Paddling on Sacred Waters
Here we are on the last day of semana santa. The entire country has shut down for most of the week while everybody heads off to the beach. We usually get our share of vacationers camping in the city park here as well. Beer sales are prohibited on Thursday and Friday for some unknown reason most likely a result of religious influence which is primarily catholic here. Pretty much a crazy week, lots of traffic, strangers in the area as people are leaving the central valley to visit families located out here in the campo. And I suppose the churches are booming with worshippers today.
Got a call from a friend the other day who has a farm up near Lake Coté. This is a natural lake in the caldera of an ancient volcano located up the mountain a bit from Lake Arenal. Known as the most sacred site of the Malekus, a local indigenous tribe, there is no public access to the lake. On one end of the lake is a large farm, privately owned, that includes some of the shoreline. Had the opportunity to be on this property for the first time earlier in the week when I helped pull a motorcycle out of the water. But that's another story for another time perhaps.
Anyways, the only other access to the lake is the ICE maintenance road that leads down to their outlet feeding a small hydro plant that's actually located on Lake Arenal. Confusing? Quite simply, they dug a pipeline from Lake Coté down to Lake Arenal and placed the plant there. There appears to be some fairly strict limits on the amount of water they can take from Coté, maybe due to the Maleku land surrounding a good portion of the lake. The problem is, there's a locked gate across this access and I suspect access is denied the public for liability reasons.
But, as I said, our friend called to inform us that the gate to the farm would be open for the entire 4-day weekend and the owner of the farm is allowing anybody who wishes access to the lake.
We'd long been wanting to paddle the lake. It's a relatively small lake, maybe about 2-3km across and shaped much like a heart. The organ that is not the one on those silly cards. So, not that big but a pristine location inthe middle of the jungle to do some paddling. We rarely see anybody on the lake as access is difficult but we have seen a fishing boat or two out there on occasion. Seemed like a nice place to take our no impact kayaks to explore.
Well, we ended up with 3 other locals (2 of our friends and their visitor) interested in going so with 5 kayaks on top of the old Land Cruiser off we go. Slowly of course with 250 lbs. or so of boats on top. There's a long climb on a rocky road to get up the mountain. Parts of the road are not bad but others were 1st gear crawls over the rocks. But, no mishaps or lost boats on the way up and we arrived on the shore of Lake Coté!
Our main goal is to paddle to the other side of the lake from our put in location to explore a river. Rumor has it that there are 3 rivers to be found but I'd seen this one the other day and wanted to explore further than we could with a motorboat. It's a little rough going into the wind and current to get across but the 3 of us that went for it all made it.
Entering the mouth of the river we see the view on the right. 
(of course you can click on the photo to enlarge it) Yes, there's a tree across the entire river. Except someone has cut the very top off over against the left side of the river allowing just enough room for kayaks to pass.
The river is only about 1/2m deep at this point, sometimes less, and there are other trees and obstacles to maneuver around as we work our way upriver. Or downriver, don't really know if this is an inlet, outlet or just a gulch that holds water. Anyways, the next photo is a look back towards the lake just before passing that first tree. 
We were able to paddle quite a ways into the jungle, the river stayed about the same width and depth. Some more photos on our way in; 
Eventually we came to a spot where a tree was blocking the river and we couldn't get around it without portaging. But, there was another little channel going off to the side that allowed us to go in a little farther. Up to where an old footbridge had been built from steel and wood. Looked as though it hadn't been used in a long time and we wondered who might have put it there. It wasn't wide enough for a cart to cross, didn't look strong enough for cattle, it just looked like a footbridge.
Anyways, we made our way back out to the lake and started the crossing back. Had a good view of Volcon Tenorio on the way so snapped this one. (that's it in the center, looked better than the picture shows of course)