2022-02-09 — Bienvenidos A La Selva 😊

Hola, mi peeps.

Hope y’all enjoyed your day. 😊

Fabulous day over here. It was straight up wonderful. 😊

Didn’t sleep so well, up late writing yesterday’s entry, and then with my super… light-sleeperness, I woke up a million times, but… That’s ok. Life goes on.

Woke up for the last time about 7, but as i had a stuffy nose in one nostril, and since it felt similar to the beginnings of sinus infections that I’ve gotten after swimming in Burraston Ponds in Mona, UT, I was reminded of water-born parasites, and specifically, brain-eating amoebas.

Yes, as I learned this morning, Costa Rica has had cases of brain-eating amoebas. 😶

Well, nothing I could do but live my life, and the odds were rather tiny, even though I’d been in the very places those amoebas live.

Anyway, got up, drank a bunch of water, both to hydrate and to see if I could get my nose to unstuff itself. John was up before me as always, and he’d been talking to the gardener/painter outside. I started packing up the car, as we were checking out of the Montaña de Fuego hotel this morning.

Anyway, John and the other gentleman (Alexis) came over, and we all started talking. He told us that, even though it’s illegal, there are guides in the city who will take you to the top of the mountain for $10. I guess it’s a 4-hour hike.

Being illegal still nixed it for me, but it was fun to hear about. We talked about other things as well. Good stuff.

From there it was breakfast, which was great, as it has been each day we’ve been here. 😊 I stuffed myself again, chatted with the waiter, letting him know what we were planning on doing for the day, and he was a little concerned–told us to be really careful about snakes, as Costa Rica has some pretty aggressive and deadly snakes, such as the Fer De Lance (look it up 🙃).

Nice guy, the waiter. Really hard to understand with the Covid mask on, but good stuff.

We finished packing and checked out around… 9:30 ish? I don’t remember. From the hotel, we headed back to our little paradise on the river. Before starting our hike, we drove over to the little hotel/hostel thingy that was near the river (think fairly rundown place, by itself, in the edge of the jungle near the river, near the end of a dirt road to even get there.

So… when I say hotel, hopefully that gives it some context. 😊

The road ends about a mile or two past the hotel, but it’s on private property, so we asked the hotel peeps if we could drive and park at the end, heading up the river from there. They tried to call the owner for us to get permission, but he wasn’t answering, so we just went back to the main fork where the vehicles drive through the river to cross it; we parked the car, and headed up.

I don’t know how to really do the experience justice. I just… can’t. It was amazing, breathtaking, inspiring. John said it was the best hike he’s ever done. It was stunning, …marvelous.

The day just… went perfectly. My crap $7 shoes were phenomenal. The weather was gorgeous. The bugs were pretty much non existent. The scenery was to die for, early among the most-beautiful landscapes I’ve personally ever seen, and this time, we got to experience real jungle.

There’s so much i could describe, but I’m… so tired. 🙃 Sorry! I’d post pictures, but they never do it justice–ever.

Perhaps I’ll write more about it later. For now, love and hugs to all y’all

Lift the World.

~ stephen