11.10.2012 – 11.10.2012  29 °C

My body woke me up at the usual 5am.. (my body clock is set to this time and the sun streaming thru the sky light made it almost impossible for me to wake up any later).. Every other morning I’ve attempted to go back to sleep. This morning I just gave up and got myself up and going. I spent my first few hours of my day out on my porch blogging.

Brekky was tasty, home made bread and jam with nice coffee and juice. I ate my fill because today we are going crazy for a couple of hours on the Sarapiqui river. Our driver for the day arrived and off we headed for the river. One of my fellow rafters had to pull out this morning due to a tummy bug so our rafting crew was four including our guide Allan.

We arrived at the rafting launch site (to sunshine believe it or not) and were given the obligatory pep talk about rafting, the signals, safety etc. Once we were ready, off we went down the Grade 3 and 4 rapids of the Sarapiqui River. Surprisingly, we were all able to keep our oars in time from almost the get go! Our rafting guide Chi-Cho is a real character; he jumps up and almost out of the boat on many of the rapids to make the movement of the boat more pronounced, he continually pretends to sneeze whilst splashing us with his oar and likes to tip plenty of cold river water right down my conveniently placed back (I’m sitting directly in front of the guide)!

The antics of our guide only added to the fun, two of us stayed in the boat and two of us fell out. Tom actually did a great impression of superman as he dived out of the boat on one rapid! Our guide had told us to sit down in the raft but somehow the front two guys didn’t hear him so both went head first into the water. A few bruises but no major injuries.

I managed to tear my a goodly amount of toe nail off my big toe so I spent some of the trip bleeding away in the boat.. I think if I ever raft again I’m going to try and wear closed in shoes, tevas just don’t cut it when you are jamming your feet under rubber tubes. I almost did my own superman impression twice but was saved both times by my very crazy guide who yanked me back into the boat. Towards the end of the trip Chi-Cho pulled us all into the river and we joined our boat in floating down the river. I was thinking we’d just float the last couple of hundred meters but no sir-ree, Chi-Cho hauled us all bodily into the boat.. I’m kinda glad I didn’t fall out now because being dragged back into the boat isn’t a pleasant experience. Anyway, Team Fern, managed to navigate the Sarapiqui River with only a couple of bruises and minor injuries! Heaps of fun!

Our trip price included lunch at the other end of the rafting trip and I have to say that the fish and salad was really top notch food! The most common sort of fish they serve here is Costa Rican Sea Bass and it is really a cut above most fish that I would normally eat- a super sweet, white flaky fish.. It’s so good that I’m always tempted to ask for more!

By the time we got back to the hotel we were all pretty much stuffed, so we whiled away our afternoon swinging in our hammocks, reading books. Our evening ended with us all going for dinner at another hotel’s restaurant (lunch was better than dinner) and playing more games of the four carded cards. Note to self; I must remember to ask Tom what the name of the card game is…..