www.CostaRicaTicas.com

White water rafting is a must and can be done as a day trip from San Jose.

I especially recommend the Tortuguero Canals tour. It is an all day tour over the mountains, down the valley thru a Banana plantation where you will stop and on to the river where a boat picks you up for a canal tour and lunch at the seaside village of Parismina. http://www.parismina.com/index.html
On the boat ride thru the canals you see all kinds of birds and wildlife including the poison frogs.

The drive from the last paved road to the river is on a rough gravel road lasting one and a half hours so just expect it. (The government has promised to pave this road for years).
I like this tour so much I have done it twice. It is about $85 a head, but a group of five of us boys went together and we had the tour van all to ourselves and got a discount. Naturally we brought our own beer and a cooler. We booked thru Ricki at Nature Tours in the yellow plaza, second floor next to the Hotel Gran Costa Rica.

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PacoLoco: "You pay for it one way or another."
Ace: "Rent everything, do not buy in Costa Rica"

Anyone wanting to do an intermediate level bike tour (and we can have them go easy on us, if there are a few guys) this coming week, let me know.

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I said hey baby, take a walk on the wild side.
Lou Reed

You'll have a complete blast! I don't know why more guys don't try these tours.

Just a couple of words of advice. Even the intermediate ride is not that strenuous as overall most of it is downhill. As much as the few uphill stretches were a workout on my legs it was mainly a workout on my LUNGS because of the relatively high altitude relative to where I live in Florida. Unless you come from Colorado or someplace like that (and are a non-smoker), you might try to schedule this activity towards the end of your trip so that at least you'll be partially acclimatized by your time in SJ (though I'm not even sure how much just that will help). My second piece of advice is that you bring biking gloves if you have them or gloves of some sort. Aside from the whiteknuckle aspect of zipping down around hairpin turns at high rates of speed, my knuckles almost froze off from being exposed to the cool damp air as we sped down through the clouds.

Damn, just remembering that thrilling ride gives me chills of excitement even now!

Rios Tropicales offers a 2 day river rafting trip that is like nothing else in Costa Rica. It is great for a couple reasons.
#1 you are slitting up your drive time between 2 days, which makes it much more bearable.
#2 The way they have it set up is just awesome. You drive out to the location (they pick you up in San Jose) you start your rafting trip on the Pacuare River. I believe the first day there is 4 hours of rafting. You arrive at the river front lodge, deep in the rainforest, via your river raft where your bags are waiting for you. Nice.
#3 They have a short Canopy Tour included in the package there at the lodge.
#4 the next day you head back out on the river for the second leg of your adventure. When you finish up your bags are waiting in the vehicle and they drive you directly back to San Jose. It is one of the best run tours I have encountered anywhere in the world.

These guys do a wonderful job, for many visitors, it is the highlight of their entire trip to Costa Rica. Although I must say, those that rave about it have not had a threesome with Laura and Pamula.

www.riostropicales.com/english.htm

Cost is $250 per person for the 2 day trip