My river name is Sapo!

Hello all, just as a prologue I want to say, to all those who do not enjoy my mis-spellings... too bad, Spanish has forever ruined my grasp on English spellings and grammar, so as long as you would like me to continue to study, you'll have to deal with my terrible orthography. Saying this lets move on to the body of my text; white water rafting in Tena.
After a 5 hour drive SEE of Quito through some of the most beautiful mountain paths I have ever seen. After driving through highlands for 2 hours we reached the edge of the famously fabled Amazonian Rain Forest. The Roads, most of them one lane because of landslides and constant maintenance, were all settled about 5 or so feet from the edge of the mountains we were driving though... one wrong turn and, Zip! you're gone! buhbye buddy. The roads were littered with crosses of those who had met that terrible fate going east into El Oriente. But hey, keep a positive attitide and you'll always be kept safe! Finally we arried in Tena at about 8 under an almost full moon, that lit up the whole mountain chain. becuase of the lack of affordable electricity in this region, there is minimal lights in the city if Tena, which is only about the size of Woods Hole... some city huh? We picked a random hostel and dropped off our gear to go in search of some provisions. Once our bellies were full we went off to bed, sober i might add, to rest up for the adventure that awaited us the following day.
We inquired about a day of rafting with a company called "The River People" whom I highly recomend if you ever make it to Ecuador. It is a Family business own by none other than a team of Irish imagrants who had decided to check out Ecuador and decided to make Tena their home. The parents, now retired from running the business, handed it down to thier Daughter and 2 sons, one Tim, our guide, dropped out of school at 13 to start working the river fulltime and has been, 7 days a week for the last 13 years. As you can see from the picture above we brought quite a large group and all piled up into the bus to our drop off spot. This was no normal rafting trip, we were not dropped of at the river, nay we were driven into the jungle, loaded up with our gear and then proceeded to hike a mud road a bout 3 km into the selva. This was no regular muddly path, this was a 3ft deep, 10 foot wide, up and down hill, slippery, dirty, glorious walk to the river. By the time we reached the river, a number of us, who decided to take part in ritualistic boyhood mud baths, needed to bathe before getting in the boats.
We got in our boats and proceeded down the Jondachi river wich eventually meets up with the great Amazon. Of course with my luck I was the first one to be tossed out of the boat, sitting in the front right position, I was caught off guard and rolled right out, with only a few minor scratches on my back and shoulder I jumped right back into my spot. The rest of the first half, though some of the toughest and most exciting rafting ive ever done, did not produce any other major wipe outs in our particular boat, though we did do some swimming though rapids, were airborn, and rafted under waterfalls. We stopped on the side of the river for a bit of lunch and were pleasently supprized to see the guides and saftey kayakers accompanining us flip one of the rafts over and wip out all sorts of goodies! We feasted on tacos, beans, doritos, cookies, pine apple, ect ect ect. After eating our fill we retuened to the boats to continue the class 4, 38 km stretch. It got harder an dmore exciting as we went on, blasting through huge rapids, riding on the front of the raft, bull style, getting thrown out and going through rapids with our eyes closed to find ourselves flying into a rock wall. One particular crazy mess started with one particular girl Jessalee falling forwards out of the boat, the guide Tim tried to throw her a rope bag, but missed and, being so distracted we forgot that we were in the middle of a huge rapid stretch, another girl coleen fell of the side, our guide then realized what a predicament we were in and proceeded to yell, "Oh shit oh shit, we're in deep shit!" the raft then folded in half causing zach and i to hold on to each other and hana and Kendra to smash helmets and then smash into me! After all was said and done we had more trouble recovering from the laughter than the mayhem.
We then continued to be thrown about, swim, jump off stuff, do flips, push eachother and the guide out of the boat, loose the boat, swim in waterfalls, and ofcourse in between, relax! After the 8 hour ride of my life we were met by the bus and of course beer! A photoshot comenced as cameras were ripped out of dry bags and we all swap stories of crashes and felicidades for finishing in one peice. Not one person was apposed to going back again soon. I have to say the rafting, the senery, the stories, and everything about Tena will be with me forever. Hope all is well at home I love you and miss you all!