Well, its been almost a week since we've written. What have we been up to? We've been off battling the tallest mountain in this country, Chirripo (3820m). It was close one, but I think we beat it. After Manuel Antonio, we spent a night in the higher altitude and cooler town of San Isidro, leaving the next morning for the smaller, higher and cooler San Gerardo. We met some other travelers on the bus, some Dutch, some American, all who planned to climb the mountain the next morning.
The Dutch brother and sister decided to leave at 3 in the morning to try to get up and down in one day. The rest of us decided to leave at a more reasonable 5, when the sun came up. It was a long a grueling day, with starting at 1500m and ending at 3400m, a gain of well over a mile in altitude. It took us 7.5 long hours, and it started raining as we reached the lodge. We rested, recovered and ate at the spacious 60 person lodge, which is was very much in the alpine model, complete with kitchen, bunks and freezing showers. At 8pm it was lights out, and a horribly uncomfortable night on a hard bunk.
Up at dawn again the next day for the final 2hr hike to the hair-raisingly steep summit. We had planned to eat breakfast up there, but once we were up, all we wanted to do was get back down. It was drizzling again, so we packed and left immediately. It was as if we were in a cloud the whole way down. Thick, dense fog was all around. We may or may not have seen a monkey.
About half way down we both getting pretty cranky, and then realized we hadnīt really eaten yet, and we getting a little weak. We sat down and ate, and started back off. Soon, I noticed Vis limping a little, and she complained her knees hurt. We began moving slower and slower until at about 1.5 km from the trailhead we were practically crawling. At 1/2 a kilometer away we could go no more, and went down to get help. I got the teenage grandson of the owner of the hotel next to the trailhead, and we helped Vis the final short but steep distance.
We checked in to the nearby hotel, and decided to stay a couple of days until Vis felt better. We were both pretty confident it was just soreness and stress from the immensly long downhill, and nothing seriously wrong.
The next morning she was walking on level ground and going up and down slowly. After a day we were getting sick of eating all our meals at the over-salted hotel restaurant, and the town, which, while beautiful, is on a massive hill itself. So the nexty morning we left and caught the early bus back to San Isidro, where we stayed last night.
Today is Vis's birthday, and she's feeling much better, walking normally etc. Mistakes were made, lessons were learned, all's well that ends well and all that.
Next we head further South.
Posted by spreer at July 3, 2003 10:56 AM