Cordillera Hut Trek

On the 1st of January, we woke up early to catch a 3 hour bus to San Isidro, where we ate a local Costa Rican lunch and then travelled another hour or so to San Gerado. We settled down and enjoyed the view and some dinner, then had an early sleep before the first day of hiking.

We began our 6 hour hike on the 2nd of January and trekked with our heavy backpacks up the steep and rocky terrain. It got hot, tiring and long, but our guides Jose and Rodolfo as well as their dog Kia made it fun. It was such a relief to find our cute shelter for the night after approximately 9km of hiking. We watched the beautiful sunset, enjoyed tortillas for dinner and had a deep sleep.
The next morning, the girls who wished to hike were up at 5:30am to get ready trek up to the summit of the mountain, another 2km up. Others stayed at the shelter to prepare lunch and help pack up. It was a steep walk but the view at the top was spectacular and made it all worth it. Then we made our way back down to our shelter, had lunch, and began the hike back all the way down, taking another 4 hours. In total, we walked 15km and hiked for 8 hours that day. We were all very exhausted by the end and excited for some dinner and sleep.
On the 4th of January, we packed up and hiked up more steep hills for about 45 minutes to reach “hot springs”, or really, a heated pool. We only had a limited time to spend at the hot springs, nevertheless it was very relaxing and rewarding. The rest of the day just involved travelling back to our hostel in San Jose.