Costa Rica Pacuare - January 2021 - Trip Report

The 4th and 5th days were meant to be a two day trip on the lower Pacuare, with an overnight in an luxury eco  jungle camp. The Pacuare was once selected by National Geographic as one of  the best rivers in the world, and it carves it ways deep through the Costa Rican jungle for around 130km before reaching the Caribbean sea. Arnaldo knew I liked multi-day adventures, and that I was happy to camp, so we set-up a three day trip to take in 4 of 5 recognised white water sections of the river – we would be paddling the top, upper upper, upper and lower sections, skipping only the headwaters section due to the difficulties and cost in accessing it.

The crux of the journey would be the upper section, which has a couple of G5 rapids and a lot of G4. The first day however was easy, taking in the mostly G3 waters of the top and upper upper sections. We floated through very remote areas of the jungle, and I felt so lucky to be a kayaker – it made immersing yourself in the jungle easier, and seemed a much better option than sweat soaked bush bashing!

That night we camped on a rocky beach, huddled over a fire and sharing some beers Arnaldo had somehow managed to stow away in his kayak. The jungle hummed and throbbed around us – it doesn’t’ get much better than this. To me this is what makes life real, the 80% or 90% of my I spend at home or work is just the grind I go through to escape to places like this.

Early the second day we hit the harder G4/5 section. I still didn’t feel particularly slick; I’d been out of kayaking for too long, and I think being isolated in the jungle with only one guy I’d recently met (no matter how good he was!) was affecting my head game. Things had generally gone ok but I decided to walk the first G5 rapid, the ‘walk’ being an awkward scramble followed by a precarious 6m seal launch into a boily mess up against a wall. Arnaldo ran the rapid, I pushed off, hit the water, landed it upright, relaxed, and got flushed into the wall. Immediately I was over, and I panicked, now swimming down the river, abandoning my paddle boat and the bag that I kept between my legs. The next G5 rapid was only just round the corner and I swam hard for the bank, making it to safety as Arnaldo took off down the G5 after my boat.

Boat, paddle and paddler were reunited a few hundred metres downstream, after an arduous run/climb/scramble along the bank over huge boulders from me. The bag between my legs was gone, and with it my kindle, camera and, most importantly, my sun cream! We carried on down the river, with me taking one more swim along the way. A little shaken by these two swims, and annoyed at myself for being so out of practice, I opted to portage a couple of other rapids as well. I was relieved to reach our 2nd campsite later that day, which was a more comfortable set-up on a sandy/dried mud beach, with toilets and a covered structure for picnics.

The final day took us through a beautiful gorge along the commercially rafted low section. The occasional G4 rapid was interspersed by easier water, and it was reassuring to know the main difficulties were behind us. With my sun cream floating somewhere in the river, I was very sunburnt by the time we finished in Siquirres next to a soda. It didn’t matter, I was happy to do something a bit different as part of my trip, and as always, the lunch of steaming Costa Rican casado (rice, beans, plantain  and meat) that was brought out seemed to make everything ok.