These past two weeks (last month, I am finishing this much
later) have been filled with burning quads, incredible views, and goods times
on the mountain.
Our first adventure was when Josie and I went to the Island
of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua, Nicaragua. The island has two volcanoes, Maderas
and Concepción. Concepción was about 300
meters higher than Maderas, but it seriously looked twice as big, and for a
while I doubted whether we could do it. We left at five with our guide, 19 year
old Rafino, who was wearing jeans and shoes that we tied back together with my
extra shoelace.
The biggest challenge of hiking Concepcion was supposed to
be the exposed 2/3 of the mountain and the sun that just beats down on you. We
had the luck of being inside of a cloud the entire time, and it was quite cool and
even chilly at the top. Our path was an old lava flow, so we were rock
scrambling for most of the time or climbing up very, very steep pathways. A lot of the scenery was made up of small
shrubs, wild flowers, and poor man’s umbrella. It was quite lovely.
After 3.5 hours, we made it to the top of Concepción. It was
like we stepped into a hurricane with wind strong enough that we were afraid of
losing our balance and being blown into the crater. It was also a bit disconcerting
that the rocks we were standing on were hot from the steam and sulfur
underneath us. Not knowing exactly how far underneath us was the worrisome
part. We did not get the spectacular view of the whole lake and the island, but
it was way too cold to stay up there and try to wait for things to clear up.
Thus started our descent that took an hour longer than our
ascent, and resulted in our walking like crazy people for about a week
afterwards. The rest of Nicaragua was wonderful and we stayed at a hippy farm
hostel with organic stone fire pizza nights.
The next weekend Josie, Alison, and I jumped on a bus after
class and went to San Gerardo, the gateway to Chirripó. Chirripó is the highest
point in Costa Rica at 3,820m, and the trail is 48km round trip. Most people do
it in three days, and we had to do it in 1 to make it back to class on Monday. Tickets
are also required but this would mean we would have to miss class on Friday,
and we had friends who had no problem getting to the top without a ticket.
We slept in the hostel for 5 hours before we got up at 2:30
am and started our hike. There were actually quite a few people hiking when we
got up, but we soon left behind and got to enjoy the clear sky and wonderful
stars in silence. Of course the entire time we knew that a guard could find us
at anytime and make us turn around (I actually had no idea what they would do
to us). We sang a lot, and enjoyed the AMAZING scenery.
At km marker 12, about 2/3 of the way, we were caught by a guard
on horseback who didn’t believe our lame excuse that we didn’t know about the
tickets, and sent us back. We sat in the trail a bit of the way back and pouted
for about 15 minutes before heading back down the mountain.
And we saw a queztal, which was life goal for me!
We actually had the
idea that we would rest all day, actually buy tickets, and then hike back up
that same night. However, by the time we made it down, our screaming knees said
no freaking way were we turning around and doing it again.
We made it back to our hostel and ended up having a
wonderful time singing old folk songs and playing the guitar with some of the
people staying there.
Since I am writing this a couple weeks later I can now say
that I bought tickets for Chirripó for my last weekend here, made an
arrangement with my professor to take my final early, and my friend Sam and I
are headed up to see the sunrise from the top of Chirripó. She will turn 20 on
the mountain, I will be saying goodbye to Costa Rica after 9 months, and we
will be on the highest mountain in Costa Rica. I think it might be a bit
emotional up there.
