Wednesday, July 23, 2008

White Water Rafting on the Pacuare

The Pacuare is a fabulous river for white water rafting...and we, Dennis and I, had the privilege to ride its class III and IV rapids. Linda, who is fearful of these kinds of things, went on a Pineapple Plantation Tour... We were outfitted with lifejackets and helmets and packed into an inflatable raft with a mother-daughter duo from Denmark and two-teenaged cousins from Mexico City. Thus our Costa Rican guide's commands were nearly trilingual. While we jumped into the river several times to swim, no one fell out against their will! There's a beautiful jungle along the edges with thick rain forest, tropical flowers and a scattering of riverside lodges. The roofs of these lodges were the only time I was able to see thatched roofs. Everywhere else in Costa Rica the roofs are corrugated tin, some rusty and many painted orange to mimic Spanish tiling.

Our guide, Ricardo, had us do a paddle-raising "high five" everytime we successfully traversed a rapid, in Spanish "rapido." On several easy rapids, he placed one of us on the front of the boat so the moment the first wave washed over, this "volunteer" would fall backwards into the raft--and we'd all burst into hysterics. Another antic was having one side of paddlers reverse themselves with everyone paddling forward so that when we traversed an easish rapid we'd be running it in circles! Finally when we engaged the intense class IV "rapidos" he'd yell get down and we'd all bunch ourselves into the bottom of the raft and get flooded...and of course laugh with glee!

Having run rivers in Australia, Africa, Thailand and California, this was certainly a favorite. If you ever get a chance to run the Pacuare, do it!!!

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