Ok so here's all the practical information. It's not very exciting but this is really for anyone else who maybe thinking of doing the trip rather than for those who want the interesting parts of the story.
First go to San Carlos. Buy all the food etc you want here. We lived on Granola, rolled oats, powdered milk, canned tuna and bread while on the river. At night we always found somewhere to cook and had basic potatoes, rice, pasta etc dishes.
In El Castello:
There are (at least) two places in El Castello where you can hire kayaks. You can play them off against each other to lower their prices a bit.
These are the two we had dealings with:
Miguelle - on the far side of town (down river)
Jonathon - in the green building out over the river directly left of the dock.
From Jonathon we got two, two person canoes and two single kayaks for 5 days for 1460 cordobas including transport back up river. Approx $73.
Miguelle offered (after we confirmed with Jonathon) $10 per person, per day in 6 kayaks but we had to pay the transport back up river. (We were quoted $50 per Kayak)
We took the canoes because they were kind of like small narrow boats and could store much more equipment. The kayaks on offer from Miguelle looked better and had much more professional equipment (dry bags etc) but wouldn't have been easy for carrying hammocks, mosquito nets, clothes, 5 days food, rum and a machete.
Unknowns there are what kind of paddles Miguelle had cause the ones that came with Jonathons canoes (and kayaks) were a bit crappy. Also the canoes were SLOW. It may have been more enjoyable to go in the faster canoes at an easier and more enjoyable pace..
Regardless of who you go with you will have to buy a ¨ticket¨ which allows your transport along the river and lets you make stops in Costa Rica for 1 hour at a time. This was 80 cordobas for the 6 of us.
Once on the river there are 4 army barracks you have to stop at along the way and show your passports and tickets. You can stay the night at the army barracks and refill you water supplies there. You can also stay with the locals along the way and all of the ones we stayed with let us use their kitchens as well. In fact the families were very hospitable and would not accept any form of payment for their kindness.
Day 1:
We left about 9:30am and the 1st barracks was about and hour and a half along the way. We were taking it pretty casual. We got told there that the 2nd barracks was 4 hours away. Little did we know that the locals are completely hopeless at predicting rowing times along the river. Repeat: THE LOCALS ARE WILDLY INACCURATE AT PREDICTING TIMES FOR KAYAKING ON THE RIVER. So after a day of fairly causal rowing and then some frantic paddling for about 2 hours as we tried to reach the next barracks for the night we gave up around 5pm and asked one of the locals if we could put our hammocks up on his deck. We could.
Day 2
Figuring we were waaay behind schedule we got up at first light packed up, breakfasted and got on the river just before 7. We paddled hard for 3 hours to Bocas something a rather where there was a town (Costa Rican) and the 2nd barracks. After a two hour delay where we restocked and ate at the restaurant (the only on on the way) we continued on our way. The army guy this time said it'd be 6 and a half hours to the next barracks. We didn't believe him and figured on about 10 hours and set off at quite a pace again to try and make up some time. At 4:30 we stopped at some guys house completely fatigued and setup hammocks again.
Day 3
We got told by the lovely gentleman at the house that it was 40 mins by motorboat to the next barracks and he figured it'd be around 2 - 3 hours to paddle there. Got going just before 7 again and it was 3 hours of fairly solid paddling. After restocking our water supplies, checking passports etc we headed off again after being told 5 and a half hours to the last barracks at delta. We did it it 3 and a half.. Arriving at 1:30pm and realised that we were waaaaaaaaay ahead of schedule. It was only 1 day from there to San Juan Del Norte. So we chilled there for the afternoon.
Day 4
First note that the main flow of the river after the delta barracks goes right. Do no go this way. Hug the left bank and take the smaller flow. The army guys should let you know this though. Apart from this just follow the main flow of this river and it leads all the way to San Juan. The river was really low and we had to get out and push the kayaks at some points. (it was very easy cause the floated without our weight in them.) Starting about 8ish we casually rowed down stream till about 12 at times letting the current float us along. After a casual lunch we set about moving along and after another hour of casual rowing realised that we'd been suckered into bad time predictions yet again and we actually had to row pretty hard for about 3 hours to get to San Juan.
Day 5
It pissed with torrential rain all day and we were all glad that we'd arrived a day early and could chill in the hostel. (100 Cordobas)Discovered that Greytown got better as you got drunker.
Returned on the ferry at 5am the next day (Thursday) for 285 cordobas.
Apart from that we only saw one croc the whole way down although he was pretty big. May have seen a few more but they were the sort of unconfirmed were those crocs eyes that just ducked under the water there? No shark fins or smugglers though.. Probably for the best.
