Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Whitewater Rafting Rio Sarapiqui


Tuesday was a beautiful day for risking your life on Rio Sarapiqui!  It's true it was a glorious day but not true we were risking our lives on the trip booked for us by Esteban with Desafio Adventures.  The company's 2 priorities: 1) Safety and 2) Have great fun!

The company van picked us up at 9 AM at a gas station about 3 miles away from the villa and we were off for a 1 1/2 hour ride to the river. Once there we donned our gear, listened to a short lecture from one of the guides and then pushed off for a little practice before the first rapids.

In this picture can you guess what we said instead of "cheese"?  No?  PURA VIDA!

The river was beautiful and the surroundings were tropical.  At one short rest stop we saw a toucan winging its way over the river.  And one stop offered great views of the Poas Volcano.

This is the start of the rainy season so the water was pretty low, making the rocks in the riverbed and along the sides more prominent and dangerous.  There are only a few commands from the guides to the rafters--the main ones being "forward" and "stop".  Meaning paddle forward on the count (1,2,1,2) so everyone on board works as a team, making it easy for the guide to steer from the rear.  Other frequently heard commands are "lean in" and "get down".  "Get down" is sometimes voiced as "Oh my god!", meaning we are in for a really bad spot and there's nothing to do but get down and try to ride it out while staying on board the raft.

It was in one of the Oh-my-god spots where three of us went overboard, leaving Briana and the guide in the raft.  I didn't get all the way out because I was in back right next to the guide and he grabbed my life jacket and hauled me back in.  The couple in front were both thrown in the river.  The guy was close to the raft (I think hanging on to the rope attached to the side) so he was easily hauled back in.  The woman was floating along and we had to throw her a rope to get her reeled in.  I lost my paddle in the process but we retrieved everything with no problems.  The woman got a nasty scrape on the knee from a rock but was otherwise ok--definitely shaken up though.

We had a fruit break and a cliff dive break during the 2-hour trip.  Most of the travel time we were in white water.  The guide told us many of the rapids were Class 3 and 4.  I won't argue--plenty of  them were hairy.  We were too busy following commands to be scared.  Definitely an in-the-moment, adrenaline-raising experience.

Here are a couple of shots of the cliff dive.  It was only 10 or 12 feet down to the river but plenty high enough to freak you out if you were to take time to think about it.  And we had to swim across to get to the jump then swim back after taking the plunge.


Desafio's photographer was in a kayak and took some great shots from the riverbank.  I'll post a number of them in the photo album.  If you ever go on a whitewater trips buy the CD with the pictures--Briana and I had great laughs last night looking over the pictures and re-living our Rio Sarapiqui adventure!

Today we go to Ciudad Quesada to look for a replacement camera for my Nikon that died on the vine (really zipline) Monday. Then we'll press on to Sarchi, a town known mostly for its excellent souvenir shopping.  We'll have an interim stop at Zarcero and go do another hot spring, Termales del Bosque, at dusk.



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