Last night, there was one more smaller earthquake at 11 PM local time. Other than the ground shaking, the evening was uneventful. We all took extra long showers and enjoyed sleeping in a nice, cozy bed!
The morning light revealed the scenery around our hotel, Turrialtico Lodge. It was absolutely beautiful. We could see Volcan Turrialba from our breakfast table. After huevos and gallo y pinto we were ready to raft. Unfortunately, Melanie had not been feeling well the last two days. She was out for rafting. Mrs. Wooden and Chris stayed back at the hotel with her and the rest of us moved on.
We took the bus about an hour out of Turrialba and got off on a dirt road where we were met by a large Rios Tropicales wagon and tractor. We left everything on the bus, climbed into the wagon, and made our way down the dirt road and into the valley and to the Rio Pacuare. At the base, we split into four raft groups and received our gear: lifejacket, helmet, and paddle. I had the good fortune of rafting with Alix, Cam, Peter, Stuart, Steph, and our guide, Roy. Needless to say, we had the best team J Our guides taught us all the commands, what to do if we fall out, how to rescue, and so on. After a few lessons, we were off down the river!
Rio Pacuare is the #4 rated rafting river in the world. We started downstream from the Class V rapids; however, we had plenty of Class IIIs and IVs to keep us entertained. Alix was the only person to fall out of our raft- and she only did it on Class IIIs. Other than that, she was a great captain! Between the rapids, there was plenty of time for fun. In the areas that were deep, we could hop out of the raft and swim. Also, we could try to pull other people in the water. It got really competitive between my boat and Mau’s, which had Sam, Blake, Jacob, Zach, and Nate. Nate was like a ninja/football player: he was so stealth getting on our boat, then he would just tackle people right out of it! It was all in good fun and made the day even more interesting. Several of the students said that the rafting was their favorite part of the trip. It definitely helped that we had some clouds and rain for some of the trip, otherwise it would have been far too hot.
At the end of the line we have to help our guides get the rafts out of the river and onto a truck. We were met on the banks of the river by Chris, Mrs. Wooden, Melanie, and Choco with the bus. We had time for a quick change into dry clothes and some time to buy cold drinks before we hit the road to San Jose.
The drive to San Jose was an eventful one. It should have taken two hours, but when we were a little over halfway there, we hit standstill traffic. People were parking and getting out of their cars to see what was going on. Three ambulances drove by us during this time period. When we finally made it to through, we saw that the accident was less than a mile ahead of us, but we had been stuck for about 30 minutes. A semi-truck went off the side of the narrow, winding road, into the ditch. After that, the sun set, it started to rain, and everything was very foggy. So we should have arrived in San Jose at 6 PM, but instead got there at 7.
Our hotel is very, very nice. We are staying at Tryp Sabana this evening. Unfortunately, once we walked in the door, we were told dinner was being served at 7. We had to quickly go up to our rooms, drop off our stuff, then come right back down. Despite the rush, it was still an excellent meal at the end of a long day. After dinner, we had to say goodbye to Mau, Chris, and Mateo. It was hard for our students, but the three of them had other groups to meet up with this evening and needed to get going. Tomorrow we have to be ready to leave for the airport at 5 AM, so we all needed to be on our way.
We had a fun 10 days, but everyone is very tired and I’m sure very happy to be heading back to the comforts of home. See you in about 24 hours!!!
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