La Fortuna – Day 2: Rafting over Rio Balsa
LA FORTUNA
Day 2: Rafting over Rio Balsa
January 17, 2023
Whilst having (a very late) dinner the previous day, this random Tico (apparently that’s what locals here are called) excused himself and offered me a discount for a tour to Río Celeste the following morning.
All exhausted from the long trip, the last thing I had on my mind was figuring out more logistics. I promptly handed him a crisp $20 bill (the first of many) and, with that, he tore down a piece of paper onto which he scribbled all the information – guess that’s as official a receipt as he could do.
The following morning, as I waited patiently to be picked up, I slowly realised I probably did deserve to be scammed as I stood in front of my hostel waiting like an idiot for a guy who never showed up. Luckily enough, the hostel’s manager knew the man and, after finally getting through to him, I was curtly told the tour was cancelled due to bad weather and that, for future reference, I should avoid booking stuff with complete strangers without getting an actual invoice back. Point taken.
The American Nightmare
I didn’t have much time to ponder my stupidity, as after a short while, the same manager found something else for me to do. Along with a bunch of Americans, I got on a shuttle which took us all the way to Río Balsa for some white-water rafting.
“Why did you specify their nationality?” one might ask. Fair enough, it’s a good question. Well, cause right there and then, I had a massive flashback of my time Cancún. It was then that I realised that Costa Rica is infested by them. And you know what’s worse than touristy places? It’s places that attract American tourists. My blood boils just thinking about them – rich, spoiled tourists who tag along just to check things off their bucket lists, gladly falling into every tourist trap and complaining about anything that might involve an ounce of physical activity. So greedy and needy and arrogant and urgh, I could go on forever. And their condescending tone when I tell them I’m a native speaker and they compliment my excellent command of the English language. Grr…
Of course, I am generalising. Throughout my travels, I’ve met hundreds of incredible American tourists. Not to mention, I basically live off American TV. And music. But if I am to compare stereotypical tourists based on nationality, Americans would definitely win the Most Annoying category. And, to further reinforce my claim, I’ve been told the same thing by Americans themselves, which means there’s probably an inkling of truth to my complaints.
Given that I’m sitting here complaining about anything and everything, perhaps they’re not the problem. Maybe, just maybe… It’s me.
Enter Greg: Rafting Specialist
On the way to Río Balsa, we passed several plantations, from cassava and madera negra trees (used for lumber) to pineapples and weed (which the Americans in our group fawned over).
Before arriving, we were handed a liability release form, signing away our rights to fully functioning limbs and coming back alive. Welcoming us at the river was Greg, a Czech guy who’s been rafting since he was a kid. Wanting to escape the cold European winters, he left the rapids of Croatia to enjoy those in Costa Rica. He handed everyone their gear and, with a wink and a dirty smile, helped me into mine. After struggling for months trying to put on my BCD smoothly, the safety jacket wasn’t exactly something I needed help with. Turns out, this was his way of flirting with me, having seen my profile on Tinder a few hours before.
Co-not-so-incidentally, I’d be in the same raft with Greg who’d be leading the tour, along with five other Americans who were, at the very least, likeable and fun company. We’d be rafting about seven kilometres down Río Balsa, so called after the balsa tree – a hardwood, fast-growing, sugar-rich tree that’s a pioneer species (its dead leaves make great fertiliser) and is home to capuchin monkeys, kinkajous, olingos and even sloths. The tree is also extensively used for its wood, which, apart from furniture, is also used to build rafts. Not ours though – ours was made of synthetic rubber.
Before setting off, Greg gave us some instructions – we’d be sitting on the edge of the raft with our feet tucked into some pockets on the base. He showed us how to hold the paddle and how to use it to move either forward or backward, how to quickly move to one side of the raft when the opposite side is too high, and how to get down to the centre when the rapids are too fast. Simple.
Admittedly, I had kinda forgotten that rafting was so technical – my last time being in San Gil, Colombia, some five years earlier. We’d be rafting over class III to IV rapids, with class I rapids having the smallest waves and being the easiest to manoeuvre, and class VI being extraordinarily difficult with a constant threat of death.
Adrenaline and Cold Water
With that, Greg pushed the raft into the river and pretty soon we were making our way along the riverbed. Whilst I wouldn’t say I felt high on adrenaline, it was still good fun – especially the not knowing whether we’d flip over every time we bounced off a mini-waterfall or scraped over a huge rock.
But, with Greg’s guidance, we got away with just a couple of thousand splashes, the cold water reinvigorating us each and every time. Whenever we faced a sizeable wave, we’d raise our paddles in the air and cheer with a loud “¡Pura vida!” – a saying which here in Costa Rica can mean hello, goodbye, awesome, cool, all good and what have you, reflecting the Ticos’ way of life: simple, carefree and, most importantly, adrenaline-fuelled. I’m still thinking of getting it tattooed; the only thing stopping me is the cliché-ness of it all.
Back to rafting. Paddling over more violent waters actually felt easier, with Greg’s commands being brief and only having to paddle for a few seconds at a time. This gave us ample time to savour our surroundings – the riverbank wrapped in dense vegetation, monkeys swinging above our heads, and vultures flying right in front of us.
After an hour or so, we stopped by the riverbank for a fruit buffet set up over a flipped raft. Then we continued down the river, jumping into the freezing cold water once the rapids had calmed down. All we had to do was lie back, floating on our safety jackets as the river carried us along.
Sugar, Spice and Tequila
A huge bridge connecting both sides of the river marked the end of our tour, where our shuttle was waiting diligently to take us to our lunch spot. Here we had a short tour of a farm annexed to the restaurant.
From pigs to goats, from cows to chickens, it was just like being at Old MacDonald’s. The hosts then showed us a few plants cultivated in great quantities in Costa Rica, such as cinnamon trees and sugarcane, before demonstrating how sugar is extracted from the latter. The stalks of the sugarcane plant, which are surprisingly rich in sucrose, are cut into smaller pieces and passed through a manual extractor to obtain cane juice. This is then purified, filtered and crystallised to form raw sugar, which is further refined into the sugar we ultimately find on our kitchen shelves. As with any other tour, we were handed a shot of tequila with a piece of sugarcane to soothe the post-shot burning. Way better than lime!
After the tour was over and we all parted ways, I went back to the city to meet up with Aviv and co. I decided to further partake in the ways of backpackers and joined them in the kitchen.
I sliced and diced, Raul sautéed and grilled, and Aviv oversaw the process and directed us, while Iris lay in bed sick with a cold. It was actually quite fun, and the food was pretty great. It was there that I decided to ditch plantain chips and nachos as meal replacements and start cooking, even if it’s only once in a while. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do cook sometimes. Not exactly sure whether instant noodles and soups count though…
After dinner, I was given an exclusive VIP tour of La Fortuna’s streets by none other than Greg, who’d been doing rafting seasons here for the past two years. We had a couple of beers, hung out, and after, as always, things got a bit too hot and heavy to jot down over here.