Costa Rica: Day 3 Brumbelow Honeymoon

We woke up this morning preparing for a mountain bike ride from the top of the volcano. We ate breakfast and noticed it was still a little misty rainy. We started to dress for the day when a knock came at the door. David answered it and they told him he had a phone call. I thought maybe something happened to the cats or someone from home. He came up a few minutes later and said "it's raining on the volcanoes and we won't be able to see anything so they think today would be a better day to paddle and wanted to do the Florida Section of the Revetazon River." I was not thrilled with the prospect of four days in a row of paddling (tomorrow we are going on the two-day river trip) but I said yes since I was promised it wouldn't be too much harder than yesterday. They let me borrow a book entitled "Chasing Jaguars" which lists all the Costa Rican waters. We had read the Florida section the night before and the max was 3+. The max was actually 4-. Same difference.

We got picked up and headed to the river an hour and a half away - there were no rafts on the van so we were good to go. We drove along the countryside and passed into the Limon region of the country. We talked about a bunch of different rivers with our guides and they mentioned they were building a dam that would erase the Pascua and Florida sections of the river and is scheduled to complete in 2013. Sad time for paddlers.

The temperature became warmer as we got closer to the carribean side of the country. The vegetation became more tropical looking with banana trees and palm trees. We even passed a pineapple farm. Who knew pineapples grow on the ground. i always thought they grew on trees!

We climbed up and reached the put in - right at the location of a construction site for the aforementioned dam. The GPS said it was 2100 feet above sea level.

My interpretation of this river was BIG water and kinda tricky! There were cross currents and big waves that moved my contacts all over the place. Renee, you would have loved it. It's very New-esque.

I was scared the first half the river. The hardest rapid was almost right away - of course the last two days we were dropping gradient like crazy! no eddies or stretches of flat water anywhere. She aced it. i dont know what she's talking about. Ok i got flipped alot! We ran a rapid called upper and lower bamboo. i dumped right into a hole at the top and had to roll. Then we went through this HUGE part where i just kept saying "oh shit!" while my guide said "you'll be ok!" We get to the bottom and i look back - it looks like Big Nasty on steroids. I asked "is that a class 4?" "No. is a class 3." It was definitly a three plus. I think the guides were trying to talk it down. um no! it was freaking scary!! You (David) said it was as big as Recyclotron! The hole, not the rapid. she still aced it though. Whatever. it was scary. I don't think Katie is a fan of big water. and that's ok. Get me some lasik!

So we continued on and there was nothing harder after that. We apparently avoided a class 4 rapid which i am happy about. The rest of the river was huge wave trains. We actually ran two sections of the river - a section below the typical Florida take out since there was only the four of us in kayaks. I wanted to count it as two rivers for the Baker's Dozen contest. The Chef said no. At the takeout the GPS said 200 feet above sea level. That's ~1900 feet, aproximately 8 miles that we dropped in about eight miles.

After we got off the river we headed to lunch and then back to the lodge. Apparently, i am the only one who can't read the menu board now. Katie was reading it like a pro. Gracias!

We decided to go down to check out the waterfall since we weren't rushed this time by the six pm sunset. The water was quite cold though! David was scared of what was under the water and took him a bit of prodding before jumping in. I wasn't scared. i was just playing. it was cold though!

We hiked around more and came across some local dogs that wouldn't go back to their owner. They decided they liked us more! They later showed up at the lodge while we were eating dinner and sat by David's side the whole meal. The dogs... not the owner.

Tomorrow we will be heading to our two day overnight river trip. We will be taking minimal things so there may not be a brumbloggy until we reach the carribean! I'm excited about tomorrow. hiking to waterfalls, rappelling down them and much more! I'm excited to get to a new lodge with separate cabins!