After a snowy car wreck ridden trek to Boston six Stellar New Brunswick boaters hopped a plane to San Jose. Then names of theese boaters are as follows Ever slow to get ready Danny Coates, master of disaster Ian Campbell, (poopy) Martin Leger, (H)Andrew (von catchawackher) Devost, Trip organizer (hombre huello) Laurie Brown, and Myself ( Gordito , somehow i picked up the nickname that means little fat boy in spannish) . Chad Hitchins from Liquid Skills was able to hook us up with a fantastic deal on a 21 seater tour bus. our driver Almondo met us at the airport in San Jose and then drove us down to Turrialbe. We arrived quite late and decided to have some cervezas to celebrate our ariival in a beautiful and exotic new country.

Rio Pacuare upper stretch put in

Almondo is a great driver for the group very friendly with a roaring laugh thats likes to poke jokes at us as much as we do at each other. The driving is narrow and crazy in Costa Rica, when we first drove to Turriable we could see the town below us but the drive still took another 20 minutes as we had to travese many narrow switch bacls on the way down. on one side of the road there is a vertical embankment and on the other side there is a steep cliff thats drops hundreds of feet into the valley. Wash outs often happen when it rains which only makes the roads more perilous, amd locals walk on the road often three abrest with little, which to us seems like suicide.

Rio Reventazon

Our first Costa Rican morning we hit up the grocery store and got some more cervezas for some apres trip excitment. we then set out to run the Rio Pacuare. This was Danny, Andrew, Marty and my first taste of Costa Rican whitewater.  The Pacuare was a great introductory run to the Country it focused some fantastic jungle scenery Big waves, Huge holes and some interesting lines. all paddlers on the river performed great. The water level was just the right amount of chaos. I thought it was great dropping into a hole that was about 8 feet tall and pooping out the other end after a flip and some dirty water swallowing. all boaters experienced this to some level or another and Marty had a fantastic time dropping into two back to back large holes that would have swallowed a Durango with Paul Hill in it. But all was well and our stylish moves enabled us to make our way to the end of the run.

master of diasaster at the office of first D’s

The next day we did a short run  on the lower Reventazon. this river was a lot larger and managed to give Handrew an exceptional beatdown. Handrew swam but this was after about a minute of getting beatdown in a nasty hole. The reventazon was quite large at the start but mellowed out towrads the end of the run. Still a fantastic run and the upper section should be a real treat if we are so lucky to be able to paddle it. There is nothing quite like paddling through a jungle. The scenery is exceptional and never gets old.   

Some of the river wildlife.

 Costa Rica is a beuatiful country can’t believe that I wasn’t here to visit earlier in my life. The people are laid back and live life stress free. they party late at night almost every night. I only know this because the dance bar outrside of our hotel keeps us up until the bums sleeping across the street start yelling. The women are beautiful and dressed to please, and they often enjoy our gringo googling. everthing is cheap hotels food and beer. there are only two choices for cervezas Imperial and Pilsen. Pilsen is a bit stronger but Imperial is the tastier variety of beer and it comes in at 80 cents a beer Canadian. The food is delicious and costs about 3 dollars a meal. 

Huello Brown Costa Rican Blunting