Kayaking in Coronado

Author: Carolin Wrede and Daniela León

When looking for activities in Costa Rica, you should consider doing a kayak tour through the Terraba mangroves. You also participate in some physical activities while seeing the beautiful and peaceful nature. We did a three-hour tour with friends in a small town called Coronado. First, the guide gives some instructions on how to kayak correctly. When everyone was seated on their kayaks, the tour could begin. At first, going through the small "water streets" in the mangroves was hard to manage because the person sitting in the back had to paddle and steer simultaneously, while the person in the front had to do nothing. Getting synchronized with your partner is more complicated than it looks, especially navigating the curves and not hitting the trees was a challenge for us.

After some time, we managed to figure it out a bit and got better. The guide makes some stops to tell us about the area and the plants and animals you see. The tour's highlight was the many monkeys we saw jumping through the forest. But we also saw many different types of crabs, birds, and bats. Going further along the river, we got to a spot where we stopped and got out of the water to take a break because, as easy as it may look, kayaking is a real workout for your arms and is incredibly exhausting in the hot Costa Rican weather. Beautiful palm trees and the river surrounded the spot where we took our break. We drank some water and ate delicious, fresh pineapples. After that, our guide got us a coconut from one of the palm trees and opened it for us. The result was fresh coconut water and "copra" (the flesh of the coconut).

After the short break, we got on our kayaks again and paddled our way back. On our way back, we saw the monkeys jumping in the bushes and trees on the side of the river. We stopped for a while to look at them. After that, we continued to return to the starting point. When we were almost back, we saw more monkeys using tree branches to cross the river above our heads. We were exhausted from the long tour when we got back to the starting point. Kayaking through the river was peaceful and quiet, letting you enjoy nature in a completely different way than I have seen before. My only recommendation is SUNSCREEN, a hat, and a shirt because even though we used them, we were all extremely sun-burnt afterward.