When the captain sends a message to the group: “I found another place we can go to!”, you know you’re on to a good’ol beautiful and amazing hike!.
The tour started out like the one in Arenal. Wake up, get everything ready and be out by sunrise. This time we were headed to Puriscal, somewhere near the La Cangreja National Park.
The trip was longer than expected. We thought it was going to take us about 2 hours to get there, yet because we stopped a couple of times and didn´t have the exact location on our phones, it ended up being about am hour longer. Either way, this didn’t make it any less boring! The views while on the road through Puriscal are amazing!
Oh, and I decided to take my girl with me this time! (@adventuremolly).
Finally we got to the house of our contact; the local guide named Guillermo. He told us we were going to leave the cars beside the fence and start walking right away. That´s exactly what we did. Changed clothes, grabbed out bags and we were off.
Molly started out as if she already knew the route and didn’t really mind the terrain! She didn’t really know how it was going to be out there in the forest, but she was ready.
Almost everything from the start was downhill (literally). A good and a bad sign. Good because it was fairly easy almost all the way to the waterfall, but bad one because we knew the way back promised a heck of a walk.
First we passed through beautiful scenes, then entered the forest. That was the first river we had to cross. The mud on the other side had a particular red-ish color, one that left our boots and Molly’s feet all covered. This was also the first time Molly was crossing a river, and she did it with absolute flawlessness. I would have never thought she would have been so tranquil all the way.
The third part was probably the hardest; an entrance through the jungle on a very steep slope. The guide even encountered a snake! We were lucky enough to be out of reach and he know how to get it out of the way with gentleness and experience. All of us fell at least once till we got to the second river. Molly was a bit desperate to walk faster because obviously, having 4 feet on the ground makes you grab on better and be more confident. I had to stop her a couple of times because she was too near from my friend’s feet and made it hard for them to walk down while grabbing on to whatever they could.
We finally got to the river and made a small stop to wait for everyone else. From here on it was all upstream. The thing we had to worry about was that generally, snakes like to stay on the river bed, and walking beside the river could mean a possible encounter. I was a bit afraid of what could happen to Molly, but absolutely underestimated her all the way.
The river was beautiful. A sight to see and wonder on the beautiful things we have on this planet. We made a couple of stops on the way until we got to the first of three waterfalls. The Princess’ waterfall. It was said that this was the place where the Huetar King used to come with his family and take a bath at these sites. That’s the reason for the name. The guide even told us (which by the way has Huetar descendants, that many treasures were hidden on the site by the Huetar Indigenous. They had placed signs to remember where they had placed them and many had already been found. He had actually found more, and to keep the secret from people trying to get a fortune from selling them, he moved the signs far away from the treasure’s real location, guarding them from those who were looking to sell them.
The river didn’t have a lot of water flow just yet, it’s a bit shallow and the rains hadn’t started at the moment. We were free to walk around and just being a little careful with the rocks. I had to pull Molly out of the water a couple of times because she fell, but either way stood her ground and knew where to be and where not to be. She was a little nervous though.
About 15 minutes from the first waterfall, we could hear the flow of rushing water! It was the King’s Waterfall! And beside it, the Queen’s! It was so beautiful to have the sight of two different waterfalls one beside the other. The King’s had way more rushing water than the other, and one could see why they made the decision. Everything made sense at that moment.
We stayed there for at least an hour while we ate and enjoyed the time on that amazingly beautiful place. We were at the feet of one very important waterfall for our past generations. It was truly Holly.
Once the gray clouds started rolling in, we decided to go back. It was going to be a harder walk than before and we had already walked the way down. The rain did get us on the hardest slope. Every step started to count. We were on the verge of falling a couple of times and so did my teammates! The rain made it harder and harder to keep walking; the mud was slippery and the people that were on the back of the line took the consequences of multiple steps that washed away the pathway.
We were out of the forest. About half of us sat down on the top of the path waiting for the others. We stood there getting out breaths back while the others kept coming up. The guide himself was very tired of what had been a complicated climb. There was still about halfway though the mountain and another river to cross, but it was only a matter of perseverance and cool mind to get back. Yet, all went well and we ended out trip to Puriscal with local food from Guillermo’s family, one of the most tasteful plates I could have ever tried of rice with beans and other vegetables. Everything produced locally.
Here’s some close ups of the team that made every step an amazing tour once again (I hope I didn’t forget anyone):
@Lightsaint 