|
Either it was great luck or nostalgia. I was in Costa Rica recently for a meeting in San Jose, which has been my staging area each time I have visited this small mesoAmerican nation which has the highest percentage of its territory protected in national parks. It has a wide variety of ecosystems from cloudforest to rainforest to white water riverine systems that seem pristine and virgin for the river runner. That is true, but for two of them, the Pucuare and the Reventazon, which will be run no more.
The Reventazon (the name means "Explosive", and I found out why!) is a clear running fast river that courses from rainforest down toward the Atlantic Caribbean through a narrow gorge (the "Angostura"), an irresistible opportunity to dam it for Costa Rican hydroelectricity. The same fate awaits the Pucuare this year, since Costa Rica had glowed with bright promise of ecotourism, saved a lot of its government expenditure by abolishing the military (probably a suicidal idea but for the interest of a bigger well-armed brother nation looking on intently) and still found itself in "La Crisis", the lowest economic growth rate in Latin America except for Paraguay. So, something must be done to jump-start the economic growth and there is the waiting Reventazon Angostura.
So, this was a sweet-sad river run through a magnificently varied rainforest, with yellow tailed Oro Pendulas weaving their nests, arboreal iguanas looking down oat the rubberized passers-by, and at the Angostura a big sign announcing coming progress with bulldozers standing by. I remembered the last scenes of "Deliverance" with earthmovers at the end of the Chatooga, and in each instance the rising waters would be drowning a wonderland even before many people would know what had been lost. I should be happy that I got to run it last, so I would know what is under that big reservoir on my next visit. Then, again, maybe I will not stop by, but find some other wild river running free.