tropicales y monos saltando de arbol y arbol. Cuando tu caminas de la cocina, primero que ver es el lugar de chill con sillas, hammocks, y sofas. Camina mas y verias las cabanas y una playa. Si camina sobre la subida, tu puedes hacer un lugar para tu carpa. Tu quieres elenier un lugar debajo de un arbol. Despues, pones todos tus ropas surfear. Yo surfeo a lado de muchachos Africanos y ninos en las piedras. Tu puedes tirar trucos imendros. Depues, tu vuelves y poner ropas altos y DEET para protejer los mosquitos. Despues, tu comes cena cual es sopa y una otra comida. Despues cena, es tiempo para dormir.

So far, every person we have seen or met here is very nice and always willing to help you any way possible. This country is a very beautiful, especially the little island paradise we are staying at for the next 4 weeks. The Hairy Lemon is a kayakers paradise for sure. We also play volleyball in the shallow water during our free periods and lunchtime. The Canadians always seem to win no matter how many people we put on the other team. We have school all throughout the day and it ends right when the Nile Special is coming in. How’s that for perfect timing?

Check out pictures on my facebook at http://www.facebook.com/cote.taylor

Helmet cam shot of Garganta from below

Normally, I would start out a blog with a short description of what New River Academy just did, but this experience was so unique and so amazing that a simple sentence saying that New River Academy ran Garganta del Diablo would not do the experience any justice.  Everyone’s seen the pictures and the movies of it, and going it we had all thought that we knew what the rapid would be like.  Yet from the moment we did the ski ramp into the canyon, it defied all expectations.

The entrance that commits you to Garganta and the rest of the canyon is a pretty unique rapid in itself.  It consists of about an eight-foot long slide that kicks up for five feet at the end before falling about eight or nine feet.  With the right speed and stroke, you can soar off the lip and splash down happily in the pool.  After that you go around a corner, and there it is: Garganta del Diablo, perhaps the most picturesque and unique drop in the entire world.  I’m going to take a break now and explain Garganta for those who haven’t seen it before.  From above, it looks like a gently sloping slide that turns almost 180° before going off about a ten-foot waterfall.  If this were the case, Garganta would still be an amazing drop.  Yet this is not the case.  In reality the slide is descending almost straight down and it finishes in about a thirty-foot waterfall.  When our group got to the pool above the drop, we circled up and did a cheer then with the encouraging words of “roll up at the bottom,” Tino entered the rapid.  Following him was Lorenzo.  Then me.  When the whistle signaling my turn sounded, I took a deep breath and paddled to the lip and entered the slide.  I instantly accelerated to a speed I thought impossible as I rounded the curve.  As if from a different life I remembered to take a stroke before the lip then tuck.  The feeling of speeding up was then replaced with a falling sensation that ended with hammer blow of impact.  When I got my bearings I realized that my skirt had imploded and I was heading for the right wall that you don’t want to be on.  So with water pouring into my boat I sprinted over to the eddy where Tino and Lorenzo sat cheering.  While I put my skirt on over my boat that was half full of water I looked up at the drop that I just ran and cheered.  From the bottom it looked so much different, so much scarier, and so much bigger.  As I sat in the eddy, I was experiencing such a feeling of euphoria and accomplishment that I just ran the drop that I’m staring at and didn’t even flip.  There is no feeling in the world that can come even close to compare to that feeling.  After that Clay, Alex, Taylor, Mackenzie, and finally Kira dropped down.  Everybody styled the line and the only mishap is when Taylor’s skirt imploded and was forced to swim even though she nailed the line.  After everyone was gathered we started heading down the gorge.  This gorge was about a mile long and it has several challenging rapids that get no glory because of the glory of Garganta.  In it are a couple boat wide slides, a stout three footer, a fifty-foot waterfall that you paddle under, and a few more rapids that require a great degree of skill.   We paddled through these with no problems and enjoyed the sights all along the way. After one of the last rapids I felt a burning sensation on my leg, so I popped my skirt and there was a scorpion sitting on my leg stinging me at will.  I immediately pulled my legs out and yelled, “I’m being stung by a scorpion!”  Everybody looked at me confused, which is understandable because this wasn’t exactly a normal situation.  Finally Lorenzo got over his confusion and paddled over to me while everyone else still looked very confused.  He then directed me to a shallow spot where I could get out of my boat.  After I was out we looked into my boat and saw a brown scorpion looking back, so he took out his knife and cut it stinger off then threw it in the river.  During this time, all I could think about was horror stories of scorpions that I had heard growing up and that time I saw a show on how one type of scorpion had the most potent venom of any animal.  Lorenzo, seeming to read my thoughts, reassured me by telling me that the scorpions in Chile are no more dangerous than bees.  As I climbed back into my boat, I watched as everybody else popped their skirts and made sure they were scorpion free.  After a few more minutes of paddling, we reached the take out and started the hike back to the car.  Walking back everyone talked about the amazing experience we just shared.  And so it was that at 15 years, nine months, and nine days old, I became the youngest person ever to successfully run Garganta and the canyon afterwards.

To see more of Jason’s photography, click here: Jason Terry’s Bog

Me on Garganta, photo by Errik Hill

Helmet cam shot of the long slot after Garganta

To see more of Jason’s blogs, click here: Jason Terry’s Blog

To see more of Jason’s photography, click here: Jason Terry’s Blog

Nick doing the seal launch in

Alex on the 25 footer

Alex on the ski jump rapid

Lorenzo trying to pose on the ski jump rapid

Hunt on the rapid after the ski jump

The thirty footer from below

Lorenzo on the twenty-five footer

Tino on Garganta

Lorenzo on Garganta

Dave on Garganta

On Tuesday New River Academy took a group down Veinte y dos Saltos on the Rio Claro in Chile.  This insanely fun run is a wonderland of super clean waterfalls.  Still, this is no Siete Tazas, you don’t just fall off the waterfalls, they have lines and some are pretty challenging.  But even more challenging than the run was getting to the run.  First is the drive over hundreds of rocks and potholes followed by a thirty minute trek into a forest, over hills, and through streams.  Finally you arrive at the river and see this incredible twenty-five foot waterfall.  As we rested after our walk, Tino, Alex, and I talked about the possibility of shooting the waterfall.  We talked about various angles that worked with the light until Tino told us of this place he knew of with a perfect angle.  He then led us of a ten-minute long hike that forced us to climb up hills and scramble through dry streambeds until we arrived on this bluff about eighty feet above the waterfall: this was a perfect spot.  As we set up we told Tino that they needed to wait for us above the waterfall as the light was about to change and we needed to time it perfectly if we were to get any decent shots.  So Tino left to round up the group and Alex and I waited.  About twenty minutes later we see them pull into the eddy above the drop just as the light gets perfect.  We quickly wave them on and Lorenzo paddles off the lip.  After everyone goes Alex and I climb back down, seal launch into the river a yard above a ten-foot waterfall and take our turn going off the twenty-five footer. I didn’t know it then but I quite possibly got the best picture of my entire life.  Lorenzo is mid-tuck almost halfway down the drop a split second before he smashes into the bottom.  But this day was not over yet and with Tino, Lorenzo, and Dave running Garganta del Diablo today, I knew I had an opportunity for more gold.  Before going to Garganta, Alex told me to bring my helmet, throw rope, PFD, and a lot of carabineers as last year he had apparently had a chance discovery of a great angle that takes a little scrambling to get to.  So when we got to Garganta we hiked around looking for this spot until he finally recognized where he was.  He then explained to me that we were going to tie our throw ropes around a rock and use them to help us down to the spot.  After we got down to the bluff we clipped into our ropes and peeked over the edge; we stood over the middle of turn in Garganta and could see it in its entirety.  Alex was a little disappointed because the earthquake last year had moved some rocks around so those rocks and a bush below us got in our picture a little bit, but it was still an amazing view.  We signaled to the group running it that we were ready and they took off with me snapping pictures and Alex filming.  I got quality shots of everybody that went off of the drop and as we climbed back up we were extremely happy with how things turned out, as we were maybe the only people to ever get that angle.  All in all this day was maybe the best day I had experienced in Chile yet and I got some of the best pictures in my life, which made me very happy.

To see more of Jason Terry’s photography, click here: Jason Terry’s Blog

To see more of Jason’s photography, click here: Jason Terry’s Blog

The first landslide that had the creek that stopped us twice

The landslide that ended up turning us around, this happened maybe five minutes before we got there

A group shot while waiting for the bulldozer the second time

The Yeso Waterfall

One of the concentration camp's buildings

The settling of all these Germans went so well in 1846 that another group was asked to emigrate in 1848. Most of them were very willing because of possibility of starting a new life overseas. They were mostly craftsmen of many fields and university graduates consisting of beer-brewers, tanners, furniture makers, pharmacists, professors and scientific investigators. In 1852, Deutsche Player Maiten, Volcan and Puerto Octay and later the next year they settled in Puerto Montt, Llanquihue, Frutillar and Puerto Varas. They eventually moved as far south as the Biobio/Tolten area and into cities such as, Valparaiso, Santiago, Temuco, Conception, Ancud and Magellanes. Germans had to work hard then setting themselves up in that wilderness society but after awhile they became very respected members of Chilean community.