Floating the Pacuare River

First off, sorry for the slow updates. It’s probably good I’m a few days behind as I have lots and lots of photo edits to make now that we’re back to civilization, (if you can call it that).

After landing in San Jose International Airport, we were greeted by the usual Central American greeting of having to run the gauntlet of taxi drivers, timeshare salespeople and others that supposedly want to help. The kids were a little freaked having not experienced that part before in the Virgin Islands or Russia. We found our Marriott shuttle and Michelle declared that she’d never been so happy to see an American establishment glowing in the foothills of San Jose. They even had a Walmart next door! I told her to not get used to that, but it was a welcome sight after 14 hours of travel.

I finally switched off the lights around midnight and the alarm woke us at 5am to get ready for our transportation to Siquirres, (See-Kee-air-s). The family was dragging slow, but we made it downstairs just in time to grab a coke and a granola bar before loading onto our little taxi. We are traveling really light with only 5 small bags for two weeks, but we were barely squeezing into these little cars. Our driver took us about 90 minutes away to meet up with a larger bus to consolidate passengers heading on to Siquirres. Siquirres is a little town near the end of the river Pacuare, (Pack-war-eh), another 2 hours away.

Now there are probably a hundred places in Costa Rica where you can do a “white-water tour”. But based on my research, it was known that the Pacuare held by far the biggest and highest quantity of white-water in the country in addition to being one the prettiest. The only downside being that it is in the middle of no-where. We arrived in Siquirres where we ate breakfast and left most of our gear behind. We loaded into another van with about 15 others and headed an hour up into the mountains. Once we arrived we left all of the other tourists who were only doing a short few hours on a 1-day trip. We boarded yet again into another vehicle which would take us to our final destination another hour up the mountain. Now, 5 ½ hours later we were at our put-in point!

It was kind of nice to just relax now that all of the other tourists were gone and it was just our little family. We had been with our 3 guides for about 3 hours now and were getting to know them pretty well. We had Able as the raft guide who had been guiding for about 10 years. He spoke English pretty well and loved to learn about American culture. He had two small boys at home and worked nearly every day of the year. Our Kayak guide was named Roy, and he worked as the river scout. The Pacuare River is very different than the Snake River back home where the height and flow is very predictable and published. Any rainstorm miles away can make a huge difference in the characteristics of the Pacuare and you could see the massive flood heights from recent storms. Our Kayak guide navigated all of the rapids a hundred feet in front of us pointing out obstacles. He also was in charge of picking up anyone that fell out of the boat and returning them to safety. He was also the Paparazzi in charge of taking pictures. We had another guide who handled the transportation of our boats, gear and food.

Our Guide Able

The river rafting was awesome with lots of big rapids and beautiful scenery. Our guides kept us entertained with lots of stories and pointing out various animals and other sights along the way. Our kids were a real novelty for them as they don’t see many on this river. We didn’t see any other kids on the Pacuare during our entire trip. I’m not sure if that meant we were crazy for taking them, but they sure had a great time. 

The expression on Clay's face says it all!

It was like hitting a hundred Lunch Counters and Big Kahunas on the Snake. Lots of raft bending action!

Pura Vida High Five after the big ones

Part of our expedition included several small hikes to various waterfalls along the way. These were a great diversion after a few hours on the river and a nice chance to cool off in the jungle. Unfortunately the GoPro camera I was using was giving me fits with all of the water and humidity, so I don’t have much footage of these activities. One of the falls we visited you could actually float down on your butt and it would shoot you off a little slide down into the pool below. The kids thought that was really amazing and the power of the suction at the bottom of the pool was impressive! Other waterfalls have little slip-n-slides or falls that you could hike underneath and then jump into the bottom below.

Later that afternoon we made it tour our camp for the evening at the Pacuare River Lodge. I’m not sure where the term “Lodge” comes from other than it provides “Lodging”, because I saw no lodge. Still, the 8 or so tent cabins were exactly what we were expecting with two little beds and a spectacular view of the Pacuare River. The place was completely empty except for one other couple who were staying over a couple of extra nights at the lodge.

Trail to camp

Playing cards

A room with a view.

The river takes nearly a 180 degree turn right in front of the camp making lots of noise that floats up into camp to hear all night long.

All three of the guides were also in charge of all of the meals, so it was nice for us to kick back and relax while they did all of the work. The food was awesome with massive burritos for lunch with fresh guacamole. Dinner was set on a candle-lit table while they served up some fresh local tilapia, chicken, avocado and rice. There was a bottle of wine which they couldn’t understand why we weren’t drinking. We kept telling them that they could have it and they just didn’t get it. I finally told them it was part of their tip and they took it away.

We slept great even though we had to split up into two separate cabins. Somehow the girls ended up in a cabin with no curtains at all, so they got to put on a show. They were greeted about 7:30 the morning by a local electrician who was going around the property trying to install power at the Lodge from a river turbine. They girls couldn’t figure out how to say “please don’t come in” in Spanish, so they just hid under the covers. Clay and I watched the whole thing from our room just dying from laughter as we watched it happen. Clay and I had been up early as usual scouting the jungle with our guides for cool creatures. We saw several colorful poison frogs, bullet ants and arm ants which had managed to strip three trees worth of leaves cutting and carrying them right in front of us. It was like watching the Discovery Channel walking around that place.

After a breakfast of fresh fruit, banana pancakes, rice and beans and huevos rancheros, we headed back to the river. We were joined by the other couple who were apparently brother and sister. Nice, but strange. We were busy loading up our raft while their guide loaded up theirs. I notice Michelle giving me the look of, “look over there now!”. I look over to see the lady standing on her head doing some crazy yoga move on the shoreline. The guides were doing their best not to stare, but it’s no wonder they think us Americans are crazy.

The last day of the trip wrapped up with some great time on the river, some nice hikes and a good lunch on the riverbank. We loved our guides as they took such good care of us and the kids.

After we got back to base camp and got cleaned up, it was time for a brutal 4 hour trek to the Arenal Volcano. It was another two vehicles and miles and miles of winding roads with lots of brake slamming, horn honking and other chaos.