FORWARD TEAM!

Ahhhhhhhhh today I got to go white-water rafting!!!!!! I now have a new obsession. We woke up this morning, got on our bus, went to La Fortuna, got on a new bus, and rode for another hour or so to the Rio Balsa which is where we rafted on class 2 and 3 rapids. I kinda wish that it would have been more intense... but it was still a blast!

When we first got to the river, we got all suited up in our lifejackets and helmets, and after a safetly lesson, we got into groups of 5 and were put into groups with a tour guide. In my group it was me, Eric, Maggie, Shelly, and Daniel... and our guide was Jorge! Jorge was super cool. He kept making jokes with us the whole time and you could tell that he really loved his job (considering he has been doing it for 5 years)... but who wouldn't love that job?! I now have a new life purpose/goal and that is to move to Costa Rica and become a white-water rafting guide. I mean it's the perfect job for me. Getting to be out on the water all day long where I don't have to wear a shirt and can play in a raft! It's going to happen. Sorry for wasting 2+ years of money on college mom and dad, but at least I found my calling now!

After we got in our groups, we set off on the river! The route we went on was about 11 miles long and took a little over 2 hours for us to do. The first half was the class 3 part with the more intense rapids. We were all laughing and smiling the whole way... the pictures prove it. Eric and I got to be in the front of the raft which was so much fun! Not only were we in every picture, but we got to see the whole river and ended up taking the hit from most of the waves. Our faces were priceless. I'm really glad that the company had a photographer following us the whole time taking pictures of the whole trip. One part of the first half of rapids we came across a HUGE drop which literally engulfed our raft. One of that commands that we had to follow from Jorge was "GET DOWN!"... which, as it implies, we had to sit all the way in the raft and put our paddles straight up in the air so we wouldn't hit anyone. The photographer got an aweome picture of our group going down the drop while we are all down inside the raft. As you can see, the 4 of us in front are literally completely underwater.

At our halfway point, we met up with all of the other rafts, parked them on the bank, and had a nice snack of pineapple and watermelon. The guides flipped one of the rafts over and sliced up tons of fruit for us. I'm so glad that Costa Rica is famous for their watermelon and pineapple... we eat them all the time and they are two of my favorite fruits! After our delicious snack, we got back on the river for the last half of our trip. Since the last part had weaker rapids, Jorge let us have fun and when we went down some rapids, he would tell the left side to paddle forward and the right side to paddle backwards so that we would spin and do 360's the entire way down. Some of his other commands (which made us laugh every time) were to go forward... and everytime he said it he would either say "Forward friends!" or "Forward team!". Those phrases are engraved into my mind, and they really show how friendly everyone in Costa Rica is. We had only known him for a few minutes before he was calling all of us "friends" or "amigos". Also, every time that we made it down a section of rapids, we would give each other high fives with our paddles and yell "PURA VIDA!"

I can't believe that I got to go rafting. It has always been something that I thought would be very cool to do, but before this study abroad trip, never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be rafting down a river in Costa Rica. On the river we also saw a sloth in the tree! It was right above it so we were able to see it very well. That was the animal that I wanted to see most, so I was happy :)



Me, Maggie, Shelly, Eric, Daniel, and Jorge (front)

To top the night off, when we got back to the Center, me and Eric got some front row entertainment when a few of the girls decided to sing karaoke downstairs and sung songs from Backstreet Boys and N-Sync. Being on the river all day made everyone really tired, so everyone is pretty much being lazy and is already in bed or laying down. Costa Rica... you never fail to amaze me. Pura vida!