Pejibaye – Río Macho (25km) 14.7 miles. 4200 feet elevation gain. Camino section 8 and part of 9
Today we made it half way mileage wise. We still have some miles and climbing before we get to the continental divide.
Another nice sunny day, with clouds not appearing until mid to late afternoon. We saw the first sprinkling of rain in the evening on our way to watch a local soccer match on TV as one of our walkers is a Tico and avid fan of one of the teams playing. It was a big game between two rival Costa Rican teams and we thought we’d be going to a local bar that would be full of fans. Instead we ended up as the only group at a local restaurant.
We began the day loading up in a truck and driving to where we had hiked the day before. I think our guide did a bit of shuffling around yesterday and had us shuttled up the hill so we could walk down back to the campground. That made our day yesterday a bit longer, but saved us from having to walk a couple more miles uphill today. We continued climbing out of Pejibay and the surrounding sugarcane fields and entered forests. We could hear howler monkeys in the distance and enjoyed really nice views to the east. These may be the last views we have looking back toward the Caribbean.
The forest was noticeably cooler and wetter than lower down and we saw many different butterflies that ranged in size from about a quarter to Blue Morphos that are hand-sized. We then lost a lot of the altitude we had gained when we dropped down into a large valley.
We had lunch at a local’s house at the far end of town and next to a marker that marked the halfway mark. After lunch, we stopped at a local market and bought ice cream and snacks. Then it was another couple of miles back uphill to our hotel at the outskirts of Rio Macho. It was another long day (and would have been even longer if we hadn’t had done the extra bit yesterday) so we didn’t have time to enjoy the inviting pools along the Macho river that we walked along before arriving at the hotel. The hotel rooms were nice and comfortable. We were happy that we weren’t camping. They did laundry (wash and dry, no folding) for $10 for a large bag. We combined laundry and were happy to give our clothes a proper wash rather than the sink washing. In the evening the owner drove a group of us to town to watch a local soccer game.
