El Residente
36 An Title Adventure article in Paradise by Lee Swidler
Kayaking the Río San Juan; The Trip of a Lifetime Part 3 The following recounts the author’s trip traversing the Rio San Juan (which constitutes the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua) with his son and some friends. This part begins as the four men awaken to the dawn of their third day on the river.
D
awn brought the parrots; small parritas as well as macaws (red and blue). We wanted an early start so we decided to just have coffee and skip breakfast. While the coffee was perking we noticed a lone traveler floating down the river in a dugout canoe. He saw us and paddled over and asked if we knew where the Boca de (mouth of) Rio San Juan was. When we told him it was a few kilometers upriver his eyes widened. He was a Nicaraguan soldier reporting to the check station on the river, had paddled most of the night in the moonlight, and had missed his target. He returned to his dugout and began paddling up stream. About 15 minutes later, the same man came walking up a trail from downstream. Apparently the current had prevented him from going upstream so he decided to hoof it. We gave him some water and peanut butter crackers, and wished him a safe trip as he started his hike to his post.
After we had repacked our craft we shoved off to once more battle the river. The air was clear at 7:00 a.m. and we were determined to make some distance before the wind picked up. But the winds had other ideas and started almost as
soon as we began, and swells of water were being washed over the fronts of the kayaks. Again, we were making a measly two miles an hour; we were fighting a strong wind and losing the battle. By 10:15 we had to rest and found a large rock to pull the boats onto. Since we had skipped breakfast, it was time for brunch, and we started a fire. We needed the fuel for our bodies and Dave served up some split pea soup over rice. We all appreciated his effort. Then, just as we were finishing up, we saw another small dugout canoe approaching.
We soon learned that the canoe was being paddled by Luis, a young teen who lived within eyesight of our picnic rock. As we talked, we could see there was a motorized boat parked at his home, and I asked him, “Does it run?”
“Yes,” he said. His dad, Carlos, was the local mechanic for everybody on the river. I asked Luis if he might paddle back home and see if we could hire his dad to take us and our kayaks down the river. He said it would be better if I went with him to talk to his father, but I begged off saying I was too old and skinny to try and paddle upstream to his house. He understood and returned home solo.
