[LJ Idol] Season 8, Week 10, "Pura Vida"
Challenge Name and Number: #10, Sticks and Stones
Title: Pura Vida
Word Count: 1130
Warnings (if applicable): None
Summary: This is my first experience rafting, and while I’d signed up primarily for fun, gliding out into those first rapids is nothing short of terrifying.
Author’s Notes: Non-fiction this time around! I hope you enjoy.
Pura Vida
In Spanish, Andrés explains, Reventazón means explosion of water. It’s also the name of a river in Costa Rica, winding across mountains and rainforests for over 90 miles, 40 of them rapids. At one point, the bus crosses a bridge high overhead, and I get my first glimpse of it.
Rolling water, slipping over rocks to curl and twist into white foam, stretches as far as I can see in either direction. I cannot tell how deep the river is just from looking, but it’s wide, and I imagine falling out of the raft, crashing against the rocks, and losing my shoes or sunglasses. Maybe both.
“If someone falls out of the raft, we call them a swimmer,” Andrés says. “If you fall, you buy everyone else in your raft a drink, yes? Pura Vida! But no pushing them on purpose!”
He continues, “Here in Costa Rica, we say pura vida. It’s like no problem, man. No worries. So, how are you all feeling?” A faint chorus of pura vida emanates from the middle of the bus. I’m still staring out the window, at the miles of banana trees, the bananas wrapped in bright blue bags to keep the pesticides from reaching the fruit.
“Someone asks you how you’re doing, you can say pura vida. When we go back to the center for lunch, suppose you get a local beer. The bartender asks you how it is, and if you say pura vida, perhaps he gives you another for free, eh?” This time, the response is louder as everyone echoes him.
“Today we will be paddling on some Class II+ and Class III rapids. You’re lucky-it rained nonstop the past week, so the waters are much higher than normal! About three feet. It’ll be a real experience, especially if you’ve never rafted before!” He speaks close to the microphone, pausing only as the bus turns. We’re now on a dirt road, narrower than the bus driving on it.
“Rapids go from Class I to VI. Class I rapids are calm and peaceful, like a swimming pool. Class VI is impossible, like a waterfall.” He laughs, prepping us for the river and offering safety tips. They’re pretty standard-don’t let go of the paddle; if you fall, float on your back; do everything your guide tells you to do.
The guide for my eight-person raft is named Ronald, who says little as we leave the bus and climb down to the riverbank, clutching paddles and buckling life vests and helmets. It’s rocky, and I’m not the only one using the paddle as a walking stick to navigate the more slippery sections. The water itself is surprisingly icy, and I climb into the raft with the others and settle the paddle across my lap.
“We’ll be following the Reventazón for seven miles,” he says. “And it’ll take two hours.” We practice commands in the shallow area by the riverbank, watching the swirling rapids, just visible farther down the river. It’s an easy, simple rhythm. He calls, “Forward! One, two, three, stop,” and we row with the numbers, shifting our paddles out of the water at stop.
“Backwards! One, two, stop.” The same, except we row in reverse. Back left would turn the raft, with those on the left rowing backwards and those on the right rowing forwards, and back right would mean the opposite.
This is my first experience rafting, and while I’d signed up primarily for fun, gliding out into those first rapids is nothing short of terrifying. The rush of the water grows louder as the rapids announce their presence, and we’re off, swiftly rowing to the tune of Ronald’s one, two, three. The raft turns, and I’m slapped in the face with water.
My mind isn’t quick enough at the moment to handle paddling in rhythm and deal with the fast-moving water, not when my first instinct isn’t to paddle dutifully, it’s to do everything possible to keep myself in the raft. It’s not like there’s anything to hang on to but the paddle; my feet are lodged under the seat in front of me, and we’re all practically seated on the very edge of the raft. The water isn’t too far away, and I really don’t want to be a swimmer. I’m drenched in seconds from the rapids as water sloshes over the raft to pool at my feet. I think that human beings weren’t meant to float down a river with nothing more than inflated rubber and sticks to entrust their lives.
“Back right!” Ronald calls. I can’t remember which direction that means I should paddle, but I give it my best shot. Those initial terrifying moments melt away into something exhilarating as we coast through the rapids, shrieking whenever the water rises to douse us, grinning and laughing as we emerge, victorious.
The water smoothes out, barely a ripple as we paddle to the next rapids. “All in! Pura Vida!” We lift our paddles and smack the blades together in the air, like a high-five. We can do this.
At first I worry that I am going to fall, or that my sunglasses will be claimed by the river, but none of it matters the longer we paddle. The Costa Rican rainforest surrounds us, and we stop a few times on the banks to look for monkeys and sloths. I spy a few egrets and goats, but nothing more exotic than that. Before we push off, I carve my first initial into the wet sand with the blade of my oar.
After the next set of rapids, they have a photographer standing by the riverbank to take pictures of our raft. At Ronald’s urging, we all lift our paddles into the air, shouting and laughing, before bringing them back down to slide into the water. We are the last raft to reach the base point, paddling across a smooth section of water where others have jumped to swim alongside their own rafts. We stay firmly seated in ours, but use our paddles to splash another raft as we pass.
As part of the package, the rafting center gives us lunch-chicken, pasta, and rice with bananas and yucca, with lemonade and water to drink. Andrés joins us again as we sit around a series of low picnic tables, our mouths almost too full to speak. We are surrounded by nature, from the impossibly bright green of the grasses and trees to the bananas visible from the plantations across the street.
"How was it?" he asks. I know he doesn't just mean the food, but regardless our answer is the same. We have the same two words for him as we think about the afternoon, as we think about the river and the country.
"Pura Vida!"