Costa Rica

The Lost Fumaroles Hike is a 12 km hike in the rain forest. Today was an early breakfast at 7am and our driver and tour guide picked us up at 730 from the hotel. It was a small group, Tracy and I as well as Mark, a retired surgeon. We picked up the local guide Uriel along the way in a small town called Los Angeles. The drive to the rain forest was about an hour and a somewhat nerve wrecking experience for me but for Tracy having lived in Africa for two years, it was no big deal. The roads are narrow and got very bumpy as we got closer to the hike area. We bounced along up and down hills and windy roads. The van was really working! At one point we could not make it up a hill. We all had to change seats and get into the back seats for traction. We slowly sputtered up the hill. There was a lot of cheering and clapping when we made it up the hill.

The hike was good, a bit harder than the other one. It is classified as a "physically demanding trek." We did a lot of uphill and downhill, more uphill. We stopped along the way and looked at plants and bugs. We ate some petals for a plant used in salad. It was really tasty. We learned about a plant used for arthritis, one for the liver and one used for pain control which we tasted. It was bitter but they make a tea out of it.

The hike was two hours in and then we stopped at a little house and ate the lunches that were packed for us. We had a really nice lunch of a sub sandwich with ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato as well as a pack of cookies, a granola bar, a bag of chips, a banana, apple and a passion fruit.

We then changed into our bathing suits and headed off to the natural hot thermal sorings which was about a 10-15 min walk.Читать далее