Costa Rica - Day 2 – White Water Rafting

Esther’s Birthday!

Esther’s Birthday started off nice and early when we were whisked away from our hotel to go rafting through class III-IV rapids on the Río Pacuare. I’ve been rafting a few times before, but this was definitely the most fun I’ve had for various reasons.

1) We had an awesome rafting guide. When he found out it was Esther’s birthday he splashed her about 20 times with his paddle and 2 minutes into the expedition he pushed her out of the raft, dunked her, and pulled her back into the raft. He also made her go sit in the front of the raft and lean forward so that the rapids would douse her completely. It was hilarious.

2)He was also awesome because he knew we wanted to have fun, and did different things like have us all turn around and paddle backwards into rapids which was a very interesting sensation. Also cool, half the raft sat backwards, half forward, and everyone paddled forward which causes the raft to spin in the circles in the rapid, which threw Amy and I across the raft.

3) Towards the end of the journey, Leanne and I both did the same thing Esther did earlier and sat at the front of the raft, got covered in waves, and loved it.

4) There was this beautiful part of the river where it narrowed into a canyon-esque area, and we were able to jump out and swim around.

5) Our guide was also really good at telling us more about the trees and animals were passing on the side of the river, more about the country, etc.

6) One the rafts got wrapped around a rock in a rapid zone, right before a drop and there was a cool rescue scene. I thought we might flip as our guide was yelling at us to paddle harder. We paddle right into a wall, bounced off, went into the drop…just as an indian guy fell out of the wrapped raft. We plunged directly on top of him, he re-emerged seconds later, and we pulled him in. It took around 20 minutes for the whole team of guides to unwrap the raft from the rock, and rescue the fallen. These guys were awesome, they were swimming upriver into rapids!

7) There were a couple guys in kayaks from the company to take pictures and rescue people. This one guy leveraged himself and flipped his kayak up into the air, did a 360, and landed back in the water! He also did this through rapids. I was amazed.

8) The breakfast and lunch they provided were delicious. Mmmm platains, yucca, and potatoes in this red sauce. Leanne and I could not get enough.

Sadly, due to the nature of our trip, there aren’t any rafting pics :(

For dinner, we went out for Esther’s bday, enjoyed fruit juices, and cake!