White Water Rafting on the Pacuare River

February 7^th-9^th, 2015

My Kiwi friend Mallory whom I met in Goa back in 2010 (just as the shit hit the fan for me) travelled through Central and South America a few years ago and was nice enough to write up a bunch of her recommendations, and places to avoid and one that fell into her “awesome” side of the list was river rafting in Turrialba which is located a few hours east of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica.  I caught an early express bus out of Monteverde, cabbed across the city (which I have to admit I’m glad I wasn’t going to spend a night there) to another bus terminal and then was on my way to Turrialba.  It was partly cloudy in San Jose but by the time we reached Turrialba we were in the clouds, and they were releasing their moisture.  I found an ATM and a grocery store and hopped in a cab to my reserved room in a place called “Spanish by the River”.  I didn’t realize when reserving the place on Booking.com that it was a Spanish school as well as a hostel, which caused a bit of confusion with my cabbie but we got there in the end.  What a sweet place.  Up on a hill looking down at the small city with a massive communal living room, great kitchen with a centre island stove and a huge deck.  I even got my own room even though it was considered a “dorm” with two beds.  There were only 3 other people staying there, a young couple from Austria who were making their way around the world and a younger woman from Holland who was taking Spanish classes.

The living room:

Nice kitchen:

Chill out zone:

Looking back at the place:

I checked out a few minutes of the local football (soccer) game in town: 

The next morning at 8am I was picked up by the owner Roberto and kayaker/photographer Julian from the small rafting company that my hostel had booked for me.  Back in town we picked up Moses, “el capitan” of the raft and we met the other three rafters who all turned out to be Canadian as well.  Zoey was an 18 or 19 year old Quebecer who was on her first trip outside of Canada and was spending a few months in Costa Rica, doing some volunteer work, learning some Spanish and then would finish with some touring around the country.  Then there was Lora and George, friends from being co-workers with the federal government.  Lora had recently relocated to Edmonton to work in HR with the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) while George was in Vancouver with Public Service Works (or something to this effect).

We drove about an hour to the river put in.  There were about 15 matching light coloured blue boats lining the shoreline with rows of lifejackets and a pile of helmets, all waiting for their occupants.  Roberto proudly explained that since we were with a small one boat outfit that we would get on the river before the weekend masses and enjoy some solitude during our ride.  Our boat was unloaded off the trailer as we Canadians donned our lifejackets, helmets and grabbed our paddles.  Very quickly we were off, floating down the lovely Pacuare, rated in the top five most scenic rivers to raft down in the world.

For the suckers:

Unloading "El Jefe" (the boss)...which was acually the name on the front of the boat:

Lookin' like a pro...sort of...

I’ve gone river rafting a few times before, in BC and Washington but some of the rapids on this ride were considered Class IV although I wondered if they weren’t really just III+ but it was still more than I had done before.  The other three were losing their rafting virginity so our crew didn’t have much experience but they did well.  George and I were in the front with Lora behind me and Zoey behind George to balance the boat.  Our commands from Moses were simple: forward, back, or right (side) forward/left back, left forward/right back and stop.  There were a number of times that I couldn’t quite understand why we paddled and why we didn’t.  Typically the team paddles to gain speed in order to punch through a hole or to speed up in a boring bit but occasionally neither seemed to be the case.  We didn’t have to do the one side forward, the other back as most of the time Moses could control our direction.

Our first splashes:

Ya!

Getting a little more intense:

Not sure what the tongue was about...

But I was working it:

This was from Lora's perspective:

At one large rapid our boat turned sideways and slammed into a standing wave which caused Lora and me to lurch sideways into the other two but no one was injured.  It was at this point that Moses then mentioned another command: “Down” which meant to sit down inside the raft instead of the usual spot on the side pontoon and hold one with one hand to a rope running around the top of the raft with the other hand securely on the butt end of the paddle.  It might have been nice to know that command a little earlier, but no harm, no foul.

Into some more action:

Boat selfie:

About two thirds along our 28 kilometre paddle we stopped for a little lunch of wraps with veggies, refried beans and guacamole.  It was a pretty decent meal and recharged our batteries.

 The spread:

Diggin' in:

Back at it after lunch...heading towards a waterfall:

And then into it:

George's angle on things:

Going for it:

Seriously...

But we're good...and check out my grin:

That was worth a high five...Pura Vida!

We were lucky with the weather as the previous day had rained a lot but we had a light overcast day which also prevented the sun from frying us.  At the end of the trip, we pulled out at a small restaurant/bar with showers to clean off.  A few of us had a beer as we waited for Julian to burn CDs with the pictures he had taken from the shoreline at various rapid sections.  I chuckled as guess what was playing on the restaurant’s old TV…yup, McGyver!  Reminded me of Casa Maderas in Nicaragua.

George's version of the Titanic pose...I think he's backwards....

A nice canyon near the end:

The rusty railroad bridge...thanks for ducking Zoey!

White water rafting in Costa Rica…check.

Zip Lining and Night Creatures in Monteverde

February 5^th, 2015

On the second full day in Monteverde we signed up for two activities, Aventura Park for zip lining and a night hike to check out the nocturnal animals.  My only previous zip lining was a little more than a month earlier with my family at Christmas time with my family in the north of the country but this was going to be a bit different as this place boasts the longest zip line in Latin America and the third longest in the world at 1590 meters!  You also have the option to do this one in the “Superman” position, head first lying on your stomach.  After getting geared up and our security briefing the group of about 35 people started on the beginner zip lines, eventually progressing to faster and longer ones.  There was even a little rappel down from a tree, just for grins as you then walked stairs back up to the same platform to zip off on another line.

Ready to zip:

So is Taylor:

Taylor flying in:

Now Taylor rappelling:

The long Superman line was pretty cool, super nice views from up there.  But the highlight for me was the finishing, optional, ride, the Tarzan Swing.  I’d never done one of these before and I got to admit that it was quite a rush.  There was a precarious bridge extending out from the hillside and only the two operators and one tourist performing the swing were allowed on it at any given time.  I was the last one of the whole group to go so I never actually got to see what it was like before stepping out there.  Taylor was before me and she let out a shriek as she plunged off the bridge but the older French guy before had yells that half made you laugh, half made you distraught.  I, considering myself a bit of an adrenaline junkie, didn’t think I would be scream but as soon as they opened the gate, told me to bend my knees and I dropped off the platform, the second or two of free fall sucked a guttural noise out of me that I’ve rarely heard emanate from my body.  This was quickly replaced with shouts of glee…what a rush!

Wait for it...a little superman will fly by:

It's time for the one mile Superman ride:

These two cables disappear across to the other side of the valley...one mile in length!  If you look carefully there is someone just below the ridge line on the right line.

Some people found it a bit scary:

Taylor and Peter getting ready:

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's Daverman!

Okay, I couldn't pull the camera far enough away for a proper selfie (note the camera strap to my helmet)...but the smile says it all:

The view from the Superman flight:

The next Superman ride:

Look what's next!

This is the rickety bridge you have to walk out on...

Taylor walking out:

Off she goes:

Walking out...to the point of no return:

My turn.  Okay, not the best camera work but it turned out alright considering the camera was just dangling from my chin strap...and at least it didn't hit me in the face!

This makes me giggle...how the scream goes from terrified to elated:

We headed out for our night hike at 8:30pm with a company called Kinkajou, after that cute little mammal we saw dead on the road a couple days earlier.  The first creature we saw was an active sloth high up in a tree having some dinner, chewing on some kind of foliage.  This was followed by a variety of insects including a tarantula, small frogs (one even called a “pygmy frog”), sleeping birds some of whom looked like a feathered ball the size of an orange, a green viper snake on some branches not too high above us and finished off with a kinkajou moving around in a tree back near the tour company’s office.  It was a nice way to finish off Monteverde.

 A tarantula in his home:

Cute frog:

In the center you can just make out the sleeping puff ball of a bird, he's so puffy it looks like the branch is stuck right through him:

That's a poisonous green viper snake up in a tree...so we did the wise thing and stood underneath it for a few photos...

This is a big soldier ant.  The guide got him to chomp down on this big twig...

In order to show his strength...the ant is holding the stick by himself!

And here we have a scorpion eating a nice spider dinner:

While I was back in La Fortuna I spent almost an entire day researching about sailing from Panama to Colombia, a common option utilized by backpackers to bypass the Darien Gap, the dangerous section of jungle that separates the two countries.  The other option is to fly but why would you do that when you could spent 5 days on a boat including 3 days in the gorgeous San Blas Islands.  The trip can be amazing or downright scary depending on your captain and the boat and I have finally settled on a Swedish captain in his fifties on a 64 foot boat that he custom built.  I received confirmation of the trip while in Monteverde and my departure date is February 23^rd so it’s almost time to leave Costa Rica and check out some of Panama before sailing off into the sunset.  Time to head off to Turrialba to raft down the Pacuare River…

Climbing a Crazy Tree & Hiking in a Cloudforest

February 4^th, 2015

The previous evening Taylor and I went to a restaurant bar appropriately called the Treehouse, as there was a massive tree growing up through the upstairs outside area.  Some live music was playing and we ran into Lauren and Jessica, a couple of young Alaskan operating nurses whom we’d met in La Fortuna so we sat down with them.  Unfortunately the music only lasted about half an hour more as the three guitarists were pretty decent.  The main man, the acoustic guitarist and singer, sat down with us afterwards and he was an American who was teaching music in the local school as part of his degree.  He told of us an incredible tree in town that was super fun to climb and very tall.  There is a type of tree in this area commonly known as “stranglers”.  A strangler slowly envelopes another tree in probably one of the slowest murders on this earth.  Eventually the victim tree dies and rots away leaving the strangler as a hollowed out tree.  Lauren took down some instructions on how to find this tree and we made a plan to go there in the morning.

The instructions proved to be quite accurate and we only had to ask some local electrical workers on the side of the road for the final piece of the puzzle to locate the tree.  Wow, what a find!  It angled up at a 70 degree angle with an easy entrance into its core tunnel which looked to be some 70 feet long with easy hand and foot holds all the way up.  I was the first to climb up but the rest, Taylor, Lauren, Jessica and Doug, a young bridge inspecting engineer from New York, soon joined me.  Exiting the top of the tunnel was a bit unnerving at first but we found that four of us could fit where the major branches, umm, branched out.  We could even see the Pacific Ocean from our vantage point.  What an awesome find!

THE tree:

The tunnel inside:

Looking down from the top, yes, those are people down there:

Looking out to the ocean:

There it is:

At the top:

Doug popping out:

But Doug didn't want to come all the way up, so Lauren had to squeeze by him...nice play Doug ;)

Lauren and Taylor chillin' 70 feet up:

Trying a selfie of everyone:

 Doug did a better job with his camera:

Lauren's farewell:

My summation:

The Alaskan ladies poking out:

In the tunnel:

Taylor, Lauren and Jessica descending:

In the afternoon Taylor and I went for a hike in the Santa Elena Cloud Forest and it did live up to its name as it was sunny in Monteverde but overcast and a bit foggy in the park.  That reminds me, there are even signs in town for “Las Nubes”, or “The Clouds”, 9 kilometres away in a certain direction…and it seemed to be right!  The forest was super lush in vegetation but we didn’t see any wildlife except for some birds, which wasn’t surprising since it was the middle of the afternoon.  Nonetheless it was a nice hike.

In the cloud forest:

The waterfall of the day...a small one, but still a waterfall:

A big millipede, or centipede...I didn't count:

It's a bit cloud Rik!

Do you like my hat?