Brotas Day 2 - "You will be educated!"

We started the day with quick breakfast at Pousada do Lago. We made the quick trip to the downtown area of Brotas and were received by the the receptionist at Alaya adventure outfiters. Kate's classmate, Diego, recommended Alaya as the most comprehensive and accessible outfitter in all of Brotas. Our first excursion was white water rafting. The guide Ana met us a at 9:00am and we took a bus about 20 minutes to the Jacaru Pepira river. I have been rafting on the New River in West Virginia and both the Nantahala and French Broad rivers in NC, but Kate has never been. Ana gave us some pointers on paddling and following her directions in both English and Portuguese! She had friends come along for the ride. Tourism season was winding down in Brotas (Carnaval, two weeks previous, the peak). Our 9am mid-week tour was just the one raft of five people, Kate and I were the only paying customers :-).

The trip was roughly 2.5 hours and at one point we got out of the boat and slid down rocks in our swim suits, and at another point we got out of the boat, climbed up the bank and rode a zip line back and forth across the river. Being four stories up and zipping across the rapids was a thrilling experience.
Towards the end of the route our guide told us to get ready because we had gotten a little complacent during some of the slow parts of the river. She said that the last section is fast and a little rough and we would need both need to pay attention to her cues. At one point she said, "If you have forgotten anything, you will be educated." I thought this was a great expression and laughed a little as we approached the frothy falls.

Alaya has this tourism thing down, they sent along a kayaker to take pictures and videos of the boat was we made our way down the river, some of them are posted here. Unfortunately, the kayaker was making sure we didn't crash on the zip lines so we have no photos of that. Neither of us fell out of the boat which was a great outcome for Kate's first whitewater rafting experience (and my first in a long time).

Updated with videos: