Family Time in Costa Rica

Last week was another wonderful one in Costa Rica. I spent it traveling around the country with my family on a little holiday vacation. The trip started at the beach, outside a town called Quepos. Our hotel was beautiful and conveniently had its own semi-private beach that allowed for easy access to the sand and the ocean. I arrived from San Jose just in time to grab lunch and head to our surfing lessons. My Dad, my brothers and I all took part and it was definitely a pretty entertaining sight to see. It was pretty entertaining to watch even before we hit the water because our guide made us jog up and down the beach to warm up and the rashguards he gave my dad and my brother Matt didn´t exactly fit, resulting in a pretty comical scene.

The next day we all got up early to head to the rio savegre for some whitewater rafting. Lucky for me, the rafting company had a kayak they let me borrow and I opted out of the rubber raft for some hard boating. The river was mostly class 3, but lots of fun and very beautiful. We stopped off at a waterfall part of the way down to cool off and take some pictures. The following day my Mom and I woke up early to go on a coastal sea kayaking trip. We basically followed the coastline outside of Quepos and were granted some great views of the beaches and rocky cliffs in the area.

My dad cooling off under the waterfall on the rio savegre

A beach we stopped at during our sea kayaking tour

While we were sea kayaking, the guide learned that I was a whitewater boater and invited him to join me to run an apparently really amazing section of river that afternoon. I of course agreed and after having lunch, I left with Felipe to get on the chorro section fo the rio naranjo, located 40 min. outside of town. The river turned out to be even more amazing than I expected. It was only 3 miles long, but it was 3 miles of beautiful gorges and great class 4 water. I would venture to say it was the most beautiful area that I saw in all of Costa Rica. The scenery on the entire river looked like the picture below. I was unfortunatley unable to get many good photos, so this one will have to do.

A view from inside the gorge of the chorro section of the rio naranjo

Christmas morning we woke up early to head to the Manuel Antonio National Park for a quick guided tour of the park before leaving town. The guide was able to show us lots of cool animals, including monkeys, sloths, bats and iguanas. After the tour we headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and proceded to head up to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. It took four hours, which included 35 kilometers of an especially bad road, before we finally arrived Christmas night.

A black iguana keeping warm in the Manuel Antonio National Park

A view from the hotel at the Monteverde

On the morning of the 26th we all headed out to do a canopy tour. The canopy tour involved seven different zip lines and two repells through the forest. It was a pretty cool perspective to see the jungle and lots of fun as well. That night we all went into the nearby biological reserve for a night hike. The hike last 2 hours, and while we did not see too much, we did hear lots of different creatures stirring around in the forest which made for a neat experience.

My mom repelling down a tree during our canopy tour

A tarrantula we spotted on our night hike in the Monteverde Bological Reserve

The last stop on our trip in Costa Rica was to the Arenal Volcano area. The fastest way to get there from Monteverde involved an hour and a half van ride, followed by a 30 minute boat ride across Arenal lake. When we first arrived at the location where we were to catch the boat, we were not sure if we´d ever get across. There were about 30 other tourists, also sitting at the end of this dirt road in the middle of no where with no boat in sight. My dad commented that it was as close to a refuge as he´d ever felt and I would have to agree, it did have that kind of feel to it. Eventually we all made it on the boat, across the lake and to our hotel. That afternoon we headed out for a hike around the volcano and learned all about the history of the many eruptions the Arenal Volcano has seen.

My family on the boat headed to Arenal

A view of the volcano from our hotel room balcony

A sunset view during our hike in the Arenal National Park

The last activity of our trip, and probably the most exciting one, was canyoning trip outside of Arenal. Canyoning basically involved working your way through a steep gorge by doing a series of repells through waterfalls as well as some hiking. We did five different repells, four through waterfalls and one down a canyon wall. It was a pretty cool experience and I must give my mom props for doing it, as she was very nervous about it for the entire week leading up to it. She did great in the end though. There were pictures taken but unfortunately they are not in my posession at the moment. On the 29th we all headed back to San Jose to get ready to fly out the following morning. My family and I all caught the same flight back to Miami, but when they left from there to head home, I caught an overnight flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I arrived in Buenos Aires this morning and am all checked into my hostel. So far all I know about this place is that its very hot. If I am going to learn more I´m going to have to get off this computer and go explore, so I´m out. Will post more in a few days.

¿Que Dice Maje?

Well, my time as a kayak instructor in Costa Rica ended this morning as I said goodbye to Anne and the guests and headed off to the beach to meet up with my family, who flew into San Jose yesterday. The last two weeks of trips went great, with lots of time spent learning and playing on the Sarapique and Sardinal rivers.

Because I am tired and wanting to get back to spending time with my family, rather than type about my time in CR, I am just going to include some pictures from the last five weeks that sum up my favorite memories from my time here. Enjoy!

The Lower Rio Pacuare

Laughing hysterically while loading the coaster

Anne catching air on my favorite boof in Costa Rica

Surf sessions on the Sarapique

Anne eating cans of Palmitos constantly

Beautiful roadside scenery

Finally figuring out the best approach to loading boats on the Coaster

The toucan sightings

My Nike Toketee booties that I was unwilling to throw away

Anne on top of the coaster after our afternoon "G & T" scouting run of the Sardinal

Trying to explain wall shots and how to deal with them

Anne trying to bite me

Taking a day off on the Upper Pacuare

Anne stomping a boof on the Upper Pacuare

After another week of guiding class 3/4 whitewater, Anne and I decided it was time to step it up, so on Saturday, one of our very few full days off, we headed over to the Upper Pacuare. The Upper Pacuare is known as one of, if not the, most classic section of whitewater in Costa Rica. It is a 7 mile class 4-5 section located in a remote jungle and involves two steep gorge sections.

With the help of our friend Brian, one of the ERA kayak guides, we arranged a driver and vehicle for the day to drive the three of us from San Jose and drop us off at the river. We decided to make the trip even more worth our while by putting in at the Upper Upper Pacuare, a nice 7 mile class 3-4 warm up before the significantly more difficult upper section.

The day was absolutely amazing, and provided the three of us with not only awesome whitewater, but some amazing scenery as well. There were lots of laughs and lots of good lines, making it my favorite day since I have arrived here in Costa Rica.

Brian and Anne scouting one of the bigger rapids on the river

Brian getting ready to seal launch after a portage

Brian in the middle of one of the last bigger rapids on the Upper Pacuare


Anne and I excited to be paddling on, and not working on, the Upper Pacuare

After arriving back in San Jose, Anne, Brian and I along with an old friend of mine, Molly, who is currently living in Costa Rica, headed out for some sushi followed by a trip to the Lebanese restaurant to smoke Huka (which if you don't know, Huke is a water pipe that you smoke a very mild flavored tobacco out of). It was a great ending to an awesome day. This evening started the next trip, which will be a class 2-3 trip spent mostly in the Sarapique area. Its shaping up to be another great week in Costa Rica!

Me loading boats on the coaster

Me boofing the bottom drop of Lower Huacus on the Lower Pacuare

Unintended overnighter on the Torro... almost

Anne, Jason and I after getting off the Pejibaye River and finishing our last river all together here in Costa Rica

Another trip finished up yesterday and as to be expected, there was lots of excitement and adventures throughout the week. We had a group of nine paddlers, all from Charlotte and all good friends. The most memorable part was probably the day we paddled the upper Torro river. It is written up in the guide book at being a 7 mile class 3-3+ section of whitewater, although after last week, Anne, Jason and I believe it to be more like 10 miles. After running the shorter class 4 Recreo Verde section of the Torro with two of the guests, we met the rest of the group to head downstream. The day was going great and while we had had a few swims, everyone was doing well. It was, however, taking us a long time to move downstream due to the size of the group. At about 3:30, we started to realize that we had a long way to go, and needed to get the group moving a bit faster downstream. For one, because its dark by 5:30 in Costa Rica, and two, because the dam released water in the river was beginning to disappear. We did our best to get the group moving downriver, however the lower water and braided out wall shots caused some rocky rapids that caused a few more swims and some necessary portages. As darkness began to fall, there was definitely a thought that we may not actually be able to get off the river before it was too dark to paddle. The run is fairly committing, and hiking out would have proved difficult. The guests were definitely exhausted, both mentally and physically when we finally reached the takeout, just 10 minutes before complete darkness.

Anne and I hopped up on the roof to load the boats in the darkness and pouring down rain, feeling relieved to be off the river. The guests began celebrating our safe return to the bus by doing what they did best, drink. The coaster turned into what we later termed the "party bus" which was probably one of my most favorite experiences in Costa Rica thus far. We made it back to the hotel just in time to grab dinner before taking some time to relax and reflect on a very adventurous day.

The "party bus" gang

Victor, our fearless driver

The rest of the trip went great, and we paddled some awesome rivers and saw some cool wildlife, including another sloth, some monkeys, toucans and iguanas just to name a few.

Anne giving a pep talk on the Rio Pejibaye

Our lunch spot of the Rio Pacuare

One of the many iguanas we spotted

Crossing the swinging bridge at the Selva Verde lodge on our way to a jungle hike

Jason checking out the Howler monkeys on our jungle hike

Our next trip started tonight with a wonderful sushi dinner. This week we only have three guests, which should make it fairly laid back. For the final three trips it will be just Anne and I guiding. Tomorrow we will be saying goodbye to Jason, who is heading back to the states on Monday.