8
Location: Rios Tropicales
Our eighth day in Costa Rica consisted of white water rafting, zip lining, swimming, and laughs. After waking up in Limon at the hotel that housed us overnight, we began our day with breakfast and a bus ride. The bus ride to our next destination, the base camp for the company that we would be white water rafting with, took about an hour. We anxiously looked for sloths the whole bus ride, but unfortunately, we didn’t see a single one.
After spending that hour cooped up in a bus, we stretched our legs, had some more food, and got back in the bus for a twenty-minute ride to the river. The trip to the river was bumpy and involved many twists and turns, but we made it just fine. Upon our arrival, we obtained life jackets and helmets from a pile and got into rafts. The rafting was very easy, because we only had to paddle when our guides told us to, and we didn’t have to go through any tough rapids.
Our rafting trip was dotted with several small stops along the side of the river for various activities. We first stopped at a rock on the side of the river, where we leaped in and swam to shallow water on the other side of the river and downstream. The second stop we made was a short walk into the woods, where we came to a small swimming hole. Fifteen minutes of our trip were spent swimming in that hole and sliding down a small waterfall that fed the hole. After that stop, we rafted until noon, when we stopped for lunch.
For lunch, we ate sandwiches that we made on the beach where we stopped. The guides made a nice spread of food on top of a flipped over raft where we selected what ingredients we wanted in our sandwiches. Ham, turkey, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, cheese and assorted condiments were spread on the makeshift table for us to use in constructing our lunch.
After lunch, we rafted on down the river to the lodge, stopping at a small waterfall for some more swimming. When we landed on the rocks at the lodge, we dragged our rafts up and carried our bags to our rooms. Once we settled in and unpacked, we took a twenty-minute hike uphill to the zip line, which consisted of five separate lines and one that went 300 meters over the river. We encountered many biting insects on the hill, and we all got bitten at some point along the line.
Upon reaching the end of the zip line, we walked to another swimming hole and swam around for thirty minutes. At dinner, we ate rice, chicken, toast, and we had flan for dessert. Since we finished eating dinner before the other groups that were staying at the lodge, we were able to snag the four hammocks before they could get to them. Our day was filled with fun and excitement, and it ended in warm, dry beds where we rested up for our next day.