Wandergliding: 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....