White Water Rafting on the Sarapiqui

Not every minute of our trip was spent traveling from hike to hike in our van. On the contrary, we had a few days where we left most of the fancy camera gear behind and got a little more extreme, like our afternoon of rafting on the Sarapiqui river. The tour was nicely divided into 2 sections with the rougher patch being first, followed by a nacho lunch and then a more leisurely finish.

 Our group was the perfect size to fill a raft without anyone being too squeezed or left behind, and the danger of the waters was low enough that we all had fun and had turns directing the raft. The waters were very cool and refreshing, and there was enough shade from the trees and breeze in the air to keep us pleasantly cool the whole time. There were some nice animals to see in the area, including a stunning bird called a sunbittern, but given the fairly high moisture involved in the excursion, we wisely decided to leave all the gear except for the GoPro behind. Luckily there was a local photographer there to take the pictures in this posting at a few key points.

 Never to be one left behind, Mario went through the rapids in a kayak which alternately led and followed our raft through the rapids. As a bonus, in the second half of the outing, each pair of people in our expedition got a turn in the kayak, which gives you a little more freedom and mobility but requires a little more effort as well.