Day 10:
After a rough evening, a good night sleep was all we needed to wake up refreshed for another day of learning. We met for breakfast where the guides mentioned how bad they felt about the ant attack the night before. Their never failing desire to make sure we have a good time made us realize how truly insignificant a few ant bites are. Breakfast was short and sweet; we said our goodbyes and headed back to our bus with a lot of new knowledge and a positive outlook for the rest of the day.
Today was full of bus rides and new adventures. We left the rainforest accompanied by Marco and Andres and drove for about twenty minutes before stopping at the Veragua Elementary school for a visit. We were greeted with a poem (spoken in english), and a special dance. The children were very serious about their presentation and we all cheered for them as it ended. After their dance for us, we decided to teach them a well known American song/dance. THE HOKEY POKEY! The children had big smiles as we put our right foot in, and took our right foot out and by the time we were shaking it all about everyone was laughing and singing along. When all of the songs and dance performances finished we gave the school our gifts we had put together consisting of different school supplies. They were so excited to receive gifts from us we all felt like Santa on Christmas morning. Sadly, the time to leave quickly approached and soon enough we were back on the bus headed for our next adventure.
Two hours hours of driving later, we reached our destination. The bus rolled to a stop, and all of our mouths dropped as we saw the white water rafts and the gorgeous tour guides they came with. We hopped off the bus and followed our guide, Walter, to a private outlook over the river where he had set up a make-your-own taco station. The was once again, delicious. We stuffed our bellies and then climbed back into the bus to drive up the river for thirty minutes before we could float back down. At the site of the rafts, our hearts started pounding when the guides handed us oars, tightened our life vests, and snapped on our purple and white helmets. We were split into two groups, one group had four girls plus Adrian, and group two had the rest.
After a short, yet comical, safety briefing it was finally time to board our rafts. Like instructed, we squeezed our feet tightly into the straps to help from falling out. With giddy grins and butterfly-filled bellies we were off. This river's rapids is ranked a 3 on a scale of 5 (very different from the Salt River tubing many of us are used to). The water felt cool and refreshing as we paddled down the beginning of the river. It was not long before we hit our first rapid, which to our surprise was one of the toughest. Our guides yelled to "Get down!", but since we were not comfortable with the terms some of us forgot causing Patty to have the terrifying experience of falling out of her raft. Luckily, she was quickly pulled back in and through a little shaken up, continued the tour.
Halfway through our float down the river, we pulled our rafts onto shore for a quick break where our guides cut up fresh pineapple that was quickly devoured. We all laughed as Adrian told us to jump off of the small cliff we were standing on, but we soon found out that he was not kidding. Without hesitation, he and another guide walked us about 50 feet away and one by one we jumped off of the rocks and splashed into the water. As we stood there is shock and scared to join we reached down for our inner "Pura Vida" and decided we were going to do it too. The feeling was exhilarating! We all jumped off the cliff twice floating down to where the guides were waiting to help pull us back to land.
After our break was over we loaded back into the rafts and continued for another hour down the river. There were a handful of rapids we passed along the way, each one making us scream and laugh harder than the one before. On our final turn, we shouted out for Mo who was waiting where we had eaten lunch, camera in hand trying to take pictures. She excitedly smiled back and snapped away before meeting us at the end. We all jumped off our of rafts feeling as if we were on cloud nine. Our day had been amazing, and it felt good to have a day of adventure.
We said our "thank yous" and goodbyes before returning to our bus again, sad to leave our new friends. We are now headed to La Fortuna and not expecting to arrive for another couple of hours. Dinner will be waiting as we arrive, but for now we are all resting our sore and tired bodies from our long day of fun in the sun!
Love from all in Costa Rica!
Pura Vida!
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