We have a trainer!

Yay, paddles arrived safe and sound this evening!! Whoopee!! And I didn´t have a brain aneurism worrying about them!! =P

One thing that I forgot to mention earlier... it is mandatory to wear lifejackets during the race. To the extent that we could be disqualified if we´re seen without them. So, you might want to bring your own! Lili, I checked to see if your waist belt inflatable PFD would be okay, and they said yes as long as we show it to the officials so that they understand what it is and how it works.

As for food during the race, I´ll be checking into that...

Good news! We´ve met a really good guy who works on the rivers in the jungle who will be training us for the race! We´re going to train with him from Monday to Friday (the 10th to the 14th) everday, and probably sleep out in the jungle between sessions. Intense! He knows the water really well, and he knows the tribes in the area so we´ll be traveling around and paddling in different areas, borrowing different types of boats. We´ll also be practicing raft construction.

He also wants time to work with you guys, which I think would be a great idea. Lili, if you can arrive late on the 16th or early on the 17th, you´ll have the 17th and the 18th to train on the water with us (if you want to). Julie, you´re arriving early on the 18th, so we´ll have one day with you on the water. We´re paying him about $10 a day per person (plus a nice tip, I expect). He´s a really nice person, very patient and respectful of the river and jungle, and he wants us to do well.

As for other details... I forgot to bring a small duffel bag for my stuff for during the race, so I´ll be buying one. You guys might want to make sure that your carry-on bags are big enough to be used for during the race.

Also, my Canadian flag is wilting and looking quite pathetic. Julie, if you have one lying around could you bring it? If not, we can have one painted.

As for souvenir paddles, I had to make an executive decision today because they´ll be made by our trainer and he has to start work on them tomorrow if he´s going to have time to train us next week. They´ll be about 1m long (smaller than normal, but easier to put in luggage), and he´s going to decorate them in the style of one of the local tribes, together with the name of the competition. They cost 45 soles each ($15), I already paid in advance. Hopefully this works for you guys - if not, I can sell them to other people. I had to get them custom made because it turns out that the paddles that are supplied for the racers are just borrowed from a local club and we can´t just take them home with us.

Anyway, I know that you´re both super busy with other paddling events and that other stuff called "life", but I´m super excited about all this stuff so I´m going to keep blasting you with emails. Let me know what you think about all this stuff! We´re going to try to have everything assembled by the time you get here so that we can spend precious time on the water together practicing.