By chance I ran into kayaker Sam Drevo while driving past a fruit stand in Costa Rica, and he invited me to come run the river with him and his (then) business partners. After a long day running the Rio Division and Rio Savegre, on a whim we decided to go check out El Chorro to finish off the day.
Chorro is a steep, walled-in canyon that only H2O Adventures (Rios Tropicales) based in Quepos runs with rafts. Just a few days earlier, they’d tried to raft it to see if it was low enough for tourists, and had lost a raft in an undercut. It had still been too high.
Myself, guide Arturo Oropeza, and former NFL player Slade Andrews stepped up to the plate and hopped in the raft, with Sam and local paddler Felipe in kayaks. It was high but we made it, only swimming the Chorro drop. I’m not usually a fan of rafting, but this was easily my most memorable day pushing rubber on a river, and this pic by Sam Drevo captures the intensity.