ISEP Excursion: Perez Zeledon

So, still several weekend trips behind, but here's a little summary of my excursion with the ISEP exchange group near Mt. Chirripo 3 weekends ago.

We all met at the University at 7 a.m. sharp to leave in our cozy little tourismo van. Our destination was south, towards the center of the country, nearby Chirripo National Park (which houses the tallest mountain in Costa Rica). Our ride was the typical long, windy, mountainous type that I've been getting used to in my Costa Rican travels. This time, however, we spent a lot more time off of the main paved road and on many kilometers of steep, uphill, narrow dirt "roads" that must turn into makeshift rivers during the rainy season. The ditches on the sides of them were large enough for any sketchball to drop a body into them without worry of it being discovered for quite some time. Many moments passed where I found myself griping my seat with white knuckles as we whizzed around the dusty turns. Apparently the general idea here is that the worse off the road conditions are, the worse you need to drive (so as only to keep everything proportional). I had brought with me some leftover pizza from the night before, and for some ridiculous reason thought it a good idea to whip it out and scoff it down during this van's trek up the mountains. Maybe I hoped it'd keep my mind off the thought of us careening off of the cliffs and down into the rocky river below. Well, two thirds of the way into my second slice, my stomach didn't quite agree with me. Fortunately, we arrived at our hotel before my mere feeling of nausea became a demonstration of it all over the van's floor.

Man, what a view. Maybe it's just that I'm so used to being cheap on all our individual weekend trips and staying at the cheapest hostel we can find, but I couldn't imagine a better place to stay. We were situated right on the side of a mountain in the middle of one of the most lush and tranquil mountain ranges I've ever seen. So, we had our lunch of arroz con pollo and headed further around the mountain for a guided hike. On our last weekend trip sponsored by the exchange program, the "hike" was really a 25 minute walk on a well-groomed, graveled trail through a forest in Sarapiqui, so of course, not expecting to exert myself too much physically, I again took my fair share of rice and chicken over lunch, thinking that such another "hike" on a stuffed stomach wouldn't be a big deal. Boy was I wrong. What our guide told us would be a rather mellow, 45 minute tranquil walk through the mountainside turned out to be a very sweaty 2 1/2 hour trek straight-up to the top of this mountain. Along the way we passed by some really interesting-looking trees, one called Matapalo, which grow around and "engulf" the trunks of other full grown trees until they essentially die and rot away, leaving the Matapalo with a visibly hollow trunk that once enclosed it's victim. When we got to the top of the mountain, it was too cloudy to see much (I suppose that's where the name cloud forest comes into play), but what little parting of the fog there was rendered us with quite the awe-inspiring sight of hundreds of miles of mountains and valleys to all sides. Upon beginning our hike back down, a couple of us met up with the driver of our van, who was resting on a rock at the summit. He is a middle-aged, tough-skinned man with a body of a horse jockey, and we couldn't have been more wrong when we took his physical ability to be less than perfect. This guy proceeded to jump up and begin leading - in his little van-driving brown loafers, mind you - what would be a literal RUN down the entire mountain. While I'm grasping for various vines and branches to catch myself from stumbling head first over roots and my own two feet, he's bounding ahead of me and 2 other ambitious group mates like a nimble-footed lemur, turning his head back to shout to us about the various plant life as if his speedy little legs are just on autopilot, dashing down the uneven pathway like a roadrunner. To say we were impressed would be an understatement. We arrived at our starting point in about 25 minutes, and I don't believe my quads stopped shaking until after dinner.

The next morning, we were met outside our hotel by a local tico, a little caballero of 10 years old and our 15 humble steeds for a ride to a local waterfall. While waiting for the rest of the group to join, I started up a conversation with the man and mentioned that I ride back in the states. "Great!" he replied, "I don't have enough horses for all of you if I ride as well, so I was going to have someone ride the horse I came in on, but he's not the best behaved so you can take him!" I was more than happy with that, and figured it'd be fun to have something other than the deadbeat mules that I've gotten used to riding here. Little did I know that, as our little cowboy helper later confirmed, the horse I was on was in fact never truly broke to be ridden; he was a workhorse only used in the fields and was not too keen on anything on his back giving him orders. His rider had thrown a saddle on him only because there were not enough locally-owned horses for all of us to ride at once. Let's just say I certainly had my share of excitement that ride!

When we finally arrived at the waterfall, our program director told us that we were going to leave the horses there and get picked up by our van driver for our return to the hotel. A friend who also rides thought it'd be a good idea to ask our director if we could ride back with the guide instead of hang out at the waterfall, and to our surprise, she arranged for us to get an extra hour of riding in! So we hopped back on our horses and followed the man and the little cowboy back down the trail, only this time we had to herd back the 11 other now riderless horses with us. Since the nearby village is so small, all the horses for our ride had come from various families and we had to drop small numbers of them off in different parts of the mountain, which was pretty neat. At one point, I found myself racing this little boy (who's cowboy boots didn't even reach the stirrups) up and down the dusty mountain trails as he howled in Spanish at the riderless horses he was pursuing, and it was one of those surreal moments that I'll certainly remember for quite a while. Halfway through our return, I complimented him on his cowboy hat. Little gentleman that he was, he took it off, smoothly rode up alongside me, and reached to place it upon my head. Needless to say, I was in love, and I'd never even learned his name.

After we dropped off the majority of the horses and my little cowboy friend went home, the guide took my friend and I further down the mountain to a river, where we promptly were encouraged to tie up our horses and jump in. As much as I love the pristine warm waters of the ocean here, it was so nice to feel the crisp and fresh mountain water. It reminded me of the Kangamangus river, only with tropical shrubbery in place of pines. The several other locals that were there merely stood at the shore, ankle-deep, clutching their goosebumped skin and watching with wide eyes while we happily swam around in the nicely-chilled water. That's one thing I've noticed about Ticos: their very weak tolerance of temperature change. I think I've lost count of the number of times my host mom has shaken her head when I walk barefoot into the kitchen for breakfast in the morning. The cold tile against my bare feet will most definitely give me a cold. And not drying my hair before I go out after the sun sets? I'll catch pneumonia before the sun rises the next morning.

All in all, it was quite an eventful weekend - but not nearly as eventful as the subsequent weekend's trip to Tambor. But that's for the next post...