SAVAGRE

Joelle's horse shimmied down the steep muddy embankment and splashed chest deep into the Savagre, shattering my preconceived notion of what a horseback ride for tourists entails. Riding at the rear of the caravan, I saw each of us react with the same startled realization - this trail ride is the real deal.

"Wait!" Hannah exclaimed with a second realization coming to her lips as her horse crashed into the Savagre next. "I have the shortest horse!"

Sure enough, despite lifting her feet up and out of the stirrups, a river dunk means wet shoes for the rest of the trip; nothing drys in Costa Rica this time of year.

By our fourth (fourth!) river crossing, I am ready to proclaim our mounts sure footed. As if on queue, mine takes a digger on a rocky descent crashing me into the side of a rock and mud embankment. What surprised me is not the digger, that felt inevitable, but how the horse went from sketching on one knee down the hill back to all fours and in perfect control before I could verbalize the "holy fr$&@#'n cr@p!" racing through my mind.

The Savagre is a cascading series of pools crashing through a lush, vibrant green, rainforest framed by slotted ravine walls that race 1,500 feet straight up to meet the azure blue morning sky. To call it a post card is to say you could capture the magic a single a frame.

At about 8,400 feet in elevation, less than a half-mile above Torgon Lodge, the Savagre is a high mountain stream with gentle wading pools. At our first crossing, about 7,500 feet and 1.2 miles later, it is a rushing river. Multiple guides and staff at the Trogon Lodge on the Savagre's edge report the 11 degree celsius water is renowned as the purest in Costa Rica. The fingerling trout that rest behind the boulders, eyes fixed up stream watching for breakfast to be delivered by the current, seem to agree.

The water is completely pristine despite multiple points where water routed through holding pools for trout farms and hydroponic vegetable growing stations returns to the Savagre. It is the lifeblood of an entire, largely self-sustaining, ecosystem.

After an hour ride, the trail becomes passable only on foot. We tie our horses to a hitching post above a small fish hatchery which must supply the entire 10 kilometers of the valley with the trout they then raise to plate size in their own ponds.

A half mile hike brings the Savagre to a choke point. The watershed for the entire valley flushes through a narrow slot in the rocks, gushing as if forced from a fire hydrant, into a rock wall on the opposite bank where it turns over and drops into a dark plunge pool. The spray mist blankets the extended perimeter of the valley feeding a carpet of rich green moss. Any moment, the fairies will fly into the scene confirming this a fantasy land.

We did our own bit of flying to confirm the same. A 7 line zip tour of the tree canopy over the Savagre proved the Quetzales call this home for more reasons than their daily feast in the sprawling avocado trees.

By hoof, zip line, on foot, or through a long lens, the view is always different, the magic always the same.