The alarm went off early. 3 am Thursday morning. John E Field and I packed the few things we still had in our hotel room, after having stored the bulk of our gear in our ferry the day before. By 3:30 we were out the door, stumbling about in the dark. The hotel owner was already up and began to turn on some outside lights so we could see and then she rushed up to Eve Kohlman and JoAnne Stoltz’s room to make sure they were awake. Since the ferry seems to always leave at 5 am and since essentially …

A thick mist hung over the river. Yarlen Diaz’s three male cousins woke with us at daybreak, grabbed their towels and ran down to the river to bathe. While we ate breakfast, they dressed, said their goodbyes and motored down river in their panga to school. By 6:30 am we were also on the water, with the mist thick all around us. We would see the boys’ boat tied up to the bank later, where the Sarapiqui River flows from Costa Rica into the Rio San Juan at Boca de San Carlos, where the boys attend school. Our first stop …

We slept in hammocks strung from bamboo. We slept under tarps to keep the rain off of us. I think I slept but I’m not sure. Juan Alberto Aguilar Gomez cooked a yummy egg breakfast over the open fire and then we packed up. He was leaving us today and Yarlen would guide us the rest of the way. Yarlen was going to have his work cut out for him. It was the start of day four on the river. With three days behind us, time wise, we were exactly half way through our six-days of paddling for this trip. …

As promised in the Rio San Juan Series #5 of 11: El Castillo to Bamboo Island Camp (Nica Nugget #71), here’s a short video taken during our jungle hike. Here you can experience some of the jungle sounds (although feeling the sticky heat will be left totally up to you)…