This morning at 6 am I was picked up by the Exploradores company and, along with my friends Mara, Grace, Mary, Isaac, and Paulina, and the other people on the bus, was driven to Parcuare River to go whit water rafting. It was about a 2 hour drive in the morning, perfect for some more sleep!
Once we got there, we were fed a traditional breakfast (gallo pinto and eggs and toast) and then taken down a very steep, very scary road to the beginning of the river. We were divided into groups of 5, and I was with two couples. Lisa and Christian were from Costa Rica and Pagoda and Christoff were from Venezuela. They were all very nice! My guide's name was Yepe (well, nickname), and he was absolutely hilarious. The first thing he said was his nickname on the river was Osama Bin Laden because he's "always trying to kill you"... That wasn't exactly reassuring!
We practiced on the river bank the different commands for rowing--foward (adelante), back (atras), right forward left back and vice versa, high side right and left, and get down. It seemed pretty simple, but would prove to be very difficult to follow once we were actually in the rapids! We also practiced our high five, where we put our paddles together in the air and shouted "PURA VIDA" at the top of our lungs (this happened quite a lot).
We pushed off, eventually, with Christoff and Christian as our leaders in the front. After about ten minutes, however, Yepe asked if Christian would switch places with me and if I would be the leader, because Christian kept getting the commands wrong! I happily obliged, and went head first towards the rapids.
At one point it started to rain and it never stopped. Even when we stopped for lunch--a picnic spread of a buffet style make your own burrito and delicious fresh pineapple--it was pouring and our food was very soggy! It didn't matter though, because after the first two and a half hours of rafting before we stopped for lunch we were all terribly hungry!
We rafted through class I, II, III, and IV rapids. It was pretty difficult to go through the rapids, but what I wasn't expecting is there is a lot of down time. Rapids only last about 20 seconds at max, and in between you have a few minutes of drifting down the river and looking at the incredible scenery. That was a nice surprise, because when I heard that we would be rafting for a total of 4 hours I got a little worried! Plus, I appreciated the chance to look at the cloud forest that we were rafting through. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been.
I fell out one time after lunch because Yepe had my side of the raft turn around. You aren't strapped in at all in the raft, you just put your feet under the tubes in front and behind you and use that and luck to try and stay in. Being backwards proved this to be extremely difficult! When I fell out I hit my shin on a rock and got a nasty bruise, and swallowed a lot of water along the way, but I was fine! They pulled me back on the raft by my life jacket and I realized the adrenaline rush of falling out was actually really fun!
I don't have any pictures unfortunately because I couldn't bring anything in the raft for it would have fallen out, and the photographer wasn't feeling well that day so there was no one taking pictures of us! I was very, very sad about that! Pagoda and Christoff had a GoPro with them on their helmet, and I gave them my email in hopes of getting some of the footage. Hopefully they remember to email it to me, but for now I have nothing! :(
We had a 4 hour bus ride to our next location: Volcano Arenal. The guide who came with us on the ride was Yepe's older brother Kendall. He talked to me and Mary the whole bus ride home, and was very nice!
Once we got home I showered and we started to walk around the town to look for dinner. While walking, I ran into Kendall! He told me he was going dancing and would I like to join (of course I did). We went to a bar that I can't pronounce the name of and danced Merengue for hours! It was so, so fun. The poor guy had to wake up early the next morning and go rafting again! I went back to my hotel and passed out, anticipating the fun day to come tomorrow!
Once we got there, we were fed a traditional breakfast (gallo pinto and eggs and toast) and then taken down a very steep, very scary road to the beginning of the river. We were divided into groups of 5, and I was with two couples. Lisa and Christian were from Costa Rica and Pagoda and Christoff were from Venezuela. They were all very nice! My guide's name was Yepe (well, nickname), and he was absolutely hilarious. The first thing he said was his nickname on the river was Osama Bin Laden because he's "always trying to kill you"... That wasn't exactly reassuring!
We practiced on the river bank the different commands for rowing--foward (adelante), back (atras), right forward left back and vice versa, high side right and left, and get down. It seemed pretty simple, but would prove to be very difficult to follow once we were actually in the rapids! We also practiced our high five, where we put our paddles together in the air and shouted "PURA VIDA" at the top of our lungs (this happened quite a lot).
We pushed off, eventually, with Christoff and Christian as our leaders in the front. After about ten minutes, however, Yepe asked if Christian would switch places with me and if I would be the leader, because Christian kept getting the commands wrong! I happily obliged, and went head first towards the rapids.
At one point it started to rain and it never stopped. Even when we stopped for lunch--a picnic spread of a buffet style make your own burrito and delicious fresh pineapple--it was pouring and our food was very soggy! It didn't matter though, because after the first two and a half hours of rafting before we stopped for lunch we were all terribly hungry!
We rafted through class I, II, III, and IV rapids. It was pretty difficult to go through the rapids, but what I wasn't expecting is there is a lot of down time. Rapids only last about 20 seconds at max, and in between you have a few minutes of drifting down the river and looking at the incredible scenery. That was a nice surprise, because when I heard that we would be rafting for a total of 4 hours I got a little worried! Plus, I appreciated the chance to look at the cloud forest that we were rafting through. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been.
I fell out one time after lunch because Yepe had my side of the raft turn around. You aren't strapped in at all in the raft, you just put your feet under the tubes in front and behind you and use that and luck to try and stay in. Being backwards proved this to be extremely difficult! When I fell out I hit my shin on a rock and got a nasty bruise, and swallowed a lot of water along the way, but I was fine! They pulled me back on the raft by my life jacket and I realized the adrenaline rush of falling out was actually really fun!
I don't have any pictures unfortunately because I couldn't bring anything in the raft for it would have fallen out, and the photographer wasn't feeling well that day so there was no one taking pictures of us! I was very, very sad about that! Pagoda and Christoff had a GoPro with them on their helmet, and I gave them my email in hopes of getting some of the footage. Hopefully they remember to email it to me, but for now I have nothing! :(
We had a 4 hour bus ride to our next location: Volcano Arenal. The guide who came with us on the ride was Yepe's older brother Kendall. He talked to me and Mary the whole bus ride home, and was very nice!
Once we got home I showered and we started to walk around the town to look for dinner. While walking, I ran into Kendall! He told me he was going dancing and would I like to join (of course I did). We went to a bar that I can't pronounce the name of and danced Merengue for hours! It was so, so fun. The poor guy had to wake up early the next morning and go rafting again! I went back to my hotel and passed out, anticipating the fun day to come tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment