Going South for the Winter: Working in Costa Rica, Belize and Ecuador

Two trips to Costa Rica, three weeks in Belize and two weeks in Ecuador very conveniently helped me avoid most of what was considered one of the harsher winters Western NC has seen in a while. While it felt like I was always on the move and never in one place for more than a couple days, I can't really complain. From golfing for my first time in 10 years, to seeing Mayan skeletons, to spear fishing to swimming like a fish in Ecuador, it was a great winter. Check out some of my favorite photos from each trip below.

COSTA RICA

Working on some rolling at the Fischer Condo pool

Taking a day off of boating to work on our golf swings

El Rio Tenorio

El Rio Colorado

A self portrait from an early morning chill session on the beach by the condo

BELIZE

Scouting out the islands we would return to with the Wofford College group (this picture was taking after the bumpiest/scariest boat ride I've ever had)

Pat and I doing our best jaguar impressions

Chilling in hammocks in San Ignacio

Some Wofford students showing off their mad canoeing skills

Catepillars that will soon turn into beautiful blue morph butterflies

Beautiful day at the Mayan Ruins of Caracol

A pot with a Gorilla carving found in an old Mayan cave

A full skeleton of a sacrificed body found in the Mayan cave

The Wofford students tasting the fruit of chocolate tree (Cacao tree) on our farm tour

One of the farmer's many children

The Cacao beans roasting

Unloading all of our gear at Queen Key for the star of our 5 day island adventure

Looking out at the ocean from my tent door

The first morning on the islands, also the morning after the epic wind/rain storm that took out tents left and right

The students getting out in the sea kayaks

Sunset on Queen Key

Busting open some fresh Conch for dinner

A view from Pomkon key

Jono showing of his mad sea kayaking skills

Preparing our freshly caught lobster for dinner


ECUADOR

An unusually clear view of Volcan Antisana

Getting loaded in Baeza

Gareth filming, which turned out to be a pretty common scene

Taking a break to check out a sweet waterfall

Sketchy bridge

Beautiful day of the Misahualli

A peaceful breakfast in Tena

Putting on the Lower Jondachi

Nightlife in Tena

Riding motorcycles in Banos

Mmmm... Guinea Pig

Gareth and I in front of Volcan Tungurahua

Gareth finishing up our run down the Papallacta

Earthquakes and Dam Breaks in Costa Rica

I consider yesterday one of the luckier days of my life. Had any small part of the day gone different I might not be alive right now.

I arrived into Costa Rica on Monday and spent the past four days guiding a group of NOC guests down various sections of the Sarapique river. Yesterday we had talked about putting on the highest section on the river, the San Miguel section. This is (or now was) a really fun section of steep class 4 water in a fairly remote section of the Sarapique. After discussing it with my clients, some of us ended up deciding to put in a little lower at a farm just a couple miles above the La Virgen bridge to give them a little more of a warm up before possibly returning to the San Miguel section the next day.

Part I: The Earthquake

We had a great morning on the water and eventually got down to Superman rapid, where the rest of our group was waiting to put on. While part of the group stood on the side of the river and watched, my guests and I ran through the rapid. One of my guests swam at the bottom and while I was recovering the boat from the river left wall, I heard a large noise, like a train rumbling. Before I could even reflect on what the cause of the noise was, basketball sized boulders began falling in only feet from my boat. I paddled away from the wall as fast as I could while the guests on the bank scrambled up to higher ground. Thankfully I got away from the falling boulders before any of them hit me.

Part II: The Broken Dam

After the earthquake stopped we all took a second to reflect on the event. We were all thankful that no one was hurt and after having a few snacks at the van, decided to continue on with our plans to head down river. We all got into our boats and were doing some ferries back and forth across the river before deciding we should get a move on. Just as we began floating downstream some men came running down the riverbank yelling at us. I paddled over to one of the men who quickly told me that the dam was broken due to the earthquake and that we needed to get out of the water very quickly. As we carried our boats up the road away from the river we could hear the water roaring behind us and getting louder every step. There were police and emergency vehicles driving up and down the road announcing on the megaphone that everyone needed to get as far away from the river as possible. We eventually made it up the road a good ways from the river and felt relieved to have been waved off of the river just in time. We suspect that the wall of water arrived about 10 minutes after we got off.

Part III: A View of the Destruction

After an evening of watching the news and hearing from others about the destruction that took place upstream of where we took out, we decided to go check it out this morning. What we found was quite unbelievable. First we stopped at the bridge at La Virgen and found that the rapids that we paddled just yesterday morning were gone. If you are familiar with the Sarapique, you'd remember an island with a large tree in the middle of the river looking upstream from the La Virgen bridge- that is completely gone now and all that is left is silt and debris. That is pretty much the case as far as you can see looking upstream and downstream of the La Virgen bridge.

Next we drove up to check out the put in to the San Miguel section of the river- the section that we had considered paddling yesterday. The destruction there was even more difficult to believe. The bridge that once spanned the river at the put-in is completely gone. We had been told that when the wall of water from the dam arrived at the San Miguel section it was approximately 40 feet tall. This was confirmed today when I saw first-hand the high water mark 45 feet above river level at that section. I am sad to say that the San Miguel section of the Sarapique officially no longer exists and it will probably take many many years before it is in any kind of shape to be paddled.

I am extremely thankful that everything worked out as it did yesterday and that no one was seriously injured due to the dam breaking (though there have been at least 9 causalities as a result of the earthquake). Had my group put on the San Miguel section yesterday, or had we not been waved off the river when we were, there is simply no way we would have survived.

Below you will find some pictures I took of the river this morning. I also included one picture of the river taken a couple years ago to add some perspective.

Looking upstream from the La Virgen bridge

Looking downstream from the La Virgen bridge

This used to be the San Miguel bridge

Another view of where the San Miguel bridge used to be (check out the trees piled up at the road)

Looking upstream from where the San Miguel bridge used to be

Looking downstream of where the San Miguel bridge used to be

Another view of the put-in rapid on the San Miguel section of the Sarapique

A view of the put-in rapid of the San Miguel section taken in 2006

A crack in the road resulting from the earthquake in the town of San Miguel

Me straddling the crack

Also check out this news video that has some good river footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRKF_BqB1Qc&feature=related

I have another group of kayaking guests arriving in tomorrow and I can only imagine what the next week here in Costa Rica might bring. While I do not believe there is any way we will be able to paddle any section of the Sarapique, we're still planning to have a great week on the rest of Costa Rica's amazing rivers. We will be heading through the Sarapique area however and I will try to take some more pictures to give a better idea of how well the river is repairing itself. Until then, Pura Vida!

Family Time in Costa Rica

Last week was another wonderful one in Costa Rica. I spent it traveling around the country with my family on a little holiday vacation. The trip started at the beach, outside a town called Quepos. Our hotel was beautiful and conveniently had its own semi-private beach that allowed for easy access to the sand and the ocean. I arrived from San Jose just in time to grab lunch and head to our surfing lessons. My Dad, my brothers and I all took part and it was definitely a pretty entertaining sight to see. It was pretty entertaining to watch even before we hit the water because our guide made us jog up and down the beach to warm up and the rashguards he gave my dad and my brother Matt didn´t exactly fit, resulting in a pretty comical scene.

The next day we all got up early to head to the rio savegre for some whitewater rafting. Lucky for me, the rafting company had a kayak they let me borrow and I opted out of the rubber raft for some hard boating. The river was mostly class 3, but lots of fun and very beautiful. We stopped off at a waterfall part of the way down to cool off and take some pictures. The following day my Mom and I woke up early to go on a coastal sea kayaking trip. We basically followed the coastline outside of Quepos and were granted some great views of the beaches and rocky cliffs in the area.

My dad cooling off under the waterfall on the rio savegre

A beach we stopped at during our sea kayaking tour

While we were sea kayaking, the guide learned that I was a whitewater boater and invited him to join me to run an apparently really amazing section of river that afternoon. I of course agreed and after having lunch, I left with Felipe to get on the chorro section fo the rio naranjo, located 40 min. outside of town. The river turned out to be even more amazing than I expected. It was only 3 miles long, but it was 3 miles of beautiful gorges and great class 4 water. I would venture to say it was the most beautiful area that I saw in all of Costa Rica. The scenery on the entire river looked like the picture below. I was unfortunatley unable to get many good photos, so this one will have to do.

A view from inside the gorge of the chorro section of the rio naranjo

Christmas morning we woke up early to head to the Manuel Antonio National Park for a quick guided tour of the park before leaving town. The guide was able to show us lots of cool animals, including monkeys, sloths, bats and iguanas. After the tour we headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and proceded to head up to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. It took four hours, which included 35 kilometers of an especially bad road, before we finally arrived Christmas night.

A black iguana keeping warm in the Manuel Antonio National Park

A view from the hotel at the Monteverde

On the morning of the 26th we all headed out to do a canopy tour. The canopy tour involved seven different zip lines and two repells through the forest. It was a pretty cool perspective to see the jungle and lots of fun as well. That night we all went into the nearby biological reserve for a night hike. The hike last 2 hours, and while we did not see too much, we did hear lots of different creatures stirring around in the forest which made for a neat experience.

My mom repelling down a tree during our canopy tour

A tarrantula we spotted on our night hike in the Monteverde Bological Reserve

The last stop on our trip in Costa Rica was to the Arenal Volcano area. The fastest way to get there from Monteverde involved an hour and a half van ride, followed by a 30 minute boat ride across Arenal lake. When we first arrived at the location where we were to catch the boat, we were not sure if we´d ever get across. There were about 30 other tourists, also sitting at the end of this dirt road in the middle of no where with no boat in sight. My dad commented that it was as close to a refuge as he´d ever felt and I would have to agree, it did have that kind of feel to it. Eventually we all made it on the boat, across the lake and to our hotel. That afternoon we headed out for a hike around the volcano and learned all about the history of the many eruptions the Arenal Volcano has seen.

My family on the boat headed to Arenal

A view of the volcano from our hotel room balcony

A sunset view during our hike in the Arenal National Park

The last activity of our trip, and probably the most exciting one, was canyoning trip outside of Arenal. Canyoning basically involved working your way through a steep gorge by doing a series of repells through waterfalls as well as some hiking. We did five different repells, four through waterfalls and one down a canyon wall. It was a pretty cool experience and I must give my mom props for doing it, as she was very nervous about it for the entire week leading up to it. She did great in the end though. There were pictures taken but unfortunately they are not in my posession at the moment. On the 29th we all headed back to San Jose to get ready to fly out the following morning. My family and I all caught the same flight back to Miami, but when they left from there to head home, I caught an overnight flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I arrived in Buenos Aires this morning and am all checked into my hostel. So far all I know about this place is that its very hot. If I am going to learn more I´m going to have to get off this computer and go explore, so I´m out. Will post more in a few days.