Unleashing our RAFT

Saturday, August 12th

We slept in our mini-sized accomodations last night. Overall, the heat was nearly unbearable and I happened to lock Greg, in his little single cabin, out of the shared bathroom. Oh well, he found a way to another bathroom in the middle of the night. Today is going to be awesome!

Last night we arranged the white water rafting trip. They are supposed to pick us up at 6:30AM at the other hotel, Pangea where we signed up for the trip. So the first order of business is to call the rafting company and tell them that we are at Kap´s for a pick up. This goes without a hitch and we wait. The van arrived and it´s just this father and son pair and us. They are from Indiana and the father has 25 years of experience in rafting so I guess we´ll be in good hands. I have done rafting once but Greg and Alexey have not.

The trip lasted about 2 hours out of San Jose into the Pacuare river. During the trip, our new travel mates tell us how they got this student discount for the younger guy. We had paid $95 per person while he only paid $75!! This is $60 savings in the three of us! So we bring this up with the organizer in the van but he says that we already paid and there is nothing that can be done. From here on the trip got quite as we all were thinking how stupid we were for not having asked for the discount up front. Technically, we are not students anymore, but we´d like to get a break when we hear of it.

We arrive to rafting base and meet other rafters for the day that happened to come from different geographies of the country in other vans. They gave breakfast in a buffet style. Really american and tasty: fruit, granola, yogurt, juice, scrambled eggs, etc.. We indulged heavily here. Next, we are ready to jump on the water but first a consolidated van needs to take us upstream. We will ride down the river and end up at the breakfast place sometime in the afternoon.

It was past 8AM perhaps close to 9AM and we were now on the river after going down a steep downhill. I almost fell there to the amusement of some Californian girls that were walking next to us. Don´t remember their names but one of them had just been travelling through Ecuador and the other was in Costa Rica as a bartender part time. In any case, we got down to the river and jumped on the rafts. Our guide was Abel, one of the most knowledgeable rafters around, later we discovered. He trained us in basic commands as he would be the captain and us his crew.

Once there, we did some trial maneuvering to make sure we were kosher and off we went. We did some rescue drills where three of us would fall in the water and the remaining three had to rescue them into the boat. The water is a bit cold but refreshing in this potent sun! The boat consisted of the experienced father, the son, the three of us and another young guy who never talked, even once. Well, may be he coughed and that could count as something.

The rafting was cool! The rapids were class 3 and 4 with super high crests and big holes enough to fill the boat completely with water. The scenery out there was also beautiful with waterfalls coming down the side of the mountains jumping from up high into the river making the white liquid blend with the greenish colored water that flowed under us. All in all it was a great experience.. Forward! Forward! Abel screamed before we got into the rapids and our team was a well oiled machine, we could make the raft do what we wanted it to do. Abel also showed us some tricks on taking bends, etc.. A couple of times we nearly fell.

At some point our guide suggested to jump out of the boat to swin since the river was in a calm stretch. We did just that and it felt great! Really cool water in constrast with the super hot environment around. We were floating in the deep river and it took us downstream. Just before the next rapid, we got back in the boat and paddled. Soon enough it was time for lunch and all the rafts and their guides flipped a boat upside down on a shore where the water was calmed. All the boats stopped there and they used the bottom of the raft as a table. This table displayed pineapple, tortillas, cheese, palm hearts, cold cuts, vegetables, and some juice that I still don´t know what it is. It was yellow and tasted like gatorade though. Soon after lunch I went on to swing with the myriad of fish on the Eddy (that´s what they call the calm parts of water on the side of the river).

It was time to leave and we did just that. We hit a HUGE hole in a rapid which we had work by gathering all the crew and sitting on the back before the hit. Pretty cool trick. The time of exit was nearing and a final show was seeing these local kids climbing a train bridge over the river, at about 20 or 30 meters high and plunging into the river water!! These guys have nerves! You could count how many seconds they were in the air as it took a while for them to hit the water.

We clean up, purchase the CD with our raft´s pictures (hence pics are to be added) and head out back to San Jose and hope to arrive there around 6PM. We had left our car and luggage at the hotel last night and we need to pick them up and drive somewhere closer to the border with Panama tonight. Otherwise, the trip to Panama City tomorrow would be unbearable. We arrived in a torrential rain. First thing we needed to do was to try to get some of our raft money back taking advantage of the student discounts. After making phone calls, running and driving around the city like chickens with heads cut off, we got our money back minus a few bucks because they charge an extra percentage if you us credit card. However, we were happy that the trip was fun and the right price.

We started driving violating our no-driving-at-dark rule from the get go. My vote was to stay in San Jose and just put up with the monster drive the next day since I really don´t like to ask for directions at night which can be dangerous. Also, we heard the road is really dangerous specially at night due to foggy conditions and curvy geography. We reached a compromise and we decided to at least get out of the city and get to a city called Cartago to spend the night. The road was not too bad getting there but once there, we realized that the time it would take us to search for a room, find our way in this new city, etc.. would be more than reaching San Isidro El General where we had already made arrangements for three beds. So we decided to go for it. The total trip was about 2h30m from San Jose to San Isidro even though it felt like an eternity. At times, you could not see what was 7 feet in front of you due to the fog. Very dangerous and not many people around. But we arrived there safely and were ready to sleep and drive to Panama tomorrow.

At arrival, we went to eat at a fast food restaurant that Alexey had eyed. It was called Dulji or something like that. It was ok and cheap so we went with our stomachs full back to the hotel where we crashed. Tomorrow will be an early start: 5AM we are thinking.