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Published: February 11th 2006
The last few days have been a blend of way too much excitement cut with a dash of absolute boredom...quite a volatile cocktail. Two days ago, I went on the Florida section of the Rio Reventazon with a small group of clients, only 3 rafts with 17 customers. I figured that it would be a pretty normal day, the section is a fun, scenic class III stretch with some good action in the first rapid, Welcome, and then some huge holes downstream in upper and lower Bamboo. The ride to the river was awesome. Daniel and I, my buddy from Canada that I live with, loaded up the rafts and kayaks and threw them in the back of a retrofitted dump truck, then climbed to the top and rode on the rafts for the bumpy, 5 kilometer road that winds down to the river. The scenery is absolutely breathtaking, we live at the base of Turrialba volcano, sorrounded by orchards of pineapples, perched high up in the hills. The road takes us right up and over a large ridge on the edge of the volcano, then drops abruptly down to the river valley below, roughly 1500 vertical feet. We got to the river well before the clients, as always, with ample time to unload the equipment and set it out in aesthetically pleasing arrangement for our guests. We then spent the next half our knocking down fresh coconuts and drinking the milk as a pre-work treat to ourselves. I knew it was going to be a long day when one of the guests stepped off of the bus wearing a speedo, sporting a video camera. We laughed it off and got the safety talk underway, before slipping into the river. Within 1 minute, a raft had already flipped, and I immediately knew that I would have to be rescue boy all day long, my least favorite job. The first geriatric I pulled from the water was bleeding from her mouth and elbow, paving the road for hysteria for the group. The wounds were tiny, and cleaned up very nicely, however, the damage was done and the entire group spent the day terrified, unwilling to paddle, despite our yelling at them constantly in heavy water.
The rest of the day I was constantly pulling the weight of an entire raft that simply refused to paddle, instead cowering in the bottom of the raft. We told them numerous times that this would only lend to future disaster, as less paddles in the water equals less control. Oh well. We finally got to the takeout and everyone miraculously survived. I think I even saw someone kissing the dirt when they jumped out of the raft (just kidding). I figured today would be filled with great action, but my trip down the Rio Pacuare did not work out, so I instead went for a punishing 5k run up the side of the volcano to a small village and back. The rest of the day, we passed the boring hours by throwing football and watching dvds that we have already seen dozens of times. Tomorrow, there is a good group(supposedly) on the Pacuare, so I will do that, which is by far my favorite river I have ever done. Something to look forward to...
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Crayfish
non-member comment
El guapo loco- sounds like even during the down times you're living it up. glad to hear. i grow more jealous by the day. after i recover financially from vegas, snowboarding, etc, maybe i can start to formulate a plan to make an appearance. i'll end by quoting a henson- "don't matter how you do it, just do it like you know it" sounds like that's exactly what you're doing.