A 21-kilometer walk would make me the tallest thing in Costa Rica, I just had ignore the 2,200 elevation gain. To do this as a spontaneous day hike, rather than stay at the pricey base camp and obtain an entry permit, both of which had to be reserved months ahead of time, was technically possible said the hostel, but one would have to start at 2:00am, and be out of their mind. Exactly how 18-year-old Vivian was. Then there’s the runners of the annual Carrera Chirripó hosted by the mountain who fly up to the base camp in less than four hours.

 

Getting There

Bus from any city to San Isidro del General. Recognize that it is such a privilege to take a colectivo jeep to San Gerardo de Rivas because it is my favorite pueblito in all of Central America. San Gerardo is a true droplet of Tico paradise in a sea of Americanization and tourism marketed as “eco-.”

The trailhead is a steep walk, $10 taxi ride, or simple hitchhike uphill from San Gerardo.

 

Accommodation

Casa Mariposa: favorite hostel of all time. Okay, maybe Bananas over in Brazil and Caelum in Colombia are up there, but Mariposa came first. It’s different from the others, which are social and bad for your liver, in that Mariposa is quietly tucked into cloud forest, providing some of it’s own hiking trails, drawing brilliantly plumed songbirds, and serving fresh baked thic-with-four-C’s Ghirardelli brownies.

I could gush on, and so I will. When I walked in, the staff was sipping on some wine and told me to feel free to use the kitchen, but to watch for the cat who had a serious “bread fetish.” The dorm is built into a rock so I basically entered a cave. One of the beds was part of the rock itself. There was a fireplace, a sweet dog, a book swap, hot showers, and trash was reused to build and elegantly decorate the place. In front of the sofas, binders full of recommendations that none of your friends who have toured Costa Rica will have ever heard of.

 

Chirripó National Park

To enter, you’ll need to reserve an $18 permit, available up to six months in advance, which can be done on this website. As I showed up and just gave this hike a shot, I reached the entrance around 3:00am and no one was there to check me. So I accidentally snuck in.

For hiking Cerro Chirripó (3,820), you’ll reach through several ecosystems and into the skies. I encountered the most peculiar bird, with pure black feathers save its thighs, that were bright yellow. There is a chance to simultaneously see the Atlantic and Pacific on clear days.

The trail has only a few steep portions and is extremely well-marked. It even offers motivational quotes towards the top. Most spend one day hiking to Crestones Base Camp where they spend the night in a cabin bed for $35. It’s not so much the price as the need to reserve so far in advance that was the major deterrent. Everyone hikes up to the peak for sunrise, enjoys it, then spends the rest of the day descending at a relaxed pace. Plenty of donkeys and porters can help carry up bags.

What I Did

I walked from 2:00am until 9:00pm. In reaching the top around 1:00pm, all I saw was a blanketing gray fog surrounding me. There were a couple places to refill on water. On the way down, I was convinced that I had busted my knees for life.

I had a great time. I recognized my alternative was to not bother and question for the rest of my life what would have happened if I had believed in myself.

What I Recommend

Get that permit around a month ahead of your estimated dates of arrival. It’s good for three days, giving some flexibility for weather and life getting in the way.

Time the hike so that the summit is reached by sunrise for a better chance to see a lovely view. Perhaps head out around 6pm. The best months are January and February. Pack a hammock so that you may try to catch a nap on the return.

The level of this hike is obviously advanced.

Helpful links: tips from Casa Mariposa’s website and this 2018 blog post.

What My Friend Recommends

Katie summited the mountain in 2017 and says paying for the base camp would have been worth it, although she did not. She got a meal and a drink at the base camp.

 

Packing

– Day pack

– 2L water (refill at first rest stop and at Crestones kitchen sink)

– Sawyer water filter

– Headlamp

– Windbreaker

– Jacket (wear lightweight shirts and shorts or leggings, but the top gets chilly)

– Clif bars, trail mix, nut butter, granola

– Bugspray

– Sunscreen

– Camera

– Chocolate

– Another bar of chocolate

 

 

 

Diary

December 27, 2014

I was too excited to sleep well.

1:37am: I got up before my alarm, dressed, pissed, geared up, grabbed food out of the fridge, and was out the door. I bit into a plain raw tomato as if it were an apple. So sour. I ran into some guys with donkeys and said hola, not pleased to be seen.

1:58am: I officially began at the 0k marker.

Chirripó means eternal waters. It is the tallest point in Costa Rica at 3,820 meters. Right now I’m at about 1,350 meters. The trail is well marked, but isn’t straight up (I would have preferred this) and goes up and down and flat at times. It totals 20 kilometers, or about 13 miles, one way. Soy un poco loco.

My lower back started hurting as I broke out into a sweat at my brisk pace. I saw flashlights and heard the men catching up. I felt so alone and scared. By the time the first group passed me, I was stooping behind a rock to the side of the trail with my headlight turned off. By the second group I gave up and said hi, asking if I could “caminar contigo”… I know, awful Spanish. They were like whatever. They soon got ahead, and third group passed me, and I worried for the next couple hours as I followed swarms of harmless gnats and fresh feces.

Then I finally figured it out: porters. The donkeys had heavy bags and everyone had shirts that said “Cerro Chirripo.” I had thought they might be park rangers and would get me in trouble, but they must be porters. Other visitors hire them to take all their gear up to Crestones Basecamp ahead of themselves making the hike much less strenuous. I wanted to be more hardcore.

What a wave of relief. I finally reached the 4k mark, making good time. Here the entrance to Parque Nacional Chirripo greeted me with a gate swung as wide open as can be. I broke out a cold slab of leftover pizza and quickly moved on to get away from mosquitoes.

5:00am: In between the 7 and 8k mark was a large rest area where I filled up on water. I stretched again.

The sun rose and I sat down to finally eat my banana, a bug bit me on my tailbone. What an awkward hassle to itch. The valleys surrounding me looked golden while the sides were still unlit. Pretty magical. A blue gray robin kept hopping up ahead of me and staring at me. The animals, like in Corcovado, aren’t extremely scared of people because they are so well protected. Birdwatching with moving targets, as opposed to stationary feeding targets, is so much harder. I can attempt to either get a good look with my binoculars or to get a good picture.

It was early morning and at the 10k pretty birds flitted all over the trees. So many humming birds zip around sounding like angry bees. I began rising above the clouds into a desert type landscape with smaller, drier fauna. Scientifically, I went from the cloud forest to paramo scrub.

 

 

Trying to get to the 14k made me want to cry. It would not end. I became a robot of looking up, looking down, and trudging onward. My lip began feeling iffy as if it were a mini allergy attack so I quickly broke out the meds and bit my lip a lot. There is no turning back.

The base camp was surprisingly large. It was extremely sunny when I reached the welcome sign, then the actual building, then the road signs. I passed and conversed with an Austrian and his local guide. Then I got to this big ass boulder that was ground level, and the trail kind of ends. I saw a path directly straight and took it. Then the definite footprints became questionable, then nonexistent. I was lost. I kinda thought the trail was right above me and I could shortcut onto it, and that involved crunching over tons of wildlife and getting caught between two spike trees. The branches were interlocked and me and my big bag insisted on boring through. Then it looked pointless to keep going, I had wasted half an hour, and I backtracked. This time I turned right, and got back on track.

 

 

Lunch was in a shelter and consisted of boiled potatoes, amazing handmade dark chocolate with espresso beans inside, and two eggs. I relaxed. Fed some wild sparrows sweet potato bits. The signs said 2800 to go, which means I now know I can do it. Felt good.

Major cloud-cutting came around kilo 18 and mist was hitting me. I felt hot cold hot cold. The last kilometer was pure hell. An American dad and son gave up because the son was sick; the dad said it was the most “treacherous” part of the hike.. The formula of this leg was one-third looking up in despair and thinking bad words, one-third rock climbing, and one-third stair master. Many people on their way back gave me hope to push on. I was close.

 

 

I pulled myself up to the top. Alone. Amazing. I did it. The hardest, craziest, wildest thing I’ve ever done. Ever. EVER! It was very misty. There was zero view. But that’s okay! I took a selfie of overwhelming achievement with the official peak marker. I kissed the CR flag in the next selfie. I took in the gray, the rocks, the rocky ledge.

A wild Italian appears! We take pictures for each other. I add our selfie together to my snapchat story and caption it “we both made it!” Ivan told me his friend was stuck behind. So I assume the next guy with a head full of tight curls is an Italian until I hear “FUCK YEAH WE DID IT,” just as a third dude pops up.

 

 

And that is how I met Ryan and Jeff, the highlight people of my trip. Ivan heads back. Ryan is very outgoing and talks a lot. He has confidence and interesting things to say. Us Americans sit and eat. They offer me a nut honey tortilla but I say no. They also eat canned tuna with their hands. I eat more chocolate, sharing with Jeff while Ryan is lactose intolerant, and start going at my quaker granola cookies (we don’t have them here). They warmly invite me to join them in their descent as they also left (at 5) and must return to San Gerardo. I figured it would be nice to have companions so I accept.

So many stories. Out of all the places they decide to stay, they are hammock-camping out in El Descanso. The guy arranging their late reservation with a fee got stood up when they failed to understand instructions to meet with him last night. Instead their profuse amounts of “si si” got them quite the yelling this morning. Think infuriated demanding father figure. “AYER. ADONDE. AYER. ADONDE. AYER”. And these were just the beginner tales.

Inside the wooden podium at the top of the mountain we found some laminated signs (“Te amo mi amorcito”) and a waterproof bible. We all signed and dated the visitor spiral notebook.

 

 

The boys push the pace on the way down. We skinny-dunked in a icy stream. I try to keep up with their trot on the hilly gravel but I know my knees aren’t the sturdiest and I begin to worry. I finally take up Ryan’s offer to hand over my bag. All their stuff is in a tiny backpack.

Ryan finds me a cane. More talking. They go to Colorado School of Mines, rock climb, and for fun once decided to bike 104 miles from 2pm-12am. According to Ryan, in the middle of that bike ride, Jeff being the fish he was decided to swim across a big lake so Ryan was like shit, now he had to too. They also ate 23 dollars worth of Pizza Hut- a deep dish pizza and a pan of breadsticks and a liter of coke each. They told me about girls and RIBS, or Ratio Induced Bitch Syndrome. They met as floor mates freshman year and describe Abbey, and how she’s Abbeynoxious, and how she was possessed when Ryan quickly dumped her. And then her friend fell in love with Jeff, and when Jeff finally let a date happen, nothing came of it. Ryan was 20, Jeff turned 21 and went to a bar but it wasn’t his cup of tea. Ryan has hippie parents from the 60’s while Jeff has protective conservative parents with high expectations. Jeff’s shoes are falling apart and his pants have patches in the back. They inspire me to be even more active than I already am.

 

 

Not gonna lie I was pathetic and forever indebted by the end. They definitely could’ve gotten back hours earlier and gotten a lot of good food, but instead stayed with me, waited for me, and carried my gear. They saved my knees. Ryan was pretty hangry, dreaming on about the minisuper and its about rice and beans and beer and ice cream with raisins in it. I felt bad.

I was kinda delirious from sleep deprivation and very anxious to get back to my mom and everyone else at Mariposa. It was now dark for the section of the hike that was dark when I began. Pitch dark. Muddy. No bueno. But every time Ryan asked me if we were bien, I always responded that I was.

The final half-kilometer. I suddenly hearTrevor/Travis asking for an Asian girl. Oh god. He tells me I better walk in like I’m totally fine which gets me more dreading seeing mom.

Finally, finally we are back. It’s seriously almost 9pm. That’s like 19 hours of hiking. What the fuck Vivian Zhu. Later I find out a young couple took 22 hours not including the overnight rest. I feel so good and so bad. The Montreal mom tells me to go see mom ASAP. I quickly say bye to the boys to whom I owe my life.

Mom is writing emails and isn’t mad at all. What a relief. I manage to make it over to a stool by the table and just sit there. I can still see callouses on my hands from holding the cane so hard for so long two weeks later. My scab got rubbed off. I can’t move.

What are legs? I drink hot water and Trevor/Travis slips me two ibuprofen when mom is turned around. Mom feeds me two more eggs (!!!—I had eaten three already) and tomatoes and onions and a whole box of delicious papaya. I hoped that it satisfied Ryan’s sugar and protein advice.

The stairs are painful because I’m psyching myself out. I shower. During some silent stretching, I want to cry cause are my knees blown out forever? My uncle has done that to himself coming down a mountain.

But I don’t cry. Overall, today was gold. Determination paid off. I had to seize this opportunity because first, I wanted to know I did this, and second, I’m already all the way here, and the next time I’m here, if ever, I won’t have the body that I had today. My strength won’t be that of an 18-year-old. I go to sleep grateful for every moment and every thing I have.

:’)

 

 

 

December 28, 2014

I woke up and felt delightful. It wasn’t yet 8:00am. Stepping down from the top bunk, I thought, “here goes…”

…and nothing. No pain. Normal. Up the steps to the door, normal. Wow! What is this?! I hydrated so much last night so I peed and curled back up in the warm blankets for another hour as the first sun rays of the day surrounded me in the cave-dorm. I wish I was in that position and exact place right now.

Breakfast was avo on crackers with salt, pepper, and cumin. Also, a potato and chayote from my mother. I listened to Brie talk to an Indian girl and Canadian couple about malaria, the malaria pills that give nightmares, and deet melting plastic off of shoes and decided not to use deet for the rest of the trip. However, I am one mother-fucking tasty human. I rolled up my jeans a few centimeters and collected several bites on my ankles in less than half an hour, indoors. The rest of the people and pets in the Mariposa living room were totally fine.