Pura Vida

Wow - so I can truly say that this weekend was action-packed. On Friday morning we headed out at about 6 am to meet up with the bus that would take us to the Pacuare River, which is apparently one of the top 10 places to whitewater raft in the world. I think I agree with that statistic after the experience. We took about a 2 hour bus ride through the countryside to the Rio Tropicales Base Camp, where we had a ridiculous breakfast (Costa Ricans know how to eat) and donned sunscreen and bug spray (Mom, I wore a 55 the whole weekend - no burns!). 

(I'm the second to the front on the left side of the photo, 

if you can see through our helmets and monstrous life jackets)

The river was class 3 and 4 - nothing really dangerous but enough to make my eyes bug out each time we turned a corner and saw the rapids ahead. Day one was relatively calm - despite our guide trying to flip our raft on the calmer part of the river, we came out pretty unscathed. We stopped at our camp, a lodge on the side of the river in time for a hike and dinner. During the hike, I truly learned the meaning of a rainforest, because it POURED. I'm talking buckets of rain, for hours and hours. We were literally wading through parts of the trail, me crossing my fingers that none of my slithery friends would come out. Luckily, they stayed hidden. There were waterfalls everywhere, and everything is just so GREEN. The vegetation is unlike anything I've ever seen before - extremely thick, but all of plants are pretty skinny. After about an hour and a half hike, my raincoat was serving absolutely no purpose,

we headed back. That night the Ticos (Costa Ricans) threw a big party at the lodge.

The next morning, we got up and were ready by 7 to go on the canopy tour, which is a series of platforms high in the trees. You get harnessed in and fly from one canopy to another, which was so cool. One of the ziplines went right over the Pacuare River - so pretty.  I was pretty terrified that I was going to zipline right into one of the guides, but I landed pretty well every time. (I was told by one of the guides that I was the best breaker he had seen all day haha.) After ziplining, my friend Alyssa and I decided to go play in one of the little waterfalls by the lodge, which was hilarious. The water was so powerful that as hard as I swam, I had no control over myself. Yes, I'm the one you can barely see.

By the way, this was all before breakfast. Big day - check.

After breakfast, we headed out to paddle the last 14 miles of the Pacuare. The day was set to be a bit harder, and sure enough, the waves were huge. In the middle of a class IV, my guide yelled PADDLE FASTER!!!, and the next thing I knew, I was under a bunch of people and the raft, being swept through a huge rapid. amazingly enough, I came up still holding my paddle and was able to be dragged back in before we hit the next big one. Crazy. I have a few rando bumps and bruises on my legs, but besides that, I came out relatively unharmed and laughing at the absurdity of what had just happened. Of course my raft would be the only boat to have a major wipeout.

All in all, a FANTASTIC weekend. On Thursday, a group of us are planning on heading to Manuel Antonio, a beach on the Pacific side of the country. More updates to come!