I’m referring to our latest adventure, which we actually went on sans children.
thank goodness!

most of the beginning I was thinking, there is NO way this is going to be worth it. 6 miles of crazy hills, much of which was the middle of the jungle – read, trails you could barely call blazed. the 3 times we actually stopped for a bit I felt refreshed and when we started out again I felt like it was no big deal.

that feeling was much too quickly replaced by “grrrrr, I don’t want to do this anymore!!!”

I can be kinda bratty sometimes, mainly in relation to intense physical exertion…

Mr. D was seriously my hero, though. he was sooooooooooo nice. he wanted me to not have to carry anything from the beginning, but there was no way I was going to be THAT much of a pansy! halfway through, though, the 3lb camera bag (I think it was more like 5lbs, but who takes a scale to the jungle) started feeling like 5 or maybe 10 pounds. Mr. D kept asking me if he could carry it (along with the backpack of water he was already carrying) and finally I gladly accepted his offer. he’s amazing.

there is really no way for me to accurately portray the difficulty of the hike, but when Eddy said “you carried a baby for 9 months, TWICE, you can do this!” and I replied “that was easier!”, well, you get the idea.

practically speaking, current you forgets how crappy the experience past you had was, and I already think, what?! it wasn’t that bad! but I very specifically told Mr. D in the middle of it that I had NO desire to EVER do that again. yeah, similar to labor, except I didn’t even say that when I had either of my kids, lol.

this video is a very tame idea of what we were doing (and you really can’t tell how STEEP it was)! I really regret that I couldn’t video the insane parts, for obvious reasons (like staying alive). seriously, the government actually shut down that part of Rio Celeste because too many people were getting hurt. but I guess it was a little hard to caution tape up the middle of the jungle, so it was more of a “hey, you’re not supposed to go in there”…

again, this part is pretty tame

(this is a little more what it was like, but still only a small idea – it was not just one mile, remember)

and it was slightly muddy…

this is how my shoes came out,
and the others were confounded by how VERY clean they were…?
but I failed to get a picture of their shoes.

we had to cross a few bridges along the way

 

this is where the two waters meet – see the regular water on the left, and the blue water on the right

here’s a video I found of the waters meeting, kinda cool

as you might remember, Mr. D is the photographer of the family, not I

here is one of his shots, I haven’t had time to go through them all yet

so was it worth it???

sigh. well, I’m glad it is over!

I suppose that since I already don’t remember the pain very well, I’m glad I did it.

we all joked that we need shirts that say “I survived Rio Celeste!”

I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I am not much of let’s-go-climb-a-mountain! sort of girl… and I’m sure Krista will come on and remind me how old I am, lol

but if you ever want to go to Rio Celeste, Costa Rica, I’m pretty sure I’ll say
“have fun! I’ll see you when you get back!”