Pan-Atlantic Adventures

by Beth Seager (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Costa Rica

Pan-Atlantic Adventures A sense of dread seeps from my shoulders down to my knees. I tried to pull and shake the bolt, each time more frantically. And just like that, I was trapped in a corrugated steel toilet in front of my husband and a group of 8 people I didn’t know. Outside the toilet I had another problem. On the riverbank, happy tourists with an easy confidence introduced themselves to me and made light conversation. I edged my way through them to stand in comfortable silence with a quieter bunch. My group smiled and tolerated the group photos and other cheered and did funny poses. As we were big enough for two boats, we were split in half. Rafters who are excited to meet new people and those who are more comfortable on their own can be similarly divided another way: into a boat of Americans and a boat of European. A safety kayaker and the photographer head out first. The shallow water tumbled over round rocks, the sound of this turned into crashing around the corner, out of sight. It was December, just after the rainy season in Costa Rica, and a series of storms had caused the dam upstream in the River Balsa to release some water, making our stretch more turbulent. The guide warned us that the river was a Class IV-V instead of a Class II-III. I felt grateful that I had increased our insurance premium to cover adventure sports. My husband and I, two Swiss sisters and our instructor, Moises, alighted our boat and pushed off from the shore, closely followed by the American boat. “Get down!” shouts Moises. Words cut through churning water. My brain rushes through commands taught on shore. A deluge of enraged rapids punish me for slow reflexes. My face and should beaten pink by the waves. No time to react, “Paddle back!” reached me. Chaotic water roars. I clambered back into the slick, wet seat and stabbed my oar into the water, combatting spiralling waves. Moises navigated us down the river, in and out of rapids, over rocks and hidden obstacles. Occasional whoops reach us from behind, the American boat congratulating themselves on surviving the rapids. I look to my new Swiss friends and smile, wide-eyed. We were drenched through in the warm Balsa water, but that smile was enough to convey the excitement and pride of having stayed aboard. There was perhaps a little joy of being able to look ahead at a few metres of calmer water. We drift through these calmer waters between the tall trees that line the banks. Hanging amongst the aerial roots a sloth lazily scratched at an armpit. It seemed fitting that we were floating underneath so casually. The jungle is rarely a quiet place, but it can be peaceful. Effortlessly passing by on the current of the river made us part of that most diverse of ecosystems for those few minutes. There were no engines or mobile phones. I didn’t expect to find solidarity with my extroverted comrades, but we passed the world by in tranquillity. The instructors had judged us in a matter of seconds and split us in two, but after challenging rapids and watched only by toucans and our sloth, our similarity was what had brought us all to Volcán Arenal in the first place: a sense of wonder at the magic of the rainforest.