At the light of morning we met in the closest town, Fortuna, to pick up our guides and a pair of Honeymooners from California to round out our group for the day. We first went to the Lost Canyon for an activity called canyoning. Through a series of waterfalls down a narrow canyon, we did a mixture of hiking, rappelling, jumping, and zip lining to get from top to bottom. It was awesome. There were three areas where we hooked up to lines for rappelling and controlled zip line-esque falling. I've never done anything like it. One other funny surprise was when they had the 6 of us sit in a narrow area all in a row while one of the guides lay down in the river above us, acting as a dam. When we were all in position, he scurried out of the way and yelled "tsunami!" As a great rush of water poured over us. He was, I'm sure, the most junior member of the guides. When we walked past him to get into place, we casually asked "how's it going?" To which he replied in a quiet, pathetic voice, "I'm so cold..."
After eating a snack, we next traveled to the Rio balsa (named so for the balsa trees along the river) for white water rafting! We had a blast paddling our way down the river, and our guides pointed out the flora and fauna along the way. Some favorites include seeing 3 sloths!!!, a huge iguana, and at our midway stop for pineapple, seeing my friend Priya get gently head butted by a goat because he was between her and the leftover fruit rinds. Goats. We had a successful paddle through the class 2 and 3 Rapids. We definitely had plenty of opportunity to play in the rapids and swim. We only had one accidental swimmer; Priya got tossed in by a rapid, but I was able to use some Wilderness Medicine rescue skills and pull her out pretty quickly.
And I had thought my day of adventure was over! Incorrect. When we got home, there was a bird in my bathroom! The window in there doesn't open so I'm not sure how that happened, but I concocted a plot to chase it out through my bedroom and into the landing and out a veranda door. As I was setting up the series of door openings, Priya found me to "help," aka take pictures and laugh. I decided I'd feel better about chasing a bird if my head was covered (??) so I put on my rain coat and started flailing my arms in its general direction. I chased it into my bedroom, where Priya expertly clapped and yelled "bird!" at it until it flew out of my bedroom, into the hall, and out the door! Success! Hahaha.
To end the day, we relaxed by our beautiful pool and gardens, and our house maid (swanky digs, again, Airbnb, so great) cooked us seriously great fried fish for dinner. Yummm.
Tomorrow we leave for Quepos and Manuel Antonio National Park!
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