After our awesome experience climbing Mount Kinabalu in
Borneo with Clairey back in June, we were excited to discover that Cloudbridge
Reserve (where we’re volunteering) backs onto Chirripo National Park which is
home to the highest mountain in Costa Rica.
Soooo we decided to climb it.
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| Our view on the hill out of Cloudbridge...already pretty high by this point! |
And again...
Planning this was no small feat…we are living/working in the forest at the top of a massive hill. The office where you need to book is at the bottom of this massive hill. It takes about 45 minutes to walk to the office, and about an hour to walk back up. SO imagine our joy when we embarked on our first trip to the office on a Sunday (having been told it was open weekends), to find a rather grumpy Tico who spoke no English. Luckily David (our fellow volunteer) can speak passable Spanish, so we managed to derive from him that we would need to call up the following day to book. The following day we called and called and called, but no-one picked up. We had to climb the big hill behind the laundry room to get reception so this was no small feat when you’re also trying to build a house.
So….once again we made the 45 minute walk down to the office and this time we could book, but were told that to pay, we’d have to go to a bank in the main town (an hour and a half bus ride away), or convince a local hostel to book for us. As we weren’t staying in a local hostel, this sounded dubious, but luckily we managed to find a hostel who would pay for us.
Unfortunately, we were told we also had to come back the day before the trip to register, which meant another trip down the giant hill….another 2 and a half hour round trip when all you want to do is rest up before the climb.
Spot the Brodie!
Aaaaanyway, we finally reached the morning of the trip so we
set off at 5am, Bro and I with little bags stuffed with some warm clothes,
snacks and our cameras, David with his ENTIRE travelling backpack!!!
Let me tell you a little about David. David is 18, currently
on his gap year before starting Uni, is from Bonn in Germany, and his English
is AMAZING! When I say amazing, I mean probably better than mine. He also speaks
passable Spanish and a little French (feeling inadequate yet?!. This boy is
insanely switched on, absolutely hilarious and can cook like an absolute pro.
However…rather than buy lovely hot cooked food up the mountain, David in his
wisdom decided to cook and carry enough food for the whole two-day mountain
hike. This included (among others)….
- Homemade flatbread
- Homemade hummus
- Homemade pancakes
- Homemade flapjacks
- An entire, filled baguette
- Oreo cookies
- Oatcakes
- 5 apples (yes 5!!)
- 3 full water bottles and some iced tea (despite the fact that we did point out that there are water stops at two points up the mountain).
So we set off at 5am on our exciting adventure up the
mountain. We arrived at Base Camp mid-afternoon, tired, sore but exhilarated
from the incredible walk we’d just endured. It was tough but it was also one of
the most beautiful walks I’ve ever experienced. We marched (and sometimes shuffled)
up through insanely atmospheric forest, dripping with epiphytes, sometimes shrouded
in mist, sometimes with sneaky sun beams peaking through the branches. The bird
life simply blew us away! At one point I snuck off to have a wee in the bush
and came back to Brodie and David waving frantically at me and pointing into a
tree-it was only a Resplendent Quetzal (why do the cool animal sightings always
happen when I’m peeing?!), one of the most beautiful birds I’ve ever seen. No
photos I’m afraid as we only had our wide-angle lenses as I wasn’t in a mood to
lug my zoom up the mountain (something we both berated ourselves for the entire
way up). It was just magical! There were points where we barely made any
progress as we had to stop every 20 steps to watch another cool bird, or spy on
an unassuming lizard!
After a quiet afternoon at basecamp, we all headed off to
bed about 7pm, ready for our absurdly early start. At 2.30am, off went our
alarm, we bundled ourselves into our walking gear (actually I’d slept in most
of mine as it was so cold), and set off for the peak, head torches barely
needed as the moon was full: I can’t describe how tranquil and precious it
felt, just the three of us walking between the giant looming silhouettes of the
nearby mountains under a sky of stars, without another soul around. It’s a 2
hour trek to the top-Most of the way is a relatively gentle incline, but the
last half an hour is absolutely killer-an almost vertical scramble to the top! It
wasn’t scary, just bloody exhausting, and we made it to the top just in time to
see the first light creep onto the horizon! And then boy was it all worth it! A
panoramic view from coast to coast across Costa Rica-what a sight! I can’t
describe the euphoria you feel reaching the top, but needless to say we were
pretty bloody happy to be up there and watching this beautiful country wake up!
I spy the moon!
And on the way back down...
I have to say, massive kudos to this man-he trudged all the
way up that gigantic hill with his ridiclulously heavy backpack and never once
complained, despite the fact that it was clearly killing him! He refused help,
and refused to leave anything behind and my god he should be proud of himself.
He actually confessed to us once we were back home that within 5 minutes of
leaving home on the first morning he’d suddenly regretted it, and had no idea
how on Earth he’d make it all the way up, but all the way up he did, and for
that my friend, you get RESPECT!
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| Made it! Obligatory selfie! Good work Team Chirripo! |
Some of Bro's photos below...
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| No gear and no idea! I walked up the mountain in my trainers that were taped together with masking tape as the soles had melted off in a hot car a few weeks before! Did the trick though! :) |
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| ...And Bro did it in his $2 rubber shoes from Laos... |
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