Las Brisas – Tres Equis (20 km – 11 miles 3,000ft elevation gain). Camino section 3 & 4
Today was a long day of ups and downs through indigenous virgin jungle crossing three valleys. The trail was almost entirely single track with lots of mud and three river crossings. One we were able to rock hop over, one we waded through, and one we rode in a rope-pulled gondola, though we could have also waded across the Pacuare River at the gondola crossing. We are at the end of the dry season and river flow seems to be pretty low.
We traveled through the land of the Cabecar people, the largest indigenous tribe in Costa Rica. It was a long day and some people in our group found the conditions very difficult. The slow pace was nice as it allowed for a lot of time to soak in atmosphere and surroundings of the jungle, but we did spend a lot of time on our feet today.
The jungle was very lush with epiphytes seemingly growing on everything, lots of leaf-cutter ants, and a smattering of butterflies and bugs. I was surprised at how few other animals we saw, but our group isn’t very good about traveling quietly.
We had another late lunch, with many people running out of water. After lunch, which was a a “restaurant” run by the Cabecar people and adjacent to a small museum with exhibits about their indigenous way of life we continued descending to the Pacuare River valley and then climbed back out of it where we met a couple of vehicles that drove us to our lodging for the night. From looking at my Garmin track, it looks like we skipped a couple miles of the Camino. I’m not sure the reason for this, but it seemed planned to avoid walking on busy roads for the most part. I think there may have also been a little jockeying based on location of lodging. I found today relatively easy as we got an early start and were in the shade of the jungle for most of the day. The trail and elevation gain are similar to many Washington state trails although there was more mud than we usually see in Washington.
Tonight we slept in cabins(Cabanas El Paso del Viento) that were located near the road (Highway 10 just south of Tres Equis). There were nice views across the opposite valley. There were four cabins; each couple had a cabin, the other six of us split the other two cabins with three people in each cabin. They were basic, but clean and with running cold water, though the sinks were precariously mounted and the toilets took a long time to fill. We had Dinner and Breakfast the next morning at a roadside “soda” (El Rancho De Cucho) about 50 meters from main house.
