Just want to give you a quick synopsis of my river trip. Basically what we did was go in a van to a place north of San Jose called Puerto Viejo, then load everything on to a boat on the Sarapiqui river. The boat was about 40 feet long and 5 ft. wide, with a roof (no sides) and a 75 hp outboard motor. That was our mode of travel for the next 4 days (other than walking). We traveled down river (north) for about an hour and a half to a "mission" point where a lady missionary lives along side the river. As far as I know, the river is the only way to get there. Picture what you may have seen in movies about jungle rivers...or the Amazon. It's about like that. Saw lots of crocodiles, iguanas, and some saw howler monkeys, but I never saw any, although I heard them often. The river is about 100 ft across in places, the widens to maybe a quarter of a mile at the main river. We worked along the San Juan river, which at places is the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, so at times we weren't sure which country we were in.
The "mission" is a small farm along the river with three crude (very crude) buildings and several animal outhouses. They raise hogs, keep some cows, chickens, turkeys, and raise some bananas and a few other plants. The missionary lady is called "Dr. Ana." She does a good bit of "doctoring" up and down the river, although she isn't really a doctor. That was our base for the first two days. We slept and ate breakfast and supper there a couple of days.
When I say the buildings were crude, that is an understatement. For one thing, remember, this is on the river and it is the rainy season. Everything is muddy. I mean everything. The buildings keep a roof over your head and the rain out. That's about all. One building is sort of a bunkhouse, but when I climbed up on the bunk, it broke (no, I haven't gained weight.) so I took the two inch thick foam "mattress" (which was broken lengthwise down the middle, thus leaving a wide space with no mattress by morning) and slept on the floor, which you can see through to the ground. This matches the walls, so the decor is at least consistent...kind of an early natural river look. One interesting thing is how they (at the mission) get their gas that they cook with. They have what is called a bio-digester. Basically it breaks down the hog dung and preserves the gas, which is then used as a fuel resource.
Our meals were basically rice and beans, with some yucca thrown in. While we were on the river, I ate some canned tuna and peanuts, which is what I took. One meal we had mashed yucca, which tastes just like potatoes, and macaroni (no cheese). As you can tell, there wasn't a lot of protein most of the time.
We got up about 5 in the a.m., ate, and started up river in the boat. We were in bed by 7 most nights, since we were tired and there wasn't anything to do anyway. (It gets dark by 6.) Our task was to leave a gospel of John (which have strategic passages marked) at every house along the river. Some places there were small villages with maybe 20 houses, but most of the time there was a house about every mile or so. We worked our way to the Caribbean coast to a town called Barra del Colorado, where there were about 200 houses...very simple, some almost shacks, some better. This took about two days. After there we started back toward the mission. It was an overnight trip, with our stopping at houses (We took another branch of the river.), so we camped that night. Actually, it was more pleasant sleeping in a clean tent than at the "bunk house" at the mission.
All in all, it was a good experience. The people are very open and receptive and friendly. Only problem is that you are constantly wet and muddy.
Our problem now is figuring out how to follow up on what we did. We don't have people in that area, and it's a long trip.
So that's my jungle/river adventure.
