Semana Santa / Holy week

Here in Costa Rica Catholicism is MASSIVE like in all parts of Central and South America. So instead of having just the fri, sat, sun off like we do the whole week in the lead up to good Friday (santo viernes). On Thursday avo the whole country comes to a stand still until Saturday morning and many masses and processions are held.

So like the rest of the country I had the semana santa off from school… Now what was I to do with it. I had some friends going to Panama but I had gone last semester and didn’t want to spend money and go again. I had other friends who had people coming to visit them and they were going to stay in a house in Jaco with them and so there was me…

I was thinking of going over to Montezuma where I had missed going cos I was sick and that was my plan until… Jack, a fellow year long student asked me if I liked rafting… so he had been planning a week long rafting trip with some friends that were coming down and his girlfriend wasn’t sure if she was still coming and if she pulled out there would be a spot and I could have it… she pulled out 

So on the Sunday before easter weekend we left for San Jose, got off the bus at the airport where our guide met us and took us to his home in a wee city called Turrialba.
We got there and met the guides wife and wee little one year old son… The wife, Andrea was my age and it was really nice to have a friend to come back to at night as all the people we were rafting with were males. We also stayed at their house and they were soooo lovely!!

So for four days we rafted leaving in the morning and coming back in the late afternoon.

DAY ONE: Pejibaye (or pejevalle depending on where you look), the first section we had to do in infkatable kayaks cos it was too skinny to do in a raft. I had never used one before and some of the rapids were reasonably big… came out a few times and got a few knocks but it was fun!! the second section we did in the raft… I liked the raft a lot…. didn’t come out at all!!!

DAY TWO: Upper Pacuare. This was super fun. I did most of it in the raft… when we stopped to play in a rapid tho I did run it in a ducky (what the kayaks were called) and I stayed in which I was rather pleased about… I developed a rather good physics (?) reasoning for why I kept falling out… it wasn’t that I was bad at it, it was simply that I wasn’t heavy enough to keep the boats stable like the boys were haha…

DAY THREE: aka the most amazing day on the river ever!! we ran some awesome rapids including a class five!! it was awesomely cool!! I would love to do it again… the river was called the Reventazon…

DAY FOUR: Lower Pacuare, lots of fun too we had some good play arounds in the rapids and saw some stunning scenery… by the end of the day I was exhausted!!
We drove to Puerto Viejo this night where we slept in hammocks cos there were no beds in the hostels. I was surprised at how easy I slept… plan to bring one home with me IF I have space…

DAY FIVE: hung round Puerto Viejo and the beaches near by till early avo, saw some cool caves. Then I went back to Turrialba with one other student and stayed the night with the guide and wife again, had the most amazing meal, who knew that dried fish soup (the fish rehydrates) could be so good… we couldn’t get back to Puntarenas as there was no public transport on Friday,

and on Saturday we came home to the Punt… what a good week!!, didn’t want to come home because the climate in Turrialba was amazing and I was so over the heat of the PUNT, and I really got on well with my friend Andrea but had to so we did…