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October 2001

Pacuare Valley

David Aaronson
2005-09-25 15:16:54

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looked like this with rolling heavily-forested hills on either side. In several places rope bridges spanned the river which are used by the Cabecar Indians. The next picture shows our raft "surfing" in one of the rapids (5). For those unfamiliar with the practice, surfing a raft involves paddling upsteam into a rapid so that the water pouring over the drop hits the front of the raft. This often raises the rear part of the raft out of the water completely. This can lead to an exciting ride before the raft is spit out, or it can lead to an exciting flip. Notice by the relative happiness (and presence) of everyone in the last picture that we did not flip.

Other sections of the river were more gorge-like such as this one. The calmer sections of the river (and there aren't many) lead to swimming. The light blue mist in the top left corner of this picture is actually the spray from a low-volume waterfall high above (6).

The trip ends in the town of Siquirres where Aventures Naturales has yet another facility with changing rooms and a bar (of course). We were bussed back to San Jose afterwards. The highlight of that ride was definitely the Braulio Carillo National Park which sits high above San Jose. The road crosses through the mountains up there and in a torrential downpour we hurtled through in near darkness with what appeared to be vast dropoffs on either side. Driving may be more adventurous than white-water rafting or canopy tours in Costa Rica. Ticos (the local name for native Costa Ricans) are truly among the friendliest people we've ever met, unless of course you put them in a car. We were told before our trip by one experienced local that the shortest measurable length of time in the universe is that expanse between which the traffic light turns green and when people start honking their car horns. This turned out to be true. In some cases it was so true we began to suspect psychic abilities. Anyway we'll leave driving in Costa Rica for the next page.

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