Amazing First Visit to Portland

[agregory]

Tommy, our awesome driver, was great at knowing the weather in each area of Portland every day. He helped us decide each morning what we should do or where we should go based on the weather as it could be quite different from one area to the next. One of the must-dos for this trip was rafting on the Rio Grande River. The weather on our second day was perfect for this, so we packed up and Tommy took us to the river!

The drive was beautiful!



I completely forgot to get a picture of us on the raft together, except for this one –


The raft trip was amazing! These photos will not do justice at all to the beauty. We did not see a single other boat, car, house, power line, or anything man-made on the entire trip down the river. There were two other bamboo rafts at Belinda’s cook shop on the river bank, where we stopped for lunch and a couple Red Stripes mid-trip. We saw one man fishing on the side of the river during our float and I guess we also saw a few banana trees with blue bags on the hanging fruit. And I also must note that I did not see a single piece of garbage along our route. The water was clear and perfect for swimming and wading around in mid-trip Like I said, it was amazing!




The food was delicious and Belinda is a sweet lady to chat with.


Our guide was great and it was interesting chatting with him about growing up and learning to do what he does. He has a tough job. We had a discussion about the fact that it's difficult to find young people to do hard work these days (I sound so old here, but I'm really only 40!). My husband is a residential master electrician and we own our own company. He lost a young, hard working, smart guy into the Navy and hasn't found anyone worth replacing him with in the past 1.5 years. Hard work is not something that young people are made to do anymore, and they won't do it unless it's instantly gratifying to them. Or they can work really hard, but have no common sense. I know this is a very general statement and it's not true for all youngsters. But someday we will not have anyone to do these tough jobs and where will we be then? OK, I won't bore you anymore with my "rant" - lol.

The ride was very smooth This was one of my favorite excursions I’ve ever been on!


After about 2-3 hours on the river, Tommy met us at a spot along the riverbank and we returned back to our villa. Time to hit Winnifred Beach again


A spear fisherman swam in with his catch as we lounged.