welcome to the jungle!

Yesterday was our first full day in Costa Rica and when I say full I mean FULL...like from 5:00am until 10:00pm...(the precise times we had messed up in the morning, waking up an hour earlier than we thought, but hey, just another hour to enjoy while here). Right now as I write this blog, behind me is Shane as he relaxes in a hammock. In front of me, a volcano in perfect view from our hotel garden. Oh and did I mention I'm drinking the best coffe I have ever tasted. Despite the amazing backdrop for my post this morning, I am intimidated.... meaning I'm not even sure how to begin to caputure our day yesterday in a blog entry. I am in awe (an English word we taught our guide Victor yesterday) of everything...of this beautiful country... of the welcoming people.... the inspiring landcape... of the endless adventures calling, and of my husband, for planning and arranging for it all (yes, even our fun night in the airport :).


Our day began at 5:00am, which we thought was 6:00am, so we bought ourselves an hour to enjoy the coffee and sunrise (bummer). Our ride arrived at 7:00 and we were off on our first excursion. After picking up other adventurers and our equipment, we started a very slow ride up a hillside crammed in the back of a 4-wheel drive pickup truck, equipped with makeshift seats in the back of the truck, with a simple framed roof to provide cover from the hot sun while enroute. Our guides entertained us, hanging off the back of the truck, shaking their legs at the dogs nipping at their heels during our ascent

Desafio, our tour company, owns the entrance and exit of the particular canyon we were going to be descending. When we arrived, we and the other 8 in our group, were promptly outfitted with climbing gear and soon after escorted into the canyon. Our morning consisted of meandering through crevases along a small river bed with opportunities to rappel down four especially treacherous areas if one was to attempt the descent without equipment. At one point in the journey our guide Ronnie laid down in front of a little pool in the river to make a human dam while Victor, our other guide, arranged us all at the bottom of the drop-off just ahead of it. We all counted down from 10 at which point Ronnie released the dam and we were pelted with a 'flash flood' below.... just one of several surprises on the excursion. Suffice to say, I simply can't do it any justice... rappelling the falls and the whole morning... there are no words.

Our last rappel was down a 200+ foot waterfall (Seen in the picture below).  When we got to the bottom, our guide yelled out, "DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?"  Shane and I looked at each other, and before we could answer, Ronnie, a GNR fan, yelled out, "Welcome to the jungle baby!"  (He pronounced it "Yu-ngle" since J's in Spanish make the same sound as our Y's....   it was pretty entertaining)  :)

Upon our return a hot Costa Rican breakfast was waiting for us and we were ushered back into the pickup and off to our next adventure. An hour later or so we arrived at a river and were again appropriately outfitted, but this time it was for rafting (class 2 and 3 which ended up to class 3 to 4 at times because of the daily chaning conditions on the river here). Carlos was our raft guide, leading us safely down 7 miles of amazing jungle whitewater rapids. Midway through the 3 hour journey our group (9 rafts) pulled up to a sandbar and the guides cut and cleaned an array of fresh tropical fruit for us to snack upon. At the end we were greated once again with a beautiful traditional meal and escorted back to La Fortuna, the city where we are staying.

As if two excursions for the day was not enough, Shane arranged a private evening out with Victor, one of our canyon guides, for a couple more gems before turning in for the day. We had just enough time to shower before Victor picked us up in his personal sports car (as he was officially off-duty at this point, we took his car as opposed to one of Desafio's tourist vans).

We then drove off into the setting sun to see the lava flowing on the otherside of the volcano to begin with. There is a bridge over a medium-sized river where people gather to watch the lava glowing in the night as it flows down the side of the volcano. It was quite cloudy last night so we were not so furtunate to see to the top, but we did see several little streams of lava that managed to make it far enough down the side that they appeared just beneath the cloud cover. Although the streams were small, the lava shined in the dark and witnessing this was of course way better than nothing. We can now say we've seen real lava! :) We then took off to a secret hot spring location that for the part, only locals know about (but most tourists don't see). This was more than a hot spring "pool" though, both Shane and I were blown away to find ourselves standing in the middle of an entire river, that was "hot." It was like a hot tub poured into a river channel. Amazing!

Victor took us to the 'scrapes', a part of this river that has a mini-waterfall in it that you can actually body surf off of into a pool below (where you can get scraped, thus its name). Just off the road, we ventured down a small incline in the cover of dark, toward the sound of rushing water, rushing HOT water! As a result of the full moon this night, at the bottom you could just make out a small waterfall as the rush of heat and humidity envelped us. Shane leaned in and whispered 'wouldn't want to slip down there' pointing to the falls and below (not knowing that Victor was soon to show us that we can actually slide off of it as I mentioned above). We stepped into the river above the falls and needed to acclimate to the heat... like a hottub. The river that was running over our feet was actually hot! Victor escorted us across the top of the falls and at the other side, we stepped down a rocky area into the pool below and there we submerged. Alone in the moonlight we sat. With the hot falls massaging our neck and back, we relaxed after a long day of adventure. The moonlight was peaking throught the jungle branches and vines to create beautiful shadows on the bubbling water and there we sat as if we were the only two people in this paradise world. And we gave thanks for each other... for this beautiful place... and for the quiet opportunity to appreciate it all.