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October 2001

Pacuare Valley

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

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We spent Saturday and Sunday of our trip to Costa Rica rafting on the Pacuare River. Our tour was through the company Aventures Naturales and they really did a fantastic job overall. We were picked up at our hotel early on Saturday morning. On the way to the river we stopped for breakfast where we had our first experience with several staples of Costa Rican cuisine. Gallo Pinto, a rice and bean mixture is ubiquitous and particularly present at breakfast. Natilla is a dairy product which is somewhere between sour cream and custard and goes quite well with the gallo pinto. Lizano sauce, the national condiment of choice, also goes well with gallo pinto (and eggs) and is a mild vegetable-based sauce. It was about a three hour bus ride to the river through some impressive valleys filled with coffee and banana plantations.

Aventures Naturales and other tour companies that run the Pacuare offer one day trips, but covering fourteen miles (23 km) of river three hours away from San Jose leads to a very hectic day. We chose the much more relaxed two-day version. As a result there was only a few miles of river to cover the first day with relatively small class III rapids. This brought us to the Pacuare Lodge (owned by Av. Naturales) - a rustic encampment on the banks of the river (1). Rival tour company Rios Tropicales also has a riverside lodge farther downstream. There is no road entrance to the lodge - we were told it was about a 45 minute walk to the nearest location a truck could get to. There is no electricity or hot water yet most other comforts are taken care of it so it is closer to hotel lodging than it is to camping.

For instance, this was our particular hut for the evening (2). There were around nine of these spaced around the grounds and barely within sight of one another. Inside they contain a bed, candles for evening lighting and a small private bathroom. There is mosquito screening on the open windows - we certainly didn't ...