OUR RETIRED ADVENTURE
qUEREMOS VIVIR AL SOL
KSha
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
Word of mouth information from our downstairs neighbors had us realize that there was a road with a "hill" that was quite a climb just down the road from us that went up into the hillside community. We got the "turn right after end of the complexes" directions..."if you pass the Mar Azul restaurant; you're on the right road". There was partial instructions about following a dirt road; and as we were walking, we kept going when we hit the dirt road (not realizing at the time it wasn't THE dirt road and that we should have turned). We were seeing the front view of the houses we had seen from the beach a few days ago on this road so we were enjoying our choice at the time. We thought we had navigated properly when we saw a road going up. After about 700 meters of a 20 degree angle up, we ran out of road at someone's driveway--dang, back down to the dirt road. Now decision, back the way we came or keep going on the dirt road...dirt road won. We were just about to turn around when we saw a sign for "Lookout Road". This had the look of the "hill" we were looking for--50 degree incline as it started up. I got out my mental protractor; and I don't think I'm exaggerating. We labored (maybe just me) up the first 100 meters to a sharp turn and stopped to rest and get a shot of agua. We meandered up another 400 meters and were forced to stop; again a driveway--end of this line! Back down we go. Carefully. On the way down, I was marveling at how the cars were parked in the small areas by the houses with the hairpin turns off this road. I would have pushed a car up this road to live here and have the views of these properties.
We got back to the dirt road and headed back toward our home. At the end of the dirt road we decided we should go inland and see where this road went. This is the road we originally decided to pass and go straight down the dirt road. This road had an uphill angle to it, but was gradual. Thick foilage lined the left of the street and little small gated communities were on the right hand side. Three or four minutes up this road and we saw the Mar Azul restaurant! This is the right road! Not far past it was a dirt road--double cool on verifying we were going the right way. The dirt road curve off to the right, and after about 100 meters appeared to turn sharply left...and upwards. I was pleased to see that the road continuing upwards was paved...I was a little taken aback when I realized that I had miss judged the Lookout Road as being really steep. This was a grown up hill. We both felt up for the challenge and started up...when we hit the first hairpin turn to the left, we both struggled to find somewhere to "stand" and rest. We may have only covered 100 or so meters! [For you metric novices, here's some quick math: meters times 3 equals feet (3.28 feet exactly); 1000 meters equals a kilometer, and a kilometer equals 0.6 miles...this is why math is important in school people!] Looking up, we had no idea where or how far the top was. We continued up, struggling, stopping to rest, continuing on for (our best guess) a half an hour, where we both had to stop because we were breathing so hard and questioning our sanity--still couldn't tell where the top was. You will note that there are no pictures showing this beautiful area we were in; neither one of us felt comfortable enough to think to take one as securing one footing kept us both occupied as we moved--actually standing still was just as hard as walking up. I can let you know we passed several construction sites that were building homes on the side of the mountain that had magnificent views of the bay below. Mentally thinking we have to be near the top; but realizing the physical drain was too much to keep going, Sha had the great idea to hitchhike back down. I said, "What? Wait, that's a good idea!" as a truck slowly descended the hill above us. We looked like two sad puppy dogs on the side of the road, but didn't get a ride offer. Damn! We knew we had to walk back down. Only very slightly easier was our return to the bottom, knees and thighs were begging for mercy by the time we returned to THE dirt road. Thankful to be on relatively flat ground, we both mused how we probably could've made it to the top if we hadn't climbed those two roads before we found the big hill. Big talk as we didn't even know how much farther we had to go. Well, that afternoon we had plans to travel to Liberia with our neighbors Norm and Karen for supplies. We took the hill road out of town; because they told us about it and knew we'd tried to climb it. As we crested the top in the car, we realized that we had only made it about two thirds of the way up to the top...humbling to say the least. We will be back to try again; so stay tuned for that adventure...hopefully with some pics to give you a better perspective. Pura Vida!!
2 Comments
Cin
8/24/2022 02:41:52 pm
OMG we just talked about the Howler monkeys. Glad you saw some. They are so cool. Did you need some IBProfin for those knees after that long hike up the hill😊 Wow-what a workout!!! Love reading your blog-thanks for staying in touch❤️
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8/24/2022 06:09:17 pm
What an excellent adventure What elevation are you at?
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