The Paddler ezine WW kayak collection 2013 | Page 184

ThePaddler 184

The first day in this new area we paddled the
Lanquin River – a good class 4 run with a
serious class 5 section and again an Alpine
style river being fast, big and powerful. The
second day was a run on the famous
Cahabon, a great river in a fantastic setting
with wide, big volume but not as hard as we
thought. The guide suggested that the biggest
rapid (rock and roll 4+) was serious, however,
we found a left to right line keeps you away
from the nasties. The second rapid had some
big bouncy wave trains followed by the threeledge drop rapid – a fun class 3.

Cross back into Mexico

At the start of the run there are three channels
to take and Greg advised on the far left, as the
centre and right channels go into some
serious unrunnable sections. We put in and
did some fantastic slides drops and technical
lines all at about class 4-4+ with one or two
log jam portages but then found ourselves
somehow in the middle channel half way
down with a serious 150m long class 5+ rapid
with a 40 footer at the end. Maybe for the
Bomb Flow boys but not for us, so a prudent
portage was executed. I think James had had
enough by now, still feeling under the
weather from his stomach bug, he hiked back
to the car. Myself Matt and Tony carried on
for a while and found some more fantastic
slides and a 4m fall with a perfect boofing
ledge to hook off. By now time was ticking on
and we knew we wouldn’t get the whole run
done that day so it was time to get off.
The next day we started where we had left
off and again it was a slides and drops
heaven with a great final drop out into the
easier section of a 9-10m waterfall. This was
a big horseshoe affair with a clean boof over
on the right of a two-tier drop on the left.
Matt absolutely nailed the line and landed
on the right along with James and I who
had opted for the double drop on the left.

Andy next to the big waterfalls of the Agua Azul in Mexico

The Agua Azul is famous for its
electric blue water, long slides and

big waterfalls

For our last three days we decided to cross
back into Mexico and stopped in Palenque, a
highly recommended tourist town about an
hour away from the Azuls. The Agua Azul is
famous for its electric blue water, long slides
and big waterfalls. It’s a magical place but also
a tourist hot spot and you can expect
hundreds of visitors at the weekend all
viewing the falls and bathing in the pools.

A massive thank you to: James Flemming, Matthew Brook,Tony Becker, Greg S
and positivity in making this trip possible.
Submitted by: Andy Holt www.escapetoadventure.com