Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Class 4 rapids aint no joke...

River Pacuare- 23 miles, a drop of 1200 feet, 5 Class 4 rapids (one of which Nick fell out in the middle of)



Adventure day began like many others...we woke up at 6am, packed the car up, i searched for my sunglasses that no matter where we are no matter how small the room I seem to loose and blame Nick for (and of course find in a really sneaky hiding spot I forgot about) and got in the car for our 2 hour drive.

We drove to a town called Squirres, where we were to meet the rest of the group being bussed in for rafting. As we are driving there it begins to pour, not rain, pour. Not too troublesome as we were planning on getting wet anyway right? This is when it starts to get good...after eating a very hearty Costa Rican breakfast of Speckled Rooster and Toast (rice and beans), we headed off on the buses to the start of the river.



We drove 40 minutes- down a non paved hill with drop off´s of 40-50 feet, a road that even not in a 30 passenger van/bus with a completly fogged out front windown would have been scary. We were assigned a raft with only 5 people, which most had 6 and 3 of our fellow rafters were useless, so basically Nick, myself and the amazing guide Alejandro, standard.



Right away we could tell that the scenery alone was going to be breathtaking, I have never seen anything like it, as you are rafting down narrow river passages with primary forest all around, water falls everywhere,actually were able to raft through them. We also quickly realize this is a very challenging river as it is in the top 5 rivers in the world to raft, and our guide quickly warns us that while fun it will be challenging. Yay, us in a boat with a bunch of pinche slackers, hahah.



The next 3 hours where some of the most fun and exciting of my LIFE! Pura Vida as they say!



Highlights-



On seemlingly easy class 3 rapid (right before our first class 4), our guide calls for everyone to get down, so as everyone jumps to the floor it bouces me up and off the side and into the river, in the middle of the rapid. AWESOME! Everyone was a little shocked and scared for me but they are pussys, soooo :-)



OUr first Class 4- had a 5 foot drop in which you drop into a water hole and pray to god you dont taco it up. OMIGOD´it was sooo crazy town. Really set the tone for how the rest of the river was going to be...



Second to last Class 4- aka the washing maching or now the Crazy´MF nick fell in on...

This was seriously the most crazy town event I have personally been involved in (awesome, double awesome).



We enter the rapid no problem, another drop rapid but with two different sections boulders in the middle to sepereate upper from lower. We get to the second section, almost taco the boat, but in balancing it out we get stuck in the actually hole of the rapid and boat wont move so we are submerged! Nick and i are on the losw side hanging on for dear life! UNTIL...



Nick let´s go! He is in the fucking class 4 as a swimmer, (which might have been a good thing in the end as it free´d the boat :-p) here is his recount of his story.



He fell in. Got stuck under the boat, had to walk out from under it. Popped up finally on the other side of the river. When we tried to give him an oar to reach out for he grabbed it and the handle popped off (true story). He than made it to the other side, raced down the shore on foot and hopped back in the boat. That´s my man ;-) Cool as a cumcumber.



No joke though, even our guide was like, worst place possible to fall out...




Wait till you see the pics!








Top 5 life experience.




























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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