Today was a great day... :-)

Today was a great day! We went on a two hour bus ride from San Jose back towards the Caribbean side, so that we could go rafting in the Sucio River. While we were on the bus, we crossed a bridge that went over a unique river. This river is unique because of its coloring. Half is a reddish-yellow while the other half is a clear blue water color. The yellow color is from sulfur that is released from the Irazul volcano after it erupted in 1992. These two rivers come together to form the Sucio.  

On the ride from San Jose to the river, our tour-guide, Olman, told us about the importance of the area.  Apparently 2 years after the war for independence from Spain in 1821 (Costa Rica followed Mexico’s revolt), there were 4 main cities in Costa Rica.  These cities all wanted to be the capitol of Costa Rica which led to fighting for control. Some factions wanted to become part of Mexico, and for a while they considered having the capitol rotate between them every year or two… but the city of San Jose won in the end and sovereignty was established. Olman always has stories about the area we are traveling through that keep me interested.

When we arrived at our destination, the rafting tour guides set everyone up with a life-jacket, helmet, and paddle. We separated into groups of six and one of five. After the groups were figured out, we were taken to a little cliff to jump off into the river. After this we entered the rafts and began rafting. The guides were very nice. They showed and told us how to do things in the raft. They even pointed out and gave an explanation of the surroundings and animals.

When we were about halfway done, we stopped for a break and ate some very delicious and juicy fruits. The fruits we ate were pineapples and watermelon. While we were on this break a cow appeared from the forest behind us. We got to feed it the pineapple peel. The guides said that the cow always shows up every day sat the same time. When everyone was done eating we continued rafting. It took about ten minutes to get to the end of the rafting section of the river, from where we took the break. We exited the rafts and changed into some dry clothes. The rafting guides then gave us some food to eat for lunch. As always there was rice.

After we finished eating, we boarded the bus and came back to our hotel. When we arrived at the hotel, everyone went for a walk around the city coming back just in-time for dinner, and to present Olman with some gifts for being such a great tour director. We have a wake-up call scheduled for 3:30 in the morning, so we all have to make sure we are packed tonight… I’m not sure what kind of sleep we’ll get tonight… but at least we get to go home tomorrow.  I’ve loved my visit to Costa Rica and the new friends I’ve made, but home sounds good right now.

^^^ Patrick ^^^