Biking: 46 km
Whitewater rafting: 5 km
Ascent: 675m. Descent: 1150m.
Breakfast at 6:30 and ready to go by 7:25. I think I probably win the award for the biggest 3-day pack; oops! In fairness, though, the structure of mine takes up a lot of space. Oh well.......... First up - 46 km of biking this morning. A lot of the early going was on pavement, some of it pretty fresh; nice! We went by where the Costa Rican national slalom canoe & kayak teams train.
We saw quite a bit of sugar cane harvesting activity this morning. We could see where the fields had been burned and then cleared.
Later, the fields had been burned and they were in the process of cutting the sugar cane down and loading it onto trailers.
Then, not too far down the road, came the processing factory. Lots of smoke announced its presence.
Once the liquid is squeezed out of the pulp, that liquid is boiled off to leave brown sugar. Reminds me of maple syrup processing.
Next came two long, hard climbs. I found the first one really tough. I had to get off and walk at one point. I thought maybe it was because February isn't exactly mid-biking season and the week had finally caught up with me. Once at the top I happened to check the wheels. Well.......... the front wheel wasn't spinning freely at all! It barely went a quarter turn before it stopped!! Yikes. No wonder it was such a hard climb. Ernesto stepped in to look at it and realized that the wheel wasn't fully seated properly into the fork. Yikes again! Good thing the wheel didn't come off entirely!! I mentioned it to Fez when he got there and he owned up to having put the wheels on last night. I should have checked the bike at every transition, but I don't think it's too much to expect that the wheels are put on properly. Anyway, it's good to know it wasn't just the engine!
After a quick break we were back on the bikes again, and up the second hill. It was similar to the first one, but immeasurably more pleasant with wheels that spun freely. Although I didn't stop for any pictures, we did get some nice views into the valleys below on our way up both of these hills. Just a bit further and we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. Not even 11am yet, but we eat when the opportunity is there. And a huge lunch it was - rice, beans, chicken, salad, veggies.........I'm stuffed!
After lunch we were back on the bikes again for about 9km of mostly downhill. Once again, I walked some sections that I wasn't comfortable with. It was pretty muddy in some places and I'm happy to have made it down safely.
Time now for a completely new activity - rafting! We changed into our rafting togs and sent Memo away with our bags of wet, stinky, muddy bike clothes. Our 3-day packs were put into dry bags, we donned life jackets and helmets and got a safely briefing from Maurice. We had 2 rafts of 5 guests each. Jean, Mary, Ernesto, Heather & me with Maurice. Liam, Nikky, Kathy, Pat & Vicky with Abel. Fez and Graham went downriver in duckies. Another guide rowed the gear boat. I don't think I've ever been on a river with consistently so many rapids - one right after another. When I later looked up the Pacuare River, it consistently comes up as one of the top ten rafting rivers of the world; cool......... It started to rain just as we were getting into the boats. Great timing once again. We were wet anyway from the river, so we didn't even notice the rain. We were treated to lush scenery and we spotted quite a few birds along the way - turkey vultures (waiting for one of us to get tossed out of the boat and meet our demise?), cormorants, tiger herons, to name a few. We had a fun boat and fun rapids, although I'm very happy to stay in the back row. Today's rapids were class 2-3. Tomorrow we'll have some class 4s as well. No pictures on the river as I had left my camera in a dry bag.
We're at an amazing camp tonight. It is owned by Coast to Coast Adventures.
The tents are on elevated platforms and are equipped with comfy mattresses and real sheets. The grounds are beautifully landscaped and manicured. My tent is just steps from the river.
We are joined at camp by lots and lots of the yellow-tailed blackbirds with the pendulum nests (aka Montezuma Oropendolas), which I can see right out the back window of my tent, and a pair of toucans seen out my front door.
A bit further uphill and away from the river is a beautiful outdoor kitchen and dining area, with a second floor lounge with chairs and hammocks.
The shower stalls are open to the trees and the water comes out from a large bamboo spout overhead. They spew cold water, but it's a very cool setup.
Speaking of cool - it's pretty chilly this evening. It stopped raining while we unloaded, found our tents, had our showers and ate a "snack" (good timing yet again) and then once we were under shelter we had some pretty heavy rainfall yet again.
We were in to camp fairly early, so lots of time to just hang out and listen to all the amazing sounds! How lucky are we!!
We see and do so much each day that when I sit down in the evening to write my journal, I have a hard time remembering the whole day and when I think of something I sometimes question whether it was today, yesterday or a few days ago. We're sure packing in a lot!!
The light fades early here; 5:30 and it's already getting dark. Our dinner table was nicely set and dinner itself was wonderful.
We had a bit more rain on & off throughout the evening and during the night. Apparently this area gets about 5m of rain per year. No wonder it's so green!
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