La Fortuna, Costa Rica (Part 2)

Another day in the shadow of volcanoes...

Yesterday Terry and I visited a nearby waterfall and climbed up Cerro Chato, a inactive volcanoe with a lake in the crater. We walked to the waterfall from our eco-lodge, Miguel pointing us in the right direction. It was quite the hike up the road. Once we got there we had to spend the rest of the day sans-shirts due to the sweat streaming off of both of us. We hiked the last bit to the waterfall, and I went for a little swim beside the waterfall, a towering drop of water, I would guess it was about 100 meters high. Terry refused to go in since the water was a little chilly and he claimed "Greeks don´t swim in cold water".

Next was Cerro Chato. The Cerro Chato was - by far - the hardest hike either of us have either done. It only took two hours to get up there, but most of the time it seemed like it was two hours STRAIGHT UP, through rainforest and mud. The first hour wasn´t too bad, it was through grasslands (with cows!), and was tiring, but not too bad. The second hour, however, was a completely different story. That´s when we entered the rainforest portion of the hike (Terry insists on calling it "jungle" to enhance his tough-guy, man of the world credentials). That consisted of pulling ourselves up through mud and vines, over tricky roots that enjoy tripping the unawares.

Even though it was probably one of the physically hardest things I´ve ever done, it was SO worth it. We felt very manly afterwards (hiking through the jungle without shirts and all), and you feel a lot of satisfaction once you get down to the lake itself. Oh, right, DOWN. I forgot to mention the last section of the hike is a hundred and twenty meter drop into the crater, that is more of a semi-controlled fall than a hike. I slid most of the way down on the mud, with the sounds of Terry´s occasional swearing behind me.

We met up with two other hikers from the US down at the lake, Jake and May. It turns out that Jake and May are actually staying at the same lodge as us. There were also some other hikers who were coming down while we were going up, and today we saw them at our lodge as well. We´re planning on seeing Jake and May again tonight at the hot springs.

So we climbed back out of the crater (not as hard as I imagined) and made it back down the volcanoe in an hour and twenty minutes. We walked back to our lodge and told Miguel that we had climbed the entire thing. He said that we were very strong men, that not everyone can do it and we should be proud. We were. He also told us that he has climbed it 67 times. Miguel is now my hero.

An unfortunate side effect to the hike is that my camera now seems to be broken. I think it was probably the humidity of the climb, or possibly the shaking around of going up. I´m hoping it´s just the humidity, because that will dry eventually and it might start working again. Although it´ll be a while to find that out since things just DON´T dry here. I´ve gotten used to being constantly slightly moist from the humidity, but Í´ve had a pair of pants hanging outside my cabin now for over a day and they still feel as damp as when I put them out.

Today Terry and I just lazing around, recovering from yesterday, although Terry says he feels fine. I´m fine except for - and I apologize that I don´t know the technical term here - my ass muscles. Those are as sore as hell. It´s just as well we´re not doing anything this morning/early afternoon since it´s been cloudy and raining all day. Although just as I´m typing this it seems to be clearing up a bit.

I hope it clears up a little, since at 3pm we´re going on a combination package, a tour of Arenal volcanoe to (hopefully) see the lava flows, and then dinner and a trip to the Baldi hot springs.

Seeing as how this post is reaching Terry-esque proportions, I´ll sign off here!