Rio Paiva 'Sex-Up'
			‘La indecisión es la llave a la flexibilidad’

'Sex-Up' section of the Paiva

The day after doing the Paiva Gorge, we were back to run the 'Sex-Up' section of the same river. This section was further upstream and the closest thing we paddled to an Irish river. So it was tight and bony with plently of trees encroaching on the sides.

There's a story as to why this section is called 'Sex-Up' but for the life of me I cannot recall the details.

The day starts off in a fairly Irish-style river. The put-on rapid is encroached with trees and the major obstacles are low-hanging branches.

It was a pleasant stroll in the park the day we were there - once again back to low water. So the day was spent making moves around boulders. In a sense it was like running the Glenmacnass - picking your way down in low water and a total blast in bigger water, we'd imagine.

We have only two photos from this trip.

Here's Pedro running the most significant drop. There's a bunch of guys in Portugal running stuff in Topos - it's very old-school, loads of hard men, learning the hard way. These guys are writing the books, poring over the topo maps, throwing themselves down the first descents. These guys are like UCD from back in the bad 'ol, good 'ol days, even before Jim's time. Sketchy, excellent people.

The other significant event of the day was Jim paddling a creek boat. Persuaded into by the Ferg and Coffey, he had a go to see what all the fuss was about. Here he is confirming what he always suspected - creek boats don't turn like kayaks; they just go straight. It's oddly disconcerting when the boat just ploughs on regardless.

For those of you interested in technical details, it was a red one. The Disco is not for sale.