Two Roads Diverged in a Wood – and I Took the Steepest One

Happy Father’s Day to our wonderful Dads!

Although we have walked quite a bit while we have been here, including our daily mile hike from our cabina to Santa Elena (up a pretty substantial hill, I might add!) we have not done much hiking. We have seen several paths and have read about numerous hikes in the area, but after our first walk up the hill to Santa Elena we looked at each other and decided that we needed to acclimate our legs if we had any hope of hiking here. In fact, for the better part of the first week here our legs were varying degrees of sore. However, as we closed in on the two week mark we felt we were ready!

So, this morning we woke up early, packed a lunch, sunscreen, our raincoats and lots of water and set off! We walked up our hill to Santa Elena, then continued our ascent through Monteverde and up to a trail behind Hotel Belmar called “Cerros Amigos”- such a friendly name for such an unfriendly hill. We picked it because it was a free hike (many of the others are in reserves which cost up to $18 per person for entrance and hiking) and because of its reputation for spectacular views. It is one of the highest hills in the area at just over 6,000ft and because of this it also houses several TV antennas, not exactly the most scenic, but the views were supposed to be breathtaking- on clear days one can see the ocean on one side and the volcano on the other.

It was a beautiful, clear day as we set off and we had high hopes that we would get to see some of these amazing views. By the time we got to the start of the trail we had already hiked about 2 miles, mostly uphill but at least we were on sidewalks and occasionally paved roads so it had not been particularly taxing. That all changed as we started our hike, at first it was a loose gravel trail, steep but manageable. It quickly became steeper and the gravel beneath us turned to muddy clay. Muddy clay is incredibly slippery, especially on what was becoming an increasingly steep incline. The only reason that we kept going was because of our naïve belief that it would flatten out over the next hill or around the next corner. It didn’t. We turned around at one point while we were on our way back down and looked up and were amazed that we had hiked it, and amazed that we had kept going. We tried to get pictures of the steep incline as we went (it was also a great reason to suggest a break without looking like a wimp!) but we couldn’t get a picture that we felt did the hill justice or looked as though it would justify our whining about it!

It was not all bad, we did see a toucan flying overhead and a monkey went scampering across the road in front of us. No snakes though, thank goodness! The worst thing we encountered were swarms of what looked and sounded like giant bees. They were not pleased that we were encroaching on their territory and followed us closely, buzzing in our ears as we hustled on through the swarm. They were super creepy and I dreaded going back through the swarm on the way down. After numerous false summits we made it to the TV towers. Not very pretty, but we were not interested in them, we were interested in the beautiful views. And beautiful views we got- of fog and clouds. The day that had started out clear and sunny had turned cloudy and foggy- it was almost like we were in a cloud forest during the rainy season.

Disappointed, we hunted for an unobstructed view and after hiking a little further we came to a clearing that faced the other way (towards the volcano, I think). We got the beautiful view that we came for!

After admiring the view and eating lunch we started back down. The fog/clouds had at this point reached the top of our mountain, so we walked back in fog so thick we could barely see 10 feet in front of us. Nice, when you are in a jungle with millions of things that can kill you on a slippery clay trail. Fortunately, most of the way back to our cabina was downhill, but it was still a very quiet walk back, we were both pretty exhausted.  All said and done we walked almost 9 miles today, which I maintain is the hardest almost nine miles ever- those hills were killer. A long, but fitness filled day, with a few amazing views sprinkled in as well. We spent the rest of the afternoon not walking and watching futbol!