Monday 28 January 2013
Highlights: White water rafting, Group farewell.
The last full day of this leg of the tour turned out to be full on adventure, bumps and bruises! Instead of just catching a bus to San Jose nine of our group decided to go white water rafting and drive from this activity to our final city of this leg of the tour.
The adventurous spirits were James, Robin, Sylvia, Roman, Brigid, Anna, Rita, Daniel and myself. Gabo lent me his water shoes which I’m very thankful for as my runners would have been totally ruined given our much time I spent in the river and how much water we had in the raft 🙂
The grading of the run today was 4 which is high but something I had done before. What made today different is our guide really wanted us to fall into the water and get super wet as often as possible. At one point he flooded the entire raft and another time pushed Anna in! My raft had Anna, Daniel, Brigid and Rita.
During the day I actually fell out at a rough spot and as I hit a few rocks on my way back to the raft bruises are guaranteed for tomorrow. The one moment that was a little scary as when the guide deliberately flipped the raft (he warned us before hand). When I come up for air I was under the raft and couldn’t find the surface. It took three attempts to get clear and it felt dangerous at the time.
However I was luckier than Anna who got stuck under the raft for a considerable time. Luckily she found an air pocket and being such a together person took it in her stride. When the guide realised he haven’t see Anna for some time this was the only time he panicked. Still 10 seconds after we got back into the raft it was mostly laughs maybe that was the adrenaline.
The rafting activity went for a few hours and we took a break about half way down the river. This allowed for some pineapple and watermelon refreshments. Most of the group of about 20 people than crossed the bank and jumped from about 8 metres into the rapids.
After finishing they gave us a towel to quickly dry ourselves before the van ride to lunch. At the lunch stop we all got changed into something drier and at lunch recalled the days adventure which was a highlight for everyone.
Arriving in San Jose we went about sharing the photo and video CDs we purchased from today and the Zip-lining a few days back. The group members who didn’t do today’s activity took a public bus to San Jose and only got back an hour before our farewell dinner. It was very sad to say goodbye to so many people especially those that start back in Mexico over a month ago. Eleven people are leaving and only James, Robin, Laura and myself are continuing onwards. Tomorrow we meet our seven new tour members and new guide.
Nathan's Insights 