Stayin' Dry with the Tico Styleeee

It's been a good while since I've posted last because I haven't been able to get out on the water at all this past month. It's been kind of a bummer staying dry but I've had some time to see the country and try some other stuff.

I've been going to classes for five days a week and doing light traveling around Costa Rica on the weekends. During my first week of classes, I was able to try something I've never done before.


I don't know if you have ever jumped off a bridge before, but it's kinda scary looking 280 feet down into a canyon knowing that you are about to free fall towards a river for a few seconds.

This was my first time bungee jumping, it was definitely an awesome experience. It was cool because we were able to go just after class one day. There were about 5 of us that went and everyone had a great time. I didn't bring my camera with me because it was raining, but here's a few more pictures that one of my friends took:






One of the weekends I was able to go up to Monteverde, a national park and cloud forest here in Costa Rica. This turned out to be a pretty cool trip with a couple exciting events.

We arrived in Monteverde on a Friday and spent the night at a hotel and on Saturday morning, we did the typical Costa Rican Zip Line Canopy Tour. I had done a canopy tour previously when I was in Panama a few months ago, so I wasn't as stoked as some of the other people, but once we started rolling, I found out that this tour was waaaaay better. There were long lines, fast lines, rappels, swings, all kinds of stuff to keep it interesting and keep the adrenaline pumping...


The girl in this picture couldn't figure out how to slow down on the wire, so she needed a little help.


Here is the really long line, click the picture to see the bigger version and you can see how big it really is!!!


The Tarzan Swing



My friends got a little scared when we started shaking this bridge, they all eventually fell off. They were clipped in though :(.

After a great morning of ziplining, I returned back to my hotel for lunch. Outside the hotel, there was a sign that said "Catarata - 1 Kilometer" Catarata means "Waterfall" and since I am a kayaker, I am naturally drawn to waterfalls, so I decided I would go on an afternoon hike to check it out. I went by myself because I didn't think it would be that far away. After walking a good distance, I was pretty secluded on a gravel road on a mountain pass. I saw a lookout point and snapped a few pictures before continuing my hike.


The view was pretty, but nothing special. Just as I finished putting my camera away, I heard a loud noise. I figured it was a truck coming so I got out of the road and tried to walk along the side in the grass. The noise got louder. Ok, that must be thunder, I guess it's going to rain soon. So, I stop to get my raincoat out of my pack. When I turned around, I saw an entire mountain crumbling 50 meters away from me. There was no truck. There was no thunder. There was a LANDSLIDE. This was no petty landslide either, there were full size trees being thrown off the mountain. This was one of the scarier moments of my life. I immediately started running and screaming and occasionally looking back to see if it had ended. When all the dust settled, this is what I saw:

If you ever have trouble trying to contemplate life or the meaning of your existence, try to witness a landslide and it will definitely get you thinking. What scared me the most about this thing was that if I stopped to pee or if I left 10 minutes later or something, I would have been right under that thing and no one would have know...

After the landslide, I walked a little farther but then decided to turn back because where ever this waterfall was, it wasn't worth it. Here's a few more shots of the carnage:

This guy rolled up on his 4-wheeler shortly afterward, he also gave me a ride down the mountain and back to town, huge thanks bro...



The next weekend we went to La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano. La Fortuna is a big waterfall and is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. When we hiked down to the falls, we decided that we needed to further investigate behind the curtain, so we went for a little swim, it was really cool.


Arenal is also one of the most active volcanoes in the world, so we figured it needed further investigation as well.



That sign pretty much says, "Don't walk past this point, or you'll probably die." We kinda think like elementary school kids, so that sounded really cool, and we definitely went past the sign. It was well worth it, until it started raining and then we had to walk about 5 kilometers back to the hotel.

This brings me to about 2 weeks ago, when I tried to make another attempt to go kayaking. My study abroad program was supposed to go to the beach, but due to tropical storms and hurricanes and flooding, the trip got rained out. I took this as a sign that I need to get on the water. I took a bus up to Turrialba on Friday afternoon when I got out of class and met up with a few locals and also a couple boater that were in town from Alabama. We had a good night of partying and planned on running the Patria section of the Rio Reventazon in the morning. When I woke up, I couldn't move my head. I guess I slept in a weird position because everytime I tried to turn my head to the right, it was shot with excruciating pain. Running class V without being able to move your head is never a good idea, so I caught the next bus back to San Jose and had kind of a buzz kill of a weekend. I was able to catch up on sleep, which proved to be pretty useful.

The next week went by smoothly, and the coming weekend we had planned a fairly large undertaking. My friends and I decided that we wanted to give Nicaragua a try, and we had a three day weekend, so why not?

This was our last week of our first term, so since we were starting a new term the following week, we got a little break. We left San Jose at 4:00am Saturday morning and headed for the border town of Penas Blancas.

Since we were leaving at 4am, we thought it would be a good idea to stay up all night Friday night and party and then just pass out on the bus for seven hours in the morning. This actually worked for a while, but we started the party a little too early and ended up wanting to go to sleep around 1 or 2am. Luckily someone remembered to wake up and we all made it to the bus station downtown on time.

When we arrived at the Nicaraguan border, there was a lot of chaos, everywhere. There were merchants and homeless people and people trying to get you to exchange money with them and all kinds of other shennanigans.

We went through customs, and then realized that we still hadn't decided where in Nicaragua we wanted to go. So we asked some girl, "hey where should we go in this country." And we took her suggestion: Isla Ometepe en Lago Nicaragua.

Its pretty much a big volcanic island in the middle of a giant lake in the middle of Nicaragua. We got off the bus in a town called Rivas and from there took a taxi to a town called San Jorge and from there took a ferry to the island and then from there, about 15 of us got in the back of pickup truck (he said he was a taxi driver) and went to a hotel.

We ended having about a 12 hour transit time from San Jose to the Island. Good times. I guess. We chilled at the hotel until dark and then chilled some more. The next morning, we decided to climb one of the volcanoes, "Madernas."

For me, this was the third country in Latin America that I have climbed a volcano. It was pretty fun at first until our sandals started breaking. Mine broke first, the straps seperated themselves from the soles and I had to finish climbing barefoot. Not so bad for a kilometer or two, but then when you get to like kilometer 7 and 8, it really starts to suck. Two other people had footwear issues as well, so we didn't end up coming off the mountain until after dark. We came back to San Jose the next day (another 12 hours) and started classes again.

Overall, I'm happy that I went to Nicaragua, but I would not recommend it for the wandering tourist, there isn't much there, it isn't a very safe country, and it's kind of a pain in the ass to use their transportation. Thats just my two cents.

This brings me to today. Today I am very excited because a lot of things are going on right now. Tommorow, I am going to get to paddle the Rio Orosi for the first time. On top of that, I get to do it in a Pink Creek Boat: The Jackson Rocker.

I have started to talk to some other kayakers here in Costa Rica, and we are starting to make plans, and everything is starting to fall together.

Tommorrow we are going to fire up the Upper Orosi, which is kinda like San Jose's answer to the Narrows. So it should be pretty cool. The first part of the run is called the Dinosaur Gorge, which for me, if anything is named after a dinosaur, it has to be awesome. After that, I am trying to decide between going to Turrialba for the night to run the Peijibaje or going back out to Sarapiqui for the night to run the Poza Azul again on Sunday.

More is soon to come, check back next week for an update on this coming weekends adventures. Also, good luck to everyone in the Green Race tommorrow, I wish I could be there!!! Keep that bow up!

My First 30 footer - La Poza Azul

My journey to the Poza Azul began on a dreary afternoon here in San Jose. It was raining, I had nothing to do for the next few days, and I wanted to go kayaking. I got my gear together (which was still wet from the Pacuare the day before) and set off to the bus station. The first bus I took was to a town called Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui. Once in Sararpiqui, I then took another bus to a nearby town called La Virgen. Once I was in La Virgen, I took a taxi to Sarapiqui Outdoor Center, where I stayed for the night.

La Virgen is famous for two things: the first is a chuch just outside of town where Ticos from all over the country gather on the first of every month to see miraculous appearances of the Virgin Mary. The other point of interest in La Virgen is the sicko whitewater.

The Sarapiqui river runs right through the center of town, and a major economic stimulant for Gringos that go rafting every day on the class III-IV river. Besides the Sarapiqui, there are several smaller creeks that fuel the main river, and these little creeks have some of the best whitewater in Costa Rica.

My plan was to stay at the Sarapiqui Outdoor Center (SOC) Friday night and do some creeking on Saturday. So when I arrived at the SOC and found that I was currently the only customer, the owner, David Duarte offered to show me around town. This was great chance to experience the Costa Rican nightlife with a native Tico, it was a world different than the American nightlife. I found myself really tired and returned to the SOC to wake up in the morning to the smell of breakfast.

After breakfast, David and I went to La Cataracta Poza Azul (Blue Pool Waterfall). This was the closest thing to a park-n-huck in Costa Rica. Except it wasn’t a park-n-huck. It was more like a drive-n-payafarmertousehisland-n-hike-n-scramble-n-climb-n-huck. But when we finally arrived at the Poza Azul, I was awestruck by its beauty.

I had never seen such a beautiful, straightforward, clean, 30 footer in my life. When you look at this drop, it just begs you to run it. After a scouting for a few minutes, I jumped in my boat and above the drop and for a second, I just sat there taking everything in. This was definitely the biggest drop I have ever thought about running, and to be sitting in the eddy, about to peel-out, I had a crazy feeling. I thought back to when I used to go cliff jumping at an old rock quarry, when I would stand there looking down, wondering if I should really jump or not. When you peel-out of that eddy, you don’t have much of a choice to stop – you’re going to do it whether you like it or not.

David went to the other side of the river to take pictures, and when he was set up to go, I peeled-out.

When I went over the lip, I was suspended in the air long enough to process a couple thoughts and take in the experience. It was such a great feeling.

When I was about to land, I remembered that I was supposed to put my paddle to the side of the boat to plug it, it was a good thing I remembered at the last second…

After I resurfaced, I yelled a loud “PURA VIDA!!!” and I was all smiles

After I climbed back up to the top, I gave David all my gear and he suited up and ran the drop as well. When I took the picture of him, it looked like he was inside the waterfall, so it’s a little hard to see him.

Right after he ran the drop, four other kayakers showed up and they ran it as well. I ended up becoming friends with those four guys and I found out that they live really close to me here in San Jose. I also found out that they run a rafting company on the Lower Pacuare River and they offered me a chance to go with them for free anytime I needed a shuttle. This was a good offer because the Lower Pacuare is one of the most beautiful runs here in Costa Rica.

We ran the drop again and took lots of pictures of our new friends and before we left.

(pulling the gear back up)

After we left, we paddled from the Poza Azul out to the Upper Sarapiqui river and had a short paddle down to the take out. At the take out rapid, there was a slalom course set up for a raft race later that day, we changed our clothes and watched the race before I returned to San Jose.

Overall, this is by far the best thing I have done so far here in Costa Rica. This was such a fun trip and I felt such a good vibe coming from the Rio Sarapiqui area. I am definitely going back soon.

Also, I have to throw a muchas gracias to my man David “Sombrilla” Duarte at Sarapiqui Outdoor center for setting safety and photography, as well as hooking me up with a place to stay. I would also like to throw a big PURA VIDA out to my new amigos that I met at the waterfall: Miguel, Daniel, and Albert.

Bienvenidos a Costa Rica - The Lower Pacuare River

So I was finally able to go kayaking yesterday for the first time in Costa Rica. I have been here for about 5 days now, so I figured I would start out easy on the Lower Pacuare. This river is similar to the Ocoee in the southeast. It is the most commercially rafted river here in Costa Rica and the rapids are not super difficult. It is also that "one run" that you need to do if you are kayaking in Costa Rica.

My day began around 5:30 when I woke up to take the bus to Turrialba (Costa's version of Asheville). I arrived in Turrialba around 8:30 and I went over to Rainforest World, a rafting company owned and operated by West Virginian, Phil Colman. I met up with the crew that was going rafting and Phil let me use his Wavesport Forplay to run the river. For those unfamiliar with the forplay, here it is:
This superslicy playboat was a revolutionary boat of its time, but that time was a long time ago, so there were a few surprises when I tried to play around with the boat. This thing was a lot different than the boat I'm used to (the Fluid Solo), so it was a little shaky at first.

Speaking of things that were shaky, you should have seen this shuttle ride. It was pretty sketchy, especially in a truck loaded with 7 ticos, 2 kayaks, and 3 rafts. Imagine the shuttle on the Cheat river, but much rougher...



Anyway, once we got underway, I found myself in a beautiful gorge with endless whitewater and scenery. It seemed like I noticed a waterfall pouring into the river midway through every single rapid, it's a great way to get distracted.


The river itself is 16 miles long, so it made for a very long day. We stopped for lunch near an indigeonous village and dined among the wild pigs and chickens that were trying to eat our food...
From the river, I was able to see a lot of thatched roofs and indigenous dwellings, and I felt like I was alone out there in the middle of nowhere in this deep gorge, but it's a little erie when you know you are being watched...


The rapids on the river were not too difficult. I like to compare this stretch of river to a mix between the Middle Ocoee and the Lower Gauley; easy enough to have fun (and paddle a throwback boat), but difficult enough to keep your attention.



The best part of the river was a section called Canon Dos Montanas (Two Mountains Canon), this is a box canyon that is almost as deep as it is long. The indigenous tribes say that the spirt of the river lives in these walls. The best part of the canon is that there are multiple waterfalls dropping hundreds of feet into the river and you are able to paddle up to these waterfalls and get a little refreshing shower.

After a long day on the river, we arrived at the take out, where we were greeted with lots of native wildlife.

Las Mariposas (picture just for Emilia)

I guess the iguanas here just chill in the sun the same way we do, this guy had to be 3 feet long!!!

More is yet to come from Costa Rica. I have started to make some plans to run some more serious whitewater in the coming weeks. Hopefully I will get to do all the runs I want, but if not, I guess I am just going to have to come back again!

Pura Vida Amigos!!!