PURA VIDA!

Pura vida!

We said this phrase probably 100 times today. Directly translated it means “pure life”, and people say it in pretty much any occasion. For example, we finished paying for groceries and they said pura vida. I feel like we are still learning exactly what pura vida means as we spend more time in Costa Rica. Today we got up and did the MAMBO COMBO with a company called Desafio (it was just as awesome as the name implies). We started the day with canyoning through four different waterfalls and walking along/through a river. We were picked up at 7 am by Victor and took a four-wheel drive truck through the most bumpy, windy road in the countryside to reach the canyons. All of the houses we passed by seemed so primitive because they still used open fires to cook and lived 6 ft off the ground. Eventually we got to the canyons and they started us off “easy” with a 20 ft waterfall. No big deal for us experts. Disclaimer: for all parents reading this blog, there were trained employees with us otherwise we might not be living right now to write this. The first waterfall wasn’t to nerve racking but the second one was 110 ft high. Our guide as we are going down tells us to let go of the rope. Somehow that is supposed to make it more “fun”. The final one was 220 ft high and more of a zipline than a canyon. Overall it was a great adrenaline rush. Not as terrifying as I thought it would be, but it was a blast. After that we headed to the restaurant and had our second breakfast of the day with a traditional Costa Rican dish called gallito (forgot how to spell it). Essentially they eat rice and beans with everything and its called gallito. Their salsa was epic as well. Side note: we met a couple from Minneapolis on the Mambo Combo and one of them actually works at Ecolab. Small world huh?

River Dam Story – we’ll show you photos. They dammed the river and then released all the water as we sat in the river’s path 15 feet downstream. It was so powerful!
After breakfast we headed to the river to go rafting. I was more nervous for this part because the water in the canyons wasn’t all that deep. However, If I fall out of a raft, I will be doggy paddling my way to certain death. The rapids were only class 2-3 (which I still have no idea what that means). We had an excellent leader for these too. His name was Jacob and he was the most sarcastic/genuinely nice person I have ever met. He showed us how to paddle correctly in the beginning, and laughed at our inability to paddle throughout the entire way down. We all jumped in at a calm point on the way down and somehow Austin got sucked downstream. He claims that he swam into the current and it led him downstream, but I’m not convinced. No worries though because we rescued him just before we went down another rapid. It ended up being a great time for us. The class 3 rapids weren’t too dangerous, and I would definitely go again in the future.

Another random side note: our tour guide said that there were a ton of fish in the river and the most common one is like a piranha. Great. But the good news is that they only eat plants. Also we saw our first alligators today, but in another river. Danger is lurking around every corner.

After the Mambo Combo we just decided to hang out around the hostel. It ended up being great because we were able to talk to the owner, Maruicio, for quite some time. He was a great help to us during the entire stay here and he knows a lot about the area. He said that he is trying hard to learn English, and he has a lot of friends who practice with him on Facebook. He is a tico which means native Costa Rican here, and he has lived his entire life in this country. Him and his brother own hostels in Arenal and Monteverde where we are going. He is just an all-around genuine guy and we will definitely miss this hostel as we head out tomorrow to Monteverde. Random side note #3: sloths are called perezosos in Spanish which directly translates to lazy. Austin was also curious how sloths are not extinct because it would seem that they would move to slow to defend themselves. Apparently they can be very vicious if provoked. They lie on their backs and claw at predators when they are in danger. Of course this theory needs to be tested so look for a future blog post about how this turns out.

Our quest continues for a Quetzal (google it) and monkeys tomorrow as we head to a zipline tour and the Monteverde Forest Reserve. Hasta luego!

Matt & Austin