We took an overnight tour to go rafting on the Pacuare river, which is the 5th best river to raft in the world and had a great time. The total rafting was 20 miles and the first day we rafted 8 before stopping at the Rio Tropicales nature lodge. It was an amazing place right on the lake basically in the middle of nowhere. They did have power, although I'm not sure how it reached out that far.
We went on some awesome hikes while we were there to some beautiful waterfalls with streams that we could swim in at the bottom. We even went to one waterfall that acted as a natural waterslide - so much fun! We haven´t seen hardly any snakes since we´ve been here, but we did see this one vine snake in a tree. As Scott got close to take a picture, the snake hissed at us - not very happy to have his picture taken!
It was so dark at night that the stars were just beautiful. We sat out on the rocking chairs, watching the stars and listening to the sounds of the river rapids. Even as we slept, we heard the river flowing all night long. It was incredibly peaceful.
The next day, we rafted the next 12 miles down the river, including a lot of class IV rapids - pretty tough, but tons of fun. On one of the rapids, our boat was completely vertical (we saw from some pictures later on), but luckily Scott and I were holding onto ropes for dear life and we stayed in the boat. On another of the rapids, our guide fell back with his feet up in the air and we didn't even notice until another boat started pointing and laughing at us. He was sitting on a cooler with no foot holds, so I'm surprised he only fell over that once!
Ronald, this guide made our trip so enjoyable, including the rafting, all of our meals, hiking, and even just general conversation. I asked him about his thoughts on tourism and development in the country and he was very positive about it all. He said there is always good and bad in everything, but that he chose to see the good in it. He also said that eventually, the country would need to develop more than they are now, so why not go for it. One thing he was unhappy about (rightfully so) was that a dam is being built on the Pacuare River that will likely stop all rafting activities on it in the future. Since it is such a beautiful location and Costa Rica's best rafting opportunity, this will be a great loss. He was such a nice guy and very positive - we loved him!
The only negative thing that we can say about the trip is that it is way too expensive. For what you get, it should really be much less and we think they would even make more if the overnight tour costed less. Most people only do a one day trip, which costs much less than half the price of an overnight stay. The charge for a CD of pictures taken during the rapids was also much too expensive. If they charged only half of what they had charged, I think many more than twice the people would have bought pictures. For more of Tiffany's business column, please visit..... ;-)
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