It was our last day to be paddling with Rafael Ortiz on the Indus. Schoolwork called him home, but was not on anyones mind as we put on the mighty river. Rafa's presence would be replaced by a police detail assigned to us by whom we'll never know.


   Not long into our day we arrived at "the portage" which is the cover shot from the "first descent" and I had to chuckle. I'm not too big a fan of posing photographs, and the portage route was much higher up than the obviously staged image. We took a walk down to the edge of the rapid to look at it with no real intention of running anything.



   Our euphoria from running the rapid quickly faded as we were forced to bid farewell to Rafa, knowing his infectious personality, enthusiasm, and confident boating would be missed. We floated downstream with a keen eye out for a remote campsite that would give us an excuse not hike to the road. Camp was found at the ideal time, so we enjoyed the sandy beach, estimating we had covered at least twenty five kilometers in our read and run frenzy.