Swimming break

We decided to go rafting in a rather roundabout manner.  I was looking into transit from the San Jose area to the Caribbean coast (about a 4-hour drive), and found that there was a rafting company that would pick you up in one place and bring you back to another — door to door service each way.  Given the cost of a shuttle for the same distance, and the fact that we got breakfast and lunch thrown into the bargain, it was a pretty good deal.  The only downside was that our hotel pickup time was 5:45am.

Natural water slide

We were initially supposed to raft the Reventazón river, because the Pacuare was for age 12 and up only.  However, they let us know a few days in advance that due to low water levels this would likely be boring for all but little kids.  After a bit of back and forth, we worked out a deal — they would take us to a separate section of the Pacuare, where there were no Class IV rapids.  So, we were all alone in our one raft, with no photographers present — so sadly, no good rapids photos!  We were too busy paddling.

We came back from our short hike to find this lovely snack laid out for us. When snacks are provided on outings here, they usually consist of a whole watermelon and/or pineapple fresh cut on the scene.

A couple of days ago we went white-water rafting.  It was really fun.  We got to swim and eat pineapple and watermelon.  We also went for a hike.

There are five classes of rapids.  Class I is the calmest.  We did classes I, II, and III.  When the guide yelled “Forward!”, we paddled.  When he said, “Backward” we paddled backward.  There were other commands like “lean in!” and “left/right back” and “get down!”  If we didn’t act quickly enough, the boat could flip over.  Lanie decided not to paddle so she only had to lean in and get down.

The end point of our hike