WHITE WATER RAFTING IN COSTA RICA
Pure Adrenalin with White Water Rafting in Costa Rica
Are you looking for action, fun, and physical challenges, then you should do White Water Rafting!
One of the activities we definitively wanted to do, was to fight against the current of a river and enjoy a funny ride. In the town of La Fortuna we booked a water rafting trip with Costa Rica Descents. They offer class II – III rides for families and class III – IV rides for brave people like us :).
When we got up in the morning we were all already very excited and looked forward to our adventure on Toro River. Especially BoB had butterflies in his stomach
After breakfast we met our group in front of the Costa Rica Descents office. From here different shuttles took us to a hotel, where the starting point was located.
It’s important to wear shoes that can get wet, but unfortunately Guido only had flip flops which are very easy to lose. For these situations we have duct tape! What a great invention, it helps everywhere! So Lars wrapped Guidos feet and his shoes with silver coloured duct tape and afterwards Guido’s feet looked like the feet of an astronaut. That was so funny! Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture
Toro River runs along the hotel property. We all walked down to the riverside where employees of Costa Rica Descents were already waiting for us. Here we got a safety introduction and were equipped with our gear: helmet, life jacket, and paddles. We were devided into small groups and got to know our guides. And then the adventure started:
We climbed into our boat, BoB, Guido, and Lars sitting in the front, Laura from Switzerland and Liane sitting in the back. As soon as we were all set, a short training started. “Forward!” “Backward!“, “Sit down!“ were the most important words. This sounds easy, but when your guide is screaming at you, you try to collect all your power and paddle as much as you can.
Our guide said we did a very good job and are ready for the trip. It’s a great feeling when you see the first rapids coming closer and you just think “Oh shit, we won’t make it. We will overturn”.
Adrenalin run through our veins and we mastered one rapid after the other. In the beginning we had the most difficult rapids. The water spilled into the boat and BoB was afraid to fall out of it as he could not get a good hold.
Suddenly our guide gave us a commando, we reacted, but then the whole boat turned around and we all fell into the river. This was soooo exciting! As they told us before what to do in this situation, we all knew how we should behave and that we will be helped very quickly.
Only Liane was a bit irritated because she went back to the surface under the boat. So it was dark and she tried to get out of it. But then she got into the next chamber and hoped to get out soon as she was not sure if there will be any rocks in the river that could hurt her. But luckily after the next try she could get out and was ‘rescued’ by the team. Meanwhile all the others were already on other boats or waiting at the shore.
Important to mention is, that our boat was the ONLY one that turned around. Our group was so proud, cause we were so cool ;).
Then we all jumped back into the boat and paddled further. In between we had a short rest where we got some fresh fruits and then we went on. All in all the whole rafting trip took about 2,5 hours and this was the perfect timing. We all wanted to go further but your body and muscles tell you “You don’t have any energy left! Stop it!” :).
The special thing about this tour was, that we got a fantastic lunch after the exhausting 2,5 hours. We were brought to a finca where they prepared a buffet for us. The food was just amazing! We ate far too much. But it felt sooo good. After the lunch we got a tour through the finca. They showed us typical plants and techniques for eco farming. This might sound boring but in fact it was very interesting. At the end we even pressed out the juice of sugar cane and drank sugar cane schnapps. Salud!
When we arrived in our hotel in the late afternoon, we were all very exhausted and couldn’t believe that we had such a great day for only 75 dollars per person.
Thanks for reading and safe travels,
Liane and Lars