Muddy Hike up Cerro Chato...oh my body is in pain

Quote from me “We will laugh about this day later.” …..Even though I was the only one really hung over we were all moving kinda slow the next morning, which was good since we didn’t have our Canyoneering tour till 1pm…well we thought!! It actually turned out that the tour was scheduled for 10am and we missed it. But the guy at the tour office was nice enough to let us join the group the next morning, instead of saying “you snooze, you lose” pun intended. Haha.

Mom and Dad, cental park of La Fortuna

Ryan and Debb, cental park of La Fortuna

Jumping picture #2 in the cental park of La Fortuna

Now what to do with the rest of the day? We walked around town, La Fortuna, for a bit then decided to take a hike up to Cerro Chato Crater.

Cerro Chato trail

This is a smaller mountain next to Volcano Arenal, which also has a lake in the crater like Poas. Since we missed Poas we figured this would be a good opportunity. It was about 1pm then, and we believed we could make it up and back before dark. When we arrived we learned it is a 4km (2.5 miles) hike to the top/ the lake. And that’s where it started.

Since it had been raining the day before the trail was muddy but not that bad to start. However, our simple walk through the garden quickly turned into a muddy mess.

The beginning...a nice path now

Then one km completed and the trail became a mountain trek muddier, slipperier and steeper by the step. I remember thinking this mountain is like a grass covered snow ski double diamond mogul course. Mud up to our ankles and thighs tingling we were all glad to get to the third stage of the hike, into the rainforest. Again this trail started off not so bad with nice man-made

Its starting to get muddy

2nd part of the hike in the jungle

tree stump steps nevertheless those too disappeared leaving us to climb the remaining 1km up and over giant tree roots for steps.

I must say my parents are total troopers cause they made it almost the whole way at mine and Ryan’s pace, though I can’t leave out there was a lot of bitching and crying, and then Ryan and I did the last haul up to the top and another 700 meters down to the crater lake by ourselves. I later learned by parent’s did continue to the top of the mountain at their own pace. Mission Accomplished!!

Cerro Chato Crater Lake....we made it

Debb at the lake

If they had seen the trail to the lake, they would have been very glad they didn’t join us cause it was a Doozy. Literally using hands, feet and butt to climb down and back up.

the last trail to Cerro Chato Lake

Anyways, that’s not the end of the story…Whatever goes up must come down. So there we went down the mountain trying to beat the darkness from coming while using all our left strength and agility to not fall on our ASSES, no can do. Ass falls are counted as follows: Mom 3, Debbrial 2, Dad 1, and Ryan 0. Three, two, one, zero, we were finally back at our car mud up to our knees now, wet from sweat and drizzling rain, thighs burning and calves and a SUPER need for the hot tub.

As I said in the beginning, that night we sat in the thermal pool massaging our sore legs and laughing about the day we had had.

written by

ryan & debbrial on December 27, 2010 from Fortuna, Costa Rica

from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas

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