White water rafting is a great outdoor activity, though it is a little expensive. In October of 1993, I had the incredible experience of doing some rafting in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a small country in Central America between Nicaragua and Panama. It's government is a stable democracy, and the people are fairly tourist-friendly. Our Costa Rican adventure involved the rafting of two different rivers. We rafted on the Pacuare over the course of two days, with a stop at a semi-permanent base camp in between. The Pacuare runs through the heart of the rain forest and is a pretty solid class III-IV river on the whole length we rafted. Our one-day run on the Reventazon started just below a dam powerhouse and only caught the fringes of the rain forest. It started with a pretty intense class IV section, but then was a fairly mild class II-III the rest of the way. The Reventazon "powerhouse run" was particularly exciting. We had two boats in our small group. The first was guided by an experienced Costa Rican guide, while the second was guided by a guy who, though he had plenty of guiding experience on other rivers, had only been down this river once as a passenger. My mother, brother, and I were in this second boat with my brother's friend Derek and his mom. Ideally, since the other boat went first, our guide could watch it to see how to play the river. Well, I guess things got pretty hairy in the powerhouse run, because I remember our guide yelling "We're reading and running, guys!" which means that he's basically flying by the seat of his pants and is reading the river as he goes instead of having a good idea of what's ahead. But our adrenaline was already pumping and after our Pacuare run, we had a pretty in-sync team, so we got through it fine with nobody falling out. And what a rush! I should also mention that Derek was pretty damn sick that day (don't drink the water!) but gamely pulled his weight through even the worst rapids, looking green the whole way. Beyond the rafting itself, the rain forest was simply beautiful. Pictures don't really capture the riotous nature of the wildlife in a rain forest. There is green stuff everywhere! At one point, we took a nice detour from our Pacuare run to play in a natural water slide. At some places, canyon walls rose steeply out of the river or various waterfalls cascaded from the surrounding forest. And we rafted through the middle of all this, having a great time.

The following pictures of my Costa Rica white water rafting adventures are for your viewing pleasure. Please click on any thumbnail to view the full-sized picture associated with it.