Junior and senior members of the Elon University football team are in Costa Rica as a part of the Elon Commitment to its students achieving a global experience. Check in to elonphoenix.com to view updates of the program from its athletes on the overall experience! Be sure to also check out posts and updates on the team's social media accounts on Twitter and Instagram.

Nick Groll provides the latest update about the team's adventures going whitewater rafting.

Today marked our first full day in Costa Rica. At 5:30 a.m., the team gathered in the hotel lobby and began to board the coach bus. Our destination today: the Pacuare River, where we were set to embark on a whitewater rafting tour! Along our two-hour drive, we were joined by some fellow tourists with origins spanning from our own North Carolina, to the United Kingdom, and all the way to New Zealand. 

As we were leaving the capital city of San Jose, we passed a powerful sight. Through our windows, we could see the city's surrounding shantytowns. While Costa Rica has endless beautiful and unique qualities, it also unfortunately struggles with high poverty rates and vast wealth inequality. Seeing such affliction in person certainly opened our eyes to just how fortunate we are to be in the positions that we are in.
 
Our route snaked through the mountains of Irazú National Park. There was one mountain, however, that stood out to us immediately. No matter how high we climbed, this mountain remained towering over us — its summit piercing through the tops of the clouds. This "mountain" turned out to be Turialba Volcano, one of Costa Rica's most active volcanoes, and as we drew nearer, we learned that some of the clouds surrounding its sides were, in fact, made up of ash venting from its sides and crater!

Before arriving at the river, we stopped at our rafting guide's headquarters for some breakfast. It had not taken long for us to realize just how unique and delicious the food in Costa Rica is, and this meal was no exception. On top of some of the more familiar breakfast foods, we were also served rice and beans — one of the fundamental dishes found in most Costa Rican meals — fried plantains, as well as fresh fruit — some of which had been grown a mere walking distance away!

Soon enough we were back on the road to the river, but as it turned out, we would not be "on the road" for long.  We had spent hours ascending along the mountainsides, but the river, however, was far below, flowing through the bottom of the valleys.  By the time we "arrived," we couldn't even see the river, which sat nearly a thousand feet below. At this point, we were divided and crammed into a tractor-towed trailer and van, and began a slow and gradual descent down a steep dirt trail to the riverbed.
 
Finally, after hours of driving, debriefing, descending, and fitting equipment, we were on the water, and beginning our 18km journey down the Pacuare! The 30 of us had divided ourselves into six rafts, each holding five teammates and a guide. The water's temperament changed at every turn — at times calm enough for us to jump in and float alongside the raft, and at times violently hurling us through the rocky rapids as we paddled and held on for dear life! The scenery was simply breathtaking; the rainforest and mountains towered thousands of feet over us on both sides. At times, we even saw some of the rainforest's indigenous inhabitants coming out to swim in the river's calmer stretches. 

Walking away from the experience, I could not have felt more fortunate. I observed unimaginable living conditions; I enjoyed food that could not be appreciated to the same extent anywhere else; and I spent five hours on a raft with some of my closest friends, surrounded by scenery for which photographs could simply not do justice. I cannot wait to see what these next five days in this beautiful country have in store for us!