Costa Rica Part 3: La Fortuna Canyoneering and White water rafting

Monday morning we got up early and made our way to our pick-up location for our canyoneering/waterfall repelling tour. I was pretty nervous and almost refused to do this but many people told us it was really fun and safe so we decided that we needed to do it! Shortly after we arrived, the shuttle took us to a base camp where we got our harnesses and helmets. Then the shuttle took us a little higher up the mountain to get some, what seemed to me, very minimal instruction.

This kind of tour is actually pretty neat because you get to meet people from all over the world. 

And it actually was really fun. The scary part wasn't going down the waterfall, it was actually climbing on the rocks through the canyon. We went down 4 water falls but spent most of our time hiking through the canyon. It was fun, and beautiful and the water felt great but we did spend a lot of time looking at our feet as opposed to the beautiful scenery around us.

Back at the base camp there was this sloth scratching his armpit for about 10 minutes, I don't think it showed up on this video very well,

At the end of it we were given cocoa and fresh pineapple we were then shuttled to a property the company owned and given an amazing Costa Rican buffet lunch. 

Next to the place where we ate (We really had no idea where we were or how close we were to the city we started in) there was a large public swimming hole. It was almost time to get back on the shuttle but Max did a quick swing into the water. 

We then made it back to the place we started just to get into a shuttle van with about half of our tour group and drive an hour to go white water rafting. This was another activity that I wasn't really sure I wanted to do since we get to go rafting regularly with Max's side of the family. But we decided that it would be a really fun experience to raft with completely different scenery, and in warm water! The drive was fun while we chatted with some Floridian sisters, one of which had two sons. Basically the whole conversation scared us from ever going to Florida. haha! Anyway, we were super happy we did the rafting. The guides are super fun and we were able to see a whole bunch of wildlife including several different kinds of lizards, howler monkeys, some macaws! toucans, and probably some other creatures.

We took a tropical fruit break and got to jump off the edge into the water. I'm such a wimp when it comes to things like this. Everyone had taken their turn except Max and me. Max knew I had to go first otherwise I would be left alone on the bank, and never jump. So I walked to the edge, saw how high it was, thought, nope, I can't do this and walked back, then the guide had to show me how to do it. And then I finally jumped, purely out of peer pressure.

The guide showing me how it's done.

Imagine a jungle yell right about now...

Max went a couple times...

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to be on the river and enjoy the relatively warm water. 

At the end, we pulled out the boats and were somewhat surprised with another meal. I seemed to have forgotten that meals were included with a lot of our tours. We ate up and spoke more with the Brazilian couple we rafted with. Max asked them if they were married, they very defensively said no (about 10 times) so then Max asked (just trying to be a polite conversationalist) how long they had been together. We were assuming they would answer with "a couple years" nope, the just started dating 3 months earlier! But they had known each other as kids so that was cute! Anyway, they had these cute swings on the river bank and we probably could have done some artsy-er photos if I had my camera or we changed from our rafting clothes or we weren't so goofy, but it is what it is!

Haha, And Max looks like a little kid!

Anyway, We rode our shuttle back to the main starting point in La Fortuna (where our car was) Once we arrived back to our car, we changed our clothes and checked out a couple souvenir chops and got ice cream. We then started our drive to the Tabacon Hot springs resort and I'm going to save that magical place for the next post!