Coast to Coast Adventure Race
Stage 1: Paddling the Pacuare River to the Caribbean Coast.
Jackie Windh / 01.03.2006
Finally, I have a few minutes to update you on the last 24 hours...
Teams left from the Adventure Racing Costa Rica camp promptly at 9:00 am. Their route was about 35 km down-river to PC1, where the Pacuare empties into the Caribbean Sea, then to turn around and paddle a few hundred metres back upstream and then branching northward into an artificial canal that heads northward, parallel to the coast. They paddled 15 km along the canal, fighting a weak current, to the next river northward, Parasmina River, where they hit their first Transition. Here they received the instructions for Stage 2: Mountain Biking.
Well, they are not the only ones having an adventure! I am loving Costa Rica so far! The starting point on the Pacuare River was amongst banana plantations. I waded across the river to get photos of the teams lining the kayaks up – plastic 2-person sit-on-tops – in the river, and then of the start. Then we hopped into a vehicle, with a quick stop in Siquirres for attempt number three on the internet (this time it actually worked!) and continued on to the TA. Here we boarded an open motorboat and zipped along the narrow canal back to PC1 to await teams.
Just as Race Director Mike Lapcevic had predicted, the Costa Rican teams had exploded to the front. Team 4.AVENTURAS DE SARAPIQUI (CR) arrived first, at 1:04 pm. They looked strong, and had made a good strategic move by tying their boats together with a line only a few inches long. They looked great on the water – all four paddling together in perfect time. Teams 5. BATTERY – NATURE AIR (CR), 3. POZO AZUL – MUNDO AVENTURA (CR) and 7. WHICKED NEAR/NEMO (USA) were not far behind, all arriving (in that order) within the next 15 minutes. NEMO’s Mike Morris made a fast dash, running across the sandspit at the PC, to dip his feet into the rolling grey waves of the Atlantic Ocean. All eight teams had made the PC with the hour, for the most part looking good and in good spirits.
Once the last team was through, we hopped back in our breezy motor boat, passing all of the teams in the narrow canal, lined on both sides with lush jungly vegetation and the occasional cow pasture, to await them at the TA. SARAPIQUI maintained their lead, arriving at around 3:30, and BATTERY followed about 20 minutes later.
The next leg was about 100 km of mountain biking, along narrow tracks through plantations of banana, pineapple, heart-of-palm and cow pastures. The cows here are great, big and white with gentle faces and long droopy ears. Night falls quickly here, promptly at 6:00pm, so although all teams started the ride in daylight they knew that they would be doing most of the ride at night – quite a navigational challenge.
SleepMonsters
