Backpacking Cerro Chirripo

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The backpacking trip went perfectly, although I have been informed that Cerro Chirripo is only the highest mountain in Costa Rica, not Central America.

We woke up early on Sunday and quickly completed our work. We left the farm at noon, hiking to Ciudad Colon and getting on a bus to San Jose. We arrived in San Jose 45 minutes before our next bus was scheduled to depart, so we quickly walked/jogged the 22 blocks to the next bus station. Arriving just in time, we bought our bus tickets and settled in for the beautiful 3 1/2 hour ride through cloudy green mountains to San Isidro. In San Isidro we had an hour to kill before our final bus ride so we sat in a park and observed all the church-goers before sipping a beer at a quiet bar. I got to speaking with the bar tender. He told me that he had lived in the United States for 7 years, and all he did was work. When he moved back to Costa Rica he made less money and lived a simpler life, but he has mountains to climb, a beach nearby, and time to just enjoy living. He tried convincing me to drop everything and move to a place like this, and I told him that I'm keeping my options open.

The bus to San Gerardo, our final destination, arrived at the central market as the sun set. The next hour and a half was a bumpy ride down gravel roads and over one-way bridges into the dark mountains. Finally we arrived and began hiking around to find a hostel. Everything was closed (it was 8:30 on a Sunday night) except for one hostel, so Mike went in and booked a room. He told the owners he was alone so that Crispin and I could sneak in and we could all split the cost.

This trickery with the hostel posed a problem, however, when we realized that it was the only place in town still serving beer. Mike had been forced to claim that he had no idea who Crispin and I were when the owners saw us lounging in the street, so we couldn't really go in there and drink together. We were walking down the road discussing this dilemma when we saw a few Ticos drinking beer on their balcony. Mike walked up to them and, in extremely fragmented Spanish, asked the Ticos if we could buy some of their beer. I was somewhat dismayed and embarrassed on behalf of my country, but the Ticos took the offer in good humor and laughingly explained to us how people obtain beer at this time of night. Five minutes later found us knocking on a door at the back of a bar explaining to a bleary-eyed middle-aged Tica lady that we would like a 6 pack of beer. Soon we were sitting on a bridge drinking Pilsens.

We were faced with another problem upon return to the hostel. Apparently, in this town 10 p.m. is an appropriate time to pull a fence down over the hostel entrance and lock it. We had no way into our room, and Mike couldn't holler to wake up the owners because Crispin and I hadn't paid. We ended up crawling down a steep bank of rocks on the side of the hostel, shimmying across a slippery one-foot ledge, climbing down a chain link fence, and sneaking past a sleeping German Shepherd to reach our room. It was a little excessive, but we saved 8 bucks.

The next morning we began our 10,000 foot, 12 mile hike. Although it was a bit strenuous, it was absolutely beautiful. Every few kilometers the ecosystem was transformed. At the beginning I was hiking with my shirt off, drenched in sweat with the sun beating on me and locus chirping and scratching in the grassy hills. The elevation gained quickly. Ferns became more prominent, the most was wrist-deep, and clouds were blowing through the trees around me. Green snakes slithered on the trail and monkeys chattered in the trees. It was utterly different from any mountain hike I have ever experienced.

We reached tree-level, and the landscape gave way the the shrubs and tree-stumps I had been expecting. I had lost my friends by this point, so I picked my way along the rocky slopes for another few kilometers on my own until I found the lodge where backpackers are forced to stay.

This lodge costs $10 every night, and I honestly think that I would have fared just as well sleeping outside. It was dark and cavernous, with stone walls, no electricity, and no gas in the kitchen. At this elevation the temperature was barely above freezing. Luckily I brought jeans to Costa Rica, but not much else. I spent the night wearing all the clothes that I had. I wore 3 socks on each feet, shorts and jeans, two shirts and a hoody, a rain tarp, a towel, two blankets, and I even put an extra pair of underwear over my head. I was still freezing.

We woke at 3 in the morning so that we could be at the peak by sunrise. This was a bit of a gamble. If the weather was clear, we would see both oceans colored by the rising sun. If it was cloudy, we would be surrounded by thick frigid clouds. The surrounding peaks on our hike to the summit were silhouetted by a billion stars, and heat lighting flashed on the horizons. The climb grew steeper, windier, and colder until we were met with a Costa Rican flag at the highest point in Costa Rica.

We hunkered down and wrapped ourselves in blankets and sat freezing and shivering until the sun rose. We lost the gamble and saw lots of clouds, but no sun breaking over the edge of a distant ocean horizon. The clouds were worth the trip, however. I felt like I was sitting outside of an airplane as the clouds rushed past me at 60 mph. They would part at times, exposing pink thunderheads and mountains level with my vision. They another section would part and I would see a glacial lake. It was very cool.

Mike lost his passport, so we had to leave earlier than we would have liked. He is supposed to leave Costa Rica on the 11th, but without a passport he would be here until the 28th. Needless to say he was freaking out. Crispin and I perused our way down the mountain examining plants, bugs, and whatever struck our interest, while Mike ran down the mountain to search the hostel for his passport. Crispin and I arrived to town two hours after Mike and found him in our hostel happily eating a burger with his passport in hand. It was found under his bed. The hostel had tried biting us in the ass once again.

We took a bunch of buses out of the mountains, endured a sketchy night walk through San Jose, climbed the fence to our farm, and called it a trip.

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Photos

San Gerardo
The town at the base of the mountain