Forest Challenge and mud blood and beer

The next morning it was a beautiful fresh morning and we ate a very huge breakfast of rice and beans with eggs and fried plantains, far more than I mornally ate, perhaps the staff new something we didn’t about the walk we were going to be undertaking. Once again as we climbed the mountain sweating and gasping for breath I was only wearing shorts and a shirt with my walking boots, the mud was deep from the overnight rain and we were watching the monkeys watching us and it was a perfect morning to be doing this walk, I personally wasn’t expecting anything to arduous as the caving was hard work and I needed a rest, we were aiming for some waterfalls that are mineral rich and make these strange formations like small basins that overflow and I had seen something like this before in Turkey many years ago, at Pamukkala, next to the ancient Greek city of Heriopolis. The basins were huge and were more like baths and the water was hot from the springs, it was better than taking a bath and quite unforgettable. So I was interested to see if these falls were like the Turkish ones. The walk was hard and very slippery and I was happy for having some good boots as girl had come with some silly make believe boots that were actually shoes and the sole fell off and she was basically hopping along with the sole tied on with a piece of string, I was laughing my ass off, but we got to the river after about 2 hours of walking and I was feeling worn out and not ready for going on, we crossed the river and found the falls about 400 meters further on,

they were nice but I wasn’t too excited about it and the group had already headed off to gawd knows where and the rain was starting to come down again. We carried on walking but when we got to a part of the path that was actually the river bed I said I have had enough so Jenny and myself went back,


I don’t normally give up but the walk had exhausted me, the hills and rain had just gotten me down.


We stopped about half way back to sit and eat our packed lunch of egg fried rice and drink a little , we actually saw some mosquitoes that were iridescent blue, now how can that be, pretty mosquitoes, they are just trying to stop us from killing them, we caught a few and yes the body was really iridescent. This country is crazy, we carried on and the sun finally came out again and the walk was starting to feel nice as we were heading downhill slowly and watching more monkeys and birds and beautiful butterflies, the forest was alive with butterflies including many of the extra special Morpho,


They are big, about 5 inches across and fly pretty quickly and because they are iridescent to, shine like comets flying through the trees. Having monkeys around the forest makes this type of holiday so special for me, so out of the ordinary and remarkable even, its just a pity that so many people here in Costa Rica are struggling to live they have no appreciation of its beauty. We arrived back at the cabins and got showered and waited for the rest of the group, that night we had a good few beers at the bar and laughed our asses off at the horrible muddy paths and the horrible frightening caving and miserable weather. The bar owner then showed around his new cabins he had just built, all out of local wood, which was probably felled illegally and a pool with a sunken bar, this region is so far out of the tourist areas that he has no chance of making any money from it but he was a nice guy, and this was over the wooden bridge he had built and all this after we were stinking drunk, he will never know why we were laughing. Another night of being bitten to death and I even had another great sleep, this is what roughing it is all about, we had 6 adults sharing a room , girls and boys and everyone was doing there own thing and not caring the least bit, this is because in a country where large families are the norm, 7-8-9 children sharing is typical and so nobody even battered an eye lid. We drove back to San Jose with a glow from the hard work and the wetness of my feet and a little sadness with leaving all these nice people behind, almost like scout camp. I got home with only 2 days to get packed and ready for travelling to Peru for another rotation and never thinking that we were going to go house hunting, but that is the next episode tomorrow of Dave in crazyland