I woke up early Friday morning to catch the two buses into San Jose, waited for the next bus to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui for a couple hours and then caught my final bus to Beth’s community. It took me about six hours of commuting to get to there but it was more than worth it for the fun weekend we had. It was so refreshing to see my friends! I love my site but I still don’t have a best friend by any means which can be tough. We ate pizza and just as soon as we were done a buseta was waiting for us to take us rafting! Beth had bargained the price down to about half. It was so nice to be doing something out-doorsy with everyone.
Once we got to rafting we were mostly catching up and asking about each other’s sites and such. Then, on one of the first big white waters our raft got caught and Katherine and I fell out. I was able to catch our guides paddle and he pulled me back in while the girls were mostly still in shock, hehe. Katherine kept floating down the river and made her way out like a champ. We picked her up and made sure she was ok and continued rafting on through the green forests seeing toucans and monkeys up in the trees!
When our trip finished the owner gave us a ride to buy some groceries for the festivities and took us to our cabins we had rented for about $5 a night. We had our fish dinners right off the river and went to a really sweet restaurant/bar that thankfully wasn’t a wild club to countdown the New Year – twice of course, once for east coast and again for Costa Rica. The Ticos didn’t make a big fuss out of it which was a little disappointing but at least we were together.
In the morning we walked to town and said bye to the friends that were heading out. I had already missed my bus to San Jose that could get me to my site in time because of the holiday times so I stayed another night with a few friends. We started walking to this waterfall and three hours later had finally found the farm that we were supposed to walk through. We paid the family about $2 each and made our way through the cow poo filled trails. We were mostly walking through the jungles listening to exotic birds and watching the thousands of ants walk alongside us to their holes. You could almost imagine this trail was made by them because at this point we were far out of the cow herding range.
After thirty minutes of slipping through the mud we could finally hear the water rushing. We made our way to the top of it where we were going to cross the river to the other side. The site was amazing. This Pozo Azul is apparently a spot where they teach kayakers to go over waterfalls which I can imagine the 35 foot drop being extremely intimidating. We walked on the slippery rocks as far upstream as we could and finally I swam across first followed by Jake.
Nicole started swimming across but didn’t catch the rock that we had luckily both held onto to get across and she got swept away. She started floating down the river still trying to get across, getting closer and closer to the fall. Immediately, all of the footage I’ve seen of people getting swept away by rivers since I got here flashed before my eyes as Nicole nearly got swept over the powerful waterfall. But she caught onto a rock and Beth and Jake went to help her out. We were all pretty shaken up by it. I’ll never forget Nicole’s face as she grabbed onto the rock and started laughing out of nerves combined with exuberance I can imagine. We calmed down as we walked back down to the cliff and Beth jumped.
My legs were shaky after having walked so much on my funny ankles and as I stepped down onto the ledge I got a chance to look around at the amazing pool. To my right was the strong water falling, in front water trickling down the rocks just before it gets swept down into the river. I looked back at Jake and Nicole and saw about ten monkeys crossing the river jumping from tree to tree. It was like a dream with the sun shining through the jungle behind them and their cara blancas. I was so happy to be there at that moment with my friends. It reminded me of the Seven Pools of Hana, only better. And as I jumped into the cool water and looked back at the falls I could only imagine living here forever…
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