Riding the Bull
Day 2
Today was a great day as Amy and I did a white water rafting trip down the Rio Toro (The Bull River). It was actually much tamer than what it sounds, but it nevertheless beat all our expectations. It´s advertised as a Class III and IV river with approximately 75% Class III with the remainder being Class IV. I was expecting Class II all the way through. Fortunately for us, it came as advertised.
The trip started early enough at 8:30AM. I had enough time to buy some bread at a local bakery for breakfast. We had a comfortable tourist bus that drove us out to the river. We sat alongside a couple from Denver that had to spend two nights at Denver International Airport before getting to Costa Rica. Now that´s sacrafice!! The husband was a big white dude that was in pharma sales and the wife was an aspiring teacher. Your quintessential American couple. I started getting jealous when they talked about buying a three mountain season pass for only $300. We gotta move out there to do some serious skiing.
It took us around an hour to drive to the drop off point. We had a nice small raft. Again we sat with Chase and Lindsay. Our river guide was a nice Costa Rican who spoke English with an American accent. His father is American or something like that. We donned our life jackets and helmets and off we went.
Immediately, after embarking we hit our first rapids. The rapids were longer than the ones we had on the Kern River this summer, but were for the most part smaller. On our second series of rapids, three people in the raft behind us had already fallen off their boat. They would continue to fall into the water at least two or three more times.
The rapids were constant. I don´t remember how many rapids we hit, but it seemed like at least over 20 of them. Eric, our guide, didn´t seem to have us doing too many technical things. For the most part, we just rode through the rapids. At many parts of the river it was fairly narrow...about 20-25 meters at most. We were always crashing into the walls. Good thing our raft never tipped over.
Some of the highlights were body surfing down a short portion of the river. They had to throw a rescue rope to Amy as she was floating down past the rest of the group. Another cool thing we did was riding up river into a rapid and suring the raft against the current. The river doesn't seem very strong, but the current packs a punch.
In the end, we rafted for over two and a half hours. For $65...well worth the trip. We had a great time and would definitely do it again. Got back to town around 3:3oPM. Took a cold shower. Watch some TV and then got a nice dinner while watching Spider-Man II on the tube at the restaurant. If you ever get to La Fortuna...go to Restaurante Jardin. Tasty.
Today was a great day as Amy and I did a white water rafting trip down the Rio Toro (The Bull River). It was actually much tamer than what it sounds, but it nevertheless beat all our expectations. It´s advertised as a Class III and IV river with approximately 75% Class III with the remainder being Class IV. I was expecting Class II all the way through. Fortunately for us, it came as advertised.
The trip started early enough at 8:30AM. I had enough time to buy some bread at a local bakery for breakfast. We had a comfortable tourist bus that drove us out to the river. We sat alongside a couple from Denver that had to spend two nights at Denver International Airport before getting to Costa Rica. Now that´s sacrafice!! The husband was a big white dude that was in pharma sales and the wife was an aspiring teacher. Your quintessential American couple. I started getting jealous when they talked about buying a three mountain season pass for only $300. We gotta move out there to do some serious skiing.
It took us around an hour to drive to the drop off point. We had a nice small raft. Again we sat with Chase and Lindsay. Our river guide was a nice Costa Rican who spoke English with an American accent. His father is American or something like that. We donned our life jackets and helmets and off we went.
Immediately, after embarking we hit our first rapids. The rapids were longer than the ones we had on the Kern River this summer, but were for the most part smaller. On our second series of rapids, three people in the raft behind us had already fallen off their boat. They would continue to fall into the water at least two or three more times.
The rapids were constant. I don´t remember how many rapids we hit, but it seemed like at least over 20 of them. Eric, our guide, didn´t seem to have us doing too many technical things. For the most part, we just rode through the rapids. At many parts of the river it was fairly narrow...about 20-25 meters at most. We were always crashing into the walls. Good thing our raft never tipped over.
Some of the highlights were body surfing down a short portion of the river. They had to throw a rescue rope to Amy as she was floating down past the rest of the group. Another cool thing we did was riding up river into a rapid and suring the raft against the current. The river doesn't seem very strong, but the current packs a punch.
In the end, we rafted for over two and a half hours. For $65...well worth the trip. We had a great time and would definitely do it again. Got back to town around 3:3oPM. Took a cold shower. Watch some TV and then got a nice dinner while watching Spider-Man II on the tube at the restaurant. If you ever get to La Fortuna...go to Restaurante Jardin. Tasty.
posted by amy & albert at 6:26 PM
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