Happy Birthday to me, I fell on my knee!
Yes, today's my birthday and it'll be party time here
tonight. The Santa Eulalia gang is bringing all the food for a celebration of
my big day. And indeed, I am nursing a bit of a bunged up knee from a fall in
the river on yesterday's "hike from hell," as Chris baptized it after
my dunk in the drink. There'll probably be no dancing for me tonight.
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| Marcial reconnoiters far down the hill |
Yesterday was actually one of our most beautiful and fun
treks, but it was difficult, steep and challenging. To summarize, we had three
bloodies, two fallers, one punctured and one quitter. Well, Eroca didn't really
quit; she just decided on that first steep downhill that she had on the wrong
shoes, so she turned back and walked most of the way into town to where Marc
was doing his Sunday shift at Kay's Gringo Cafe. A very wise move, as it turned
out; they were definitely the wrong shoes for this hike.
The rest of us trudged
on... and on ... and on, following steep cow trails down to the river that meanders
through Santa Eulalia before eventually joining up with the Rio Grande in the
canyon far below Atenas.
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| Seidy heads down the hill |
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| Sue snaps Chris "caught" as Eroca looks on |
Things were off-kilter from the start: I tore my favorite
shorts before even leaving home, Chris and Sue missed their bus, Seidy forgot
her camera and Sue's camera battery died after one shot. Then navigating the
first barbed wire fence, Chris decided that given his height, he should just
step over the fence instead of going through as the rest of us had. Oops. His
pant leg caught on the wire, cut his leg a bit and yanked a hole in his
favorite pants. First blood was drawn.
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| Marcial removes the spike |
When we had almost reached the bottom of the hill, Sue took
her first fall, sliding feet-first on the powdery dirt right into my boots, but
I managed somehow to stay upright as we laughed at the treacherous terrain.
Finally we reached the river only to find that Marcial had stepped on a huge
thorn somewhere along the way. So we sat on some rocks while he dug the
offending spike out from his boot.
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| Marcial helps Sue over the rocks |
It being the dry season, the river was quite low leaving
many exposed rocks for us to scramble over and allowing a lengthy exploration
of the stream. As one bank became impassable, we would simply cross over to the
other side, switching sides four or five times. It was on that last crossing
that I foolishly decided to follow Seidy, who had stepped lightly across the
water on rocks that seemed well spaced to me. But I'm much bigger than Seidy so
as I reached with my left foot for the next rock, the stone under my right foot
rolled and down I went, catching myself with my right hand and right knee. As I
extracted myself from this ignominious position, submerged up to my thighs,
Marcial quickly said: "Give me the camera!" It seems the featured
players in my regular narratives here enjoy seeing their pictures so Marcial
definitely had his priorities in order. Of course, everyone was asking if I was okay and other than a slight pain in that knee and my injured pride, I was fine.
Luckily, so was my camera and cell phone. But with blood dripping from a small
split in the shin, I became "second blood" on this hellacious
excursion. Later Marcial himself became "third blood" as some brush
tore his leg. Lesson learned: follow Marcial, our fearless leader Costa Rica
Dundee, not little Seidy who moves like a cat.
The scenery along the river was splendid, however,
especially one amazing sheer cliff that soared high above us with chunks of
rock hanging precariously from the upper reaches. Each layer of rock seemed to
extend further out over the river than the one below it, making it appear as if
the rock face was leaning toward us. One good earthquake, we decided, and that
that big mass of rock hanging by only a narrow strip would come tumbling down,
as we could see many hundreds of other boulders had done in the past.
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| Boulders for a river crossing |
At one spot where we wanted to cross, the river was
uncooperative offering no suitable causeway so Marcial and Chris proceeded to
build a "bridge" by moving large rocks into the shallows of the
stream. As they did so, Marcial noticed a dark "rock" he had almost
stepped on before realizing it was a turtle. The poor fellow became a star
attraction for a few minutes as we stopped to admire him and take his picture
before setting him back into the creek.
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| Chris building a "bridge"; Marcial holding our turtle |
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| Señor Tortuga |
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| Seidy urges me on! |
But what goes down must come back up so it was soon time for
the uphill portion of the hike, the part Sue and I dread. As well we should in
this case as parts of the trail were almost vertical, or so it seemed. At each
switchback we would take a short break, drink water and question Marcial as to
how much further we had to go. "Oh, not too much farther," he would
say. Sue and I would exchange skeptical looks, having heard the same thing at
the last stop. At one point, I asked Marcial if he knew where we were or if
perhaps we were lost. "No, not lost," he said, "but we do have
to find our way from here." Isn't that about the same as lost?
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| Sue takes a break with the valley below |
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| A bunch of cute piglets |
Eventually we began to see familiar landmarks -- the chicken
farm in the distance, an old abandoned cabin on a hillside. Crossing through
still more barbed wire fences -- some of which left more bloody marks on our
legs -- we arrived at a small pig farm located behind Marcial and Seidy's
property. By now Sue and I were definitely dragging, trying to avoid catching
our boots on vines or stumbling over the rough ground. Indeed, Sue's second
fall was on grassy furrowed ground just beyond the pig farm. But no harm, no
foul, as we say.
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| Just squeeze! |
Walking through orchards behind Marcial's home, we stopped
under an orange tree where Seidy deftly used her walking stick to knock down fruit,
which Marcial then peeled and cut off the top for a fresh-squeezed cup of
orange juice! "Vitaminas y minerales,"
Seidy said sagely, and indeed the juice was a definite pick-me-up.
But it was
the cervezas on Marcial's patio
that really brought us all back to life. Joined now by Stephen, Eroca and Marc
and fortified by fresh fruit and sausage sandwiches we enjoyed a long and
wonderful afternoon, looking at family photos of the boys when they were kids
and of Marcial and Seidy as a young married couple. It was a memorable time for
us all as we continued to deepen our friendship sharing good food, intimate
conversation and the joys of Pura Vida!
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