Rafting down the River Sarapiqui

The Sarapiqui is a wide, meandering kind of river that has flattened and extended in some areas leaving wide shoals of rounded rocks and dark beach sand. When the channel compresses, Sarapiqui leaps with jovial Class III and even a dash of Class IV water tumbling over the drop of the river bed. Once committed it's like running full tilt down a steep staircase, with boiling pour overs and the myriad of jump-ups marking the lavish scatter of stones visible through the clear water..
Nothing remains constant on the Sarapiqui. Sometimes the banks look like an earthen layer cake, beautiful caked soil and an endless stippling of rocks jutting out. Elsewhere the banks are covered in lush blades of some kind of saw grass succeeded by a waterfall of ferns, some small, some as large as those used to fan some imperial potentate in Arabian Nights. And then followed by delicate thin meadow grass and miniature ferns, while nearby little streams drip clear rivulets of water into the Sarapiqui.
There were times when the two rafts with our Costa Rican guides and the safety kayakers -- all of us -- drifted placidly in between the white water sections. A white cumulus cloud lofted itself with bland serenity as if time itself had stopped and there was nothing further to discuss because if you were looking for somewhere else to be, where would that be?!
Eagle vultures took over small riverside neighborhoods, the occasional predator bird spreading their immense wings to dry them out in the afternoon heat. Cattle egrets, herons, diving birds,  and even an osprey all made appearances.
As we rode down the river swath we floated under an enormous tree wreathed with vines and bromelias, shaggy with local vegetative growth, five monkeys sat curled up on what looked like the least likely of twiggy supports. Perched dozens of meters up in the arboreal rafters, they looked quite small. They made no comment as we passed nor did we as we gazed up.
Time moves a little differently here. When the guides stopped to cut up some fresh pineapples and watermelon in perfectly displayed fashion on the edge of one of the rafts, everyone sat down. Conversation broke out. Others were quiet. But there was no rush to achieve the next tyranny that clock hands bring back in our north country. There was a calmness to the recess that would be nice to have a touch of back in New York . . .