This weekend's adventure began at 5:30 Saturday morning with a taxi ride (from Alfredo) to Hotel Presidente, the nicest (and safest looking) hotel in downtown San Jose. This is where Exploradores Outdoors would pick us up for our adventure down the class III-IV rapids of Rio Pacuare, one of National Geographic's top 10 picks for best white water rivers in the world. After a 2 hours bus ride down the class V-VI bumps of the Limon Province roads, we reached the beginning and endpoint of our rafting adventure. There, they fed us a hearty and typical breakfast of rice, beans, eggs, fruit, yogurt, and granola before sending us on our way with some of the most interesting and rambunctious river guides I've had yet! Our guide was Roberto, a native Tico who was about our age and full of energy. He made our trip down the river even more fun as he sent us down rapids backwards or pushed/pulled us out of the raft whenever he felt like it! Even the other guides in the other boats were in on the tricks! The scenery was beautiful, and at one point we were out of our rafts, floating down the teal river squeezed between two walls of a rainforest mountain gorge with waterfalls flowing down both sides!!! Even the provided lunch was good, and it was SO worth every single penny. I'm actually looking into doing another one of this company's tours kayaking the inlets of Tortuguero National Park (Google it)!
After our wonderful whitewater rafting tour, we headed to the teeny-tiny Caribbean town of Cahuita. Rainforest-lined beaches are the perfect setting for this town of calypso, reggae, and rasta influences. Parque National Cahuita, which is known for it's expanse of protected coral reefs and wide variety of wildlife, is also located here.
We found a hostel for the night ($11 a person!) that was only 100m away from the beach and the entrance to the national park, granted we did share our little tree house bungalow with crabs, lizards, and a multitude of bugs. It was a cute little two story cottage tucked behind lots of palms and hybiscus bushes, with a queen bed downstairs and a queen and twin upstairs. It was nice enough for the night, and the extra inhabitants only added to the flavor. Little did we know the "flavor" was only going to get stronger when we would wake up to howler monkeys at 5am!!! Luckily, we had just woken up to our alarm, set to go watch the sunrise over the Caribbean in the east, but HAVE YOU EVER HEARD A HOWLER MONKEY??? They sound like a dinosaur roaring, or as Kelly says, the Earth's stomach growling! Here's a sound clip just in case you're curious!
Nonetheless, the sunrise was beautiful, besides a few clouds. After watching the sunrise, we caught breakfast at a hole in the wall breakfast place that was decked out in Bob Marley and the colors of Rasta (red, yellow, black, and green). The people working were also wearing these colors, and the men all had dreadlocks and spoke Spanish with a Jamaican flair!
After breakfast, we decided to walk down the sandy path through the national park's rainforest that also skirted the beach. It was beautiful walk, and we even saw some wildlife! We saw white throated Capuchin monkeys, about 7 of them, and even a tall, tall tree filled with lazy iguanas! There was a little raccoon too, and some leaf-cutter ants! We never spotted the howler monkeys, but we did hear them again! As we walked farther and farther along the coast, the clouds began getting darker and darker. But it was dry season, and everyone says it NEVER rains in the dry season. WRONG! I mean, I guess we were in the RAINforest! It wasn't long before the bottom fell out and we were and hour's hike down the path and away from our hostel! There was no hope, so we just hiked through the rain, soaked to the bone! It only added to the adventure though, and we didn't melt. I did however, barely have enough dry clothes to change into on account of the fact that I brought next to NOTHING this weekend out of robbery paranoia!
And back in Escazu we are, ready to take on week 3 of our journey. Please check out my pictures on facebook so you can REALLY understand the excitement we found this weekend! Now on the make myself do that thing...what's it called...oh yeah....homework.
PURA VIDA,
Jessica
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