Upper Pacuare

March 21st: After a yummy yummy breakfast here at the Turrialba Hotel B&B my dad, Pat McD and I hopped in the 4x4 rental car and headed up into the mountains to the up-stream most river crossings (bridge with discharge gage and a cable swing) on the Pacuare --- destination Bajo Pacuare and Paso Marcos!

We had rain off and on but the day was fantastic. So much fun to show Pat how these small rivers move and store such massive quantities of large sized sediment (boulders). The steep terrain offers a natural source of erosive hillslope material -- often in the form of landslides. The road to Bajo Pacuare is dirt with some huge landslides along the way but it was easily passible. The smaller dirt road to Paso Marcos is cut off by a massive rock/landslide about 3/4 the way up. We walked past the slide on the path that the few locals that live above the slide have cut. All the while surrounded by the magnificent flora of the mountains.

Back into Turrialba in the late afternoon to meet up with mom and go to the farmers' market to look around at the amazing array of foods grown in the fertile central mountains of CR and to buy super tastee fruit for the evening and tomorrow's road trip to the Caribbean.