'Life is a beautiful collage of priceless moments and memories, which when pieced all together creates a unique treasured masterpiece.' - Melanie M. Koulouris 

I couldn't agree more, Melanie!

What happened to me and my friend @knircky one week ago was definitely one of these priceless moments that now turned into an outstanding and unforgettable memory.

Here's why I love my life!

Going On Adventure With The "Hualapai"

There are very few things which are able to convince me that waking up at 5:00AM can be totally worth it.

A rafting tour in the Grand Canyon is definitely one of them. So here we go!

Our efforts were meant to be rewarded later on. 

Currently there is only one organization that offers White Water Rafting tours down the Colorado River which last the whole day and include rides along exciting rapids.

They are called "Grand Canyon West".

Of course, on the internet you'll find a lot more providers. However, these guys are the only ones that have the boats that are strong enough to get into the rapids.

And hey: who wants to raft the Colorado River without getting wet?! :-D

So there's that.

Hualapai means 'People of the Tall-Pines'.

This historic native American tribe had ancestral homelands consisting of approximately five million acres.

It was a huge pleasure and honor to be guided by natives during the whole rafting tour since they had infinite background information on the land we were passing by and the people who owned it some day.

Waking up on a river bank inside the Colorado River - yeah!

Getting ready!

After an one-hour bus drive from the "Hualapai Lodge" into the Grand Canyon we finally arrived at the starting point for the rafting tour.

This place was simply epic! 

I've been to the Colorado River once when I was 5 years old, but actually I didn't remember that any longer.

You may try to imagine something that you've never lived before, but then you really experience it and it's a completely different story.

I was overwhelmed from the very first moment!

So then things got serious.

Please excuse my face. The fact that we got up at 5:00AM in the morning and I didn't have any coffee obviously made me suffer still a bit at that point of time :-)

In the back you can see that the crew was preparing the boats while the participants put on their life vests.

It was only 8AM but the sun was burning already and I was drinking my 5th bottle of water.

That little (waterproof) box in my other hand was our "treasure chest" where we stored our articles of value during the ride.

One of the natives explained to me that the rock in the back was called "the snoring man".

That was actually funny since we have a similar formation of rocks on one of the Canary Islands: "El Guanche" - a sleeping native located on the island of La Palma.

I told him and we laughed. 

The world is smaller than you might believe sometimes.

And.... action!

We took a seat in our boat which was the no. 6 (of seven boats in total).

The native Nick (guy with the blue sweater) was our guide for the day. 

He was accompanied by the native girl Melissa who I will introduce later.

We were sweating like hell in our thick life vests but that was supposed to change in a few minutes!

We passed the very first rapid right after entering the Colorado River.

Shoot! That was freaking cold!!! 

Somebody said that the water had only 46 degrees Fahrenheit which would mean 8 Celsius.

I didn't want to believe that but somehow - after getting wet for the first time - I could. 

It was a constant up and down of extreme temperatures. 

While the outside temperature was increasing towards 120 Fahrenheit (not kidding) the water was almost frozen.

Hiking at Travertine Cavern Falls 

After a while we stopped the boats for a short hike.

If I had to die one day, I'd probably love to imagine once more this picture above as my last one.

What an incredibly beautiful piece of nature!

Yip, that was totally my thing and I wore that smile during the whole day!

We climbed over some rocks and enjoyed the view over this fantastic landscape.

Don't ask why I still had my life vest on. Probably I was too excited to notice that almost all the other people had taken it off :-)

We had to climp up the rock using a small rope ladder.

The Hualapai crew helped us to get up safely.

It felt like being on an adventure playground!

Yes, we were a group of kids at that point of time. No doubt about that! :-)

The water was clear and refreshing, and helped our bodies to stay hydrated.

The little hike was supposed to be rewarded immediately.

Here we go: the Travertine Cavern Falls, a natural water fall in the middle of the Grand Canyon.

Besides the fact that cool water was appreciated anyways, this spot was simply amazing.

I didn't know where to look first. In the middle of these camel colored rocks there was a cleft which layed open the blue sky. Ice cold and crystal clear water rushed down the rocks.

What a beautiful creation of nature!

Everybody felt the same energy there. 

The only thing I could do was: smile :-)

This was probably one of the best showers I've ever had in my life!

We took a bath in the little natural pools down the water fall before getting back into the boats.

This moment needed to be celebrated entirely!

Then we headed back towards the beach.

Everybody took a seat in their boats again being ready for the next rapid experience.

That's how people look like when the boat's nose dips in! :-D

I couldn't take many pictures while passing the rapids since I was afraid of losing my GoPro. 

However @knircky was brave enough to hold his iPhone in his hands in the meantime. So he did some really cool videos of us screaming, haha! :-D 

Just follow @knircky's blog on steemit if you're still not doing so, I'm sure he will publish the extraordinary video material soon.

So the caravan rolled down the river.

Somebody mentioned that we would stop during the ride in order to jump from a rock. 

That was pretty good news since I totally love these kind of adrenaline kicks.

What I didn't know at that point of time was that the were supposed to jump from a rock that was 20 feet high! 

So the boats stopped close to the rock, we jumped over and somehow managed to get up there.

What I noticed later was that I completely grazed my knees while doing that.

The rocks were extremely slippery, and the only way to not fall down was clinging to cliff with all parts of the body.

Thanks to the adrenaline I didn't even notice the pain!

Whaaaam! I did it!!! 📷 (picture of the day :-))

That was probably the bravest thing I've ever done in my life!

It was an incredible feeling to stand at the top of the rock, hearing the others in their boats cheering for us.

When it was my turn I knew that there was no going back. 

There was only one way down! 

1 min video of rafting & jump

I didn't record many video sequences since I wanted to save battery.

However, the crew did some GoPro videos and professional photography of the whole trip. So I guess we will get a nice documentation of the trip anyways.

Here you can see that they mounted a GoPro on the boat.

That seat was definitely First Class!

While I let my feet hang into the water and enjoyed a cool Coke, I leaned back and simply watched the "Grand Canyon movie".

That is surely one of the best ways to spend time on Earch.

I wasn't asking for anything more.

No words needed...

These two guys were accompanying the tour boats, taking pictures of us when we passed the rapids and sometimes (like in that case) proving that they were faster than we were.

"Stay hydrated" was probably the sentence I heard most during the whole trip.

We did several stops at the banks of the river (one including lunch) in order to jump into the river and refreshing our sweating bodies.

That's surely the purest form of having a bath. 

Looking at these pictures I still can't imagine that this happend for real.

Of course we needed to take some "beauty shots" for the video" :-)

That GoPro has been paid back already and was surely the very best investment ever!

Another "stay-hydrated-jump" (editing the video).

That one was taken during our lunch break along the banks of the river.

Sitting down at a sandy bank, having a sandwich and looking at these massive rocks was definitely a lifetime moment!

On the right: native guide Melissa with whom I had some really nice chats. I mean she has definitely a dream job, don't she? :-)

In the early afternoon the Grand Canyon and its massive rocks started to fade out and the water was calming down.

No more rapids, but still a lot of fun.

It was time to relax a bit and store these overwhelming experiences safely in our memories.

The initial plan was to take us out of the Grand Canyon by helicopter. But we hit the 120 degrees outside temperature mark (!!) which made this impossible.

Helicopters can't fly when the temperature passes a certain level. That has to do with the updraft which is necessary to keep the bird in the right position. 

Don't ask me for technical details. It was too hot when the guide explained the situation well, I was busy trying to stay alive, haha!

Just for the records: 120 degrees Fahrenheit means 49 degrees Celsius.

Just put on your hair dryer on the maximum level and blow that hot air into your face during like half an hour.

Then you'll know how we felt on that boat :-D

If I would recommend that tour to anybody else? 

Man, if you have ever the chance to get there in your life: don't even think about it!!! 

That was definitely one of the very best adventures I've ever been on.

No doubt.

I hope you enjoyed the story and pictures.

More of them coming soon :-)

Big hugs,
Marly - 

PS: I arrived safely at home yesterday after having been on a return trip (including three flights) for around 30 hours. First thing that I did was sleeping for 12 hours without a break. Today after having breakfast I started to go over my pictures and videos.

It's that I woke up in my bed and thought: Was this for real? :-)