We will post more about our Easter day once we are home (once Beth has written about it on the plane), but...our day involved gorgeous weather, a clear view of the whole volcano, evening adventures to reach a spot where we could see beautifully fiery red lava trails dribbling down the side of the mountain, and! white water rafting the Class III and IV El Torro River - as the locals say - we rode the bull! :)
...Posted from the San Jose airport 05 April
So, Daniel woke up to discover the Easter Bunny had made a small visit and had brought him a carton on his favorite, whoppers, Beth’s favorite Cadbury eggs, and a cute basket of gobstoppers. How thoughtful of the Easter Bunny!
We enjoyed another fantastic breakfast, packed a bag with dry clothes, thoroughly applied sunblock – Beth brought out the heavy duty SPF 90 this time, and headed down to the lobby to go whitewater rafting! We were picked up by a cheerful, friendly shuttle and Wave Expeditions quickly had us on our way to the Rio El Toro.
There were fourteen of us to be divided up amongst three rafts with three guides and we had an awesomely international group. We had people from Germany, Colorado, Sweden, Ireland, and the UK. Really neat – so there were lots of languages flying around on the bus – not to mention our Costa Rican guides. We ended up in the kayak with the couple from Nuremberg, Germany who were ironically named Michael and Stephanie – Daniel and I laughed and said it would not be hard for us to remember… but then had to explain. And in the back of our raft was our guide Omara – who was a direct, enthusiastic, feisty one who definitely knew what she was doing. We went over all the safety stuff and commands and practiced a little before taking off – before we knew it we were barreling through class IV rapids and loving it.
We really had a great time and loved how reliant it was on us to paddle and follow commands – our boat never tipped, although we excitedly served as the rescue crew more than once. Daniel got to pull a very scared twelve year old out of the water. The river itself had a green/brown tint because the majority of the river was fed from a local volcano and the river carried large sulfur deposits. In between rapids we sometimes had a chance to glimpse around and got to absorb the sheer beauty of the jungle we were paddling through – there were lots of beautiful waterfalls feeding into the river, overhanging trees, and incredibly rich, lush greenery all around us.
We may not have tipped over – but we had a few close calls. We also got stuck several times in the some of the more shallow parts – often in very precarious positions that we were convinced would result in us tipping out onto the rocks. We got so wedged once, Omara actually asked Daniel to hop out and try to help work us free. She called him her super friend. We were out on the river for about 3 hours without stopping, so despite our best sunblocking efforts, the parts of us that were in direct overhead sun are somewhat scorched. That would include the tops of our knees (even though we were both wearing Bermuda length shorts), and the tops of my arms. Not all of my arms – but the top of my forearms and a weird band down my hands. We are struggling today – we’re scraped, knicked, bruised, burned, and wiped out – and definitely agree that this was a perfect last day activity. Despite that – we truly had a fantastic time!! Halfway through the rafting we got to switch places with the other couple and enjoyed the view from the front of the boat – which was much more intense. For those of you who haven’t rafted before – if you paddle right you use your entire body – especially your core – so we got an awesome workout in too!
After our awesome trip down the river, we dragged the boats up the rocky edge and were greeted with fresh pineapples, watermelons and mangoes – as well as our dry clothes and a place to change! We were actually supposed to have the fruit earlier in our voyage (mid rafting trip), but at one of the points when we had gotten stuck, and water overran our raft, the bag of fruit had been washed away – along with our guide’s water. Next, we loaded up back onto our shuttle to drive to lunch and were given perfectly ice cold beers to enjoy along the way – they hit the spot! Just as we pulled up to the restaurant, our hunger set in, and we enjoyed delicious plates of chicken, rice, beans, yucca, hard boiled eggs, and salads. Yum! We washed it all down with an orange/pineapple/mango juice and felt full, happy, and exhausted. On the way home we realized that it was an even clearer day than the day before and we had an uninterrupted view of the volcano! Awesome!!!
Once back at our hotel we crashed for a while – sunburned, sore, a little worse for wear. As the sun started setting we decided to see if we could see the lava from the volcano at night. As we drove around the volcano, watching the sunset (while Daniel watched the rode), we decided we would probably get the best view from the road we had driven on for our canopy tour – and we were right! As we headed down a very dusty, earthen road, we realized we were following several tour buses and were being followed by even more. And then we found ourselves in the mix of dozens and dozens of cars, at least a hundred people, and a one lane bridge. Yikes. Just as we crossed the bridge we glanced to were the volcano was to discover there was a beautiful fiery river of lava streaking down the volcano!!! So awesome!! We soon parked and made our way back to the bridge and leaned on a boulder as we watched several fiery burps from the Arenal Volcano – it was really cool. None were quite as big as the first, and the crowds were insane – but the view? Absolutely awesome!
And that marked the end of our night. We headed back to the hotel – called room service for dinner, and passed out after an amazing day.
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