This week our adventure day was a truly an adventure (the phrase una gran aventura was uttered many times). Most of our team decided to go to the beach for a relaxing day, but two other teammates and myself took up the opportunity to hike through the jungle.
Earlier this week, our ministry host let us know that one of the leaders of the ministry we work with (a native Costa Rican) wanted to take us on a hike through the jungle in the backyard of one our ministry sites. Naturally I couldn’t pass that up, I mean who wouldn’t want to trek through the jungle?
So we got up, enjoyed the breakfast prepared for us, said goodbye to the rest of the team, packed for the day, and headed off to meet our tour guide (aka our friend who is not a certified guide, but a trusted friend which is enough for me).
As we started our hike, we came to our first hill. We looked at each other thinking, oh crap, what have we gotten ourselves into. It was straight up and very long. Which lead into another very long, straight up hill leading to the edge of the real jungle. We were definitely questioning our decision especially when we conquered the hill and our guide said, “hmmm I’m not sure where we go from here….” And then proceeded to use a machete to start hacking a trail for us. This prompted a, “oh yes, here we go! This is the trail”.
We then continued on an uphill trail machete-ing a path along the way. We then happened upon a tree that is around 300 years old and MASSIVE which prompted a quick photo shoot/breathing break. As our hike continued we crossed (AKA crawled under) somewhere between 5-10 barb wire fences, passed by some cows and horses, walked in a large circle once, paused a few times to make sure we weren’t lost (we definitely were lost most of the time), and laughed at ourselves and had some fun conversations during breathing/lunch/water breaks.
Eventually we emerged from the jungle/prairies and found ourselves on the main road through Limón. We were about 7+ miles in, out of water, and generally exhausted. It is definitely still summer weather here and we were incredibly sweaty, dirty, and a little itchy from bugs and plants. We decided it would best to walk (hike really) to the supermarket nearby where someone could come pick us up and take us back to the ministry site for the night. We enjoyed a nice cold drink and snack and our “teen challenge express” (AKA our ministry’s van driven by a friend) showed up and we enjoyed a nice cool ride back to the ministry site. We got to shower and then were reunited with the rest of our squad for a night of games and testimonies from some of the people in the ministry program.
It was truly an adventure and one I would do again in a heartbeat despite the heat, hunger, tiredness, sweatiness, and soreness. We laughed so much and I have such sweet memories with my teammates and our tour guide:) Enjoy the photos! I posted as many as the site would let me.
The three hundred year old tree
Trying not to slip up the side of the mountain and watching out for the thorn trees
Our other guide 🙂 Kira the guard dog
