This year is the first time we decided to go somewhere else than Uganda. Why? Just to many times on one place get a bit boring. So this winter we went to Costa Rica. We started to plan the trip this summer during the Worlds. Mario Vargas from Costa Rica was helping us since the beginning to organize everything as cheep as possible. After the Worlds I started to organize evrything and calling people if they like to join us. In the beginning it was only me and Nina so we was thinking that we would just travel and rest on the beach. In the end almost all my friends decided to go so from 2 we are goup of 10. I mean in one hand its awesome but in other hand its many people and everything get much more difficult to organize. We were flying all together so you can really imagine how funny the flight was. After many many hours in the plain we were there. Only problem that we had just one car was booked and we didnt want to rent the expensive rental cars on the airport. In maybe one hour staning on the street we find probably 3 other rental 4x4 cars, awesome! We packed all our gear and went to the hotel. We spend second day only with moving to Turrialba the home town of Mario and getting the boats. We didnt fly with the boats because the price was to high so it became cheaper to rent them here.
Turrialba was the first region to go. Mario borrowed me and Nina boats for free which we are really thankfull for! The first river we did was the lower Pacuare river only class 3-4. Not really difficult but long. All day long shuttleing and kayaking on the river, made our day! We were super tired afterwards. Next day we took part at the Costa Rican freestyle kayak championship. Actually we were asked to help them and judge and run the event. It was really nice to meet all the freestylers here. After the competiton we went down the Reventazon river, which was super fun with big holes and waves. Next day we went for the slalom competiton and than kayaked the river aftewards again.
The best river yet was the upper Pacuare with lot of boulders and holes. Really nice river in the middle of the jungle.
After few days of kayaking we decided to have a rest at the Caribian beach at Puerto Viejo. The waves were super big. I had a freestyle kayak borrowed from Mario and decided to get a try. Well first wave, 5 meters big = huge crash broken paddle , sprayskirt exploded and I had to swim for long time in between this masive waves. Surfing was over, my hand was bleeding from broken paddle and my knees too from the clifs. So we just were bathing and jumping to waves for the rest of the day. Next day we borrowed the surfs to learn surfing. We did find also beach with smaller waves but still not small enought. 3-4 m big waves for beginning , awesome idea. Actully it was fun, falling down and crashing for whole day. We managed some good surfs too but aftewards we was soo tired as never before from fighting the see.
Now we are moving to other part of Costa Rica.
See you later
