Connecting with our true inner backpacker.

After a lovely weekend spent in the city of San Jose eating sushi, cooking our own meals, visiting an abandoned hospital and watching Pirates of the Caribbean in Spanish 3D Katie and I parted ways with a sad  goodbye as I went to meet up with Michael who had been spending his weekend in bliss at Jaco hitting up the waves and beach. On Tuesday I and Michael met up at Papas and Burgers the hostel where Michael had been spending the weekend with a wild bunch. (apologizes for the confusing pronouns...I was never good at English. Thanks mom and dad). I went on a majestic horseback ride up a mountain while Mike hung out with his new greatest American friends, Carl and Alex. We cooked dinner at the hostel and it was decided since I was a woman I had complete kitchen duties although Michael often butted in since he was eager to improve his cooking skills after his rag burning experience. The meal consisted of pasta with alfredo sauce, potatoes, and bread. Chopped has really advanced my cooking skills to where they need to be to try out for the show. We have also realized the enjoyment of cooking in hostels and the money saved. The night consisted of showing Jaco what Americans are truly like...really loud and creative when the lights go out. We picked up Mustafa the doctor on our travels to join our now duo. We traveled to Montezuma in the morning by speed boat on what we thought would be calm waters...we should have invested in butt cushions and been giving a warning that this ride may potentially throw us out of the boat as we were consistently pounded by waves...we determined the butt breaking ride was totally worth it though when we watched thousands of dolphins swim by. We made it to Montezuma in one piece and had lunch before venturing towards the waterfalls there! I stopped to buy some jewelry and was looked at in worry as I told the woman we were headed to the waterfalls with our full backpacks. We were also misinformed about the waterfalls as a woman told us it was a fifteen minute hike towards the waterfalls. We embarked on this adventure with pure stupidity and general joy at the thought of beautiful Costa Rican waterfalls. Our directions were walk up the hill around the bend and through the grey gate, when the path ends follow the smaller path and you will get to the waterfall. After we had hiked up the four steep inclines passed a few grey fences we saw three people emerging from a closed grey fence in nothing but bikinis and flip flops...giving us hope that we were first headed in the right direction and second that this was an easy path. little did we know that when we reached the end of the big path that the smaller path was all downhill after we had just climbed all the way up the hill. the one foot wide path was obscure and covered in vines. Mustafa was convinced the whole way down that this path was not the way...but we pushed on getting closer to the sound of water. We reached a wide stream of water laden with rocks with water fall insight and saw many people on a more convenient path that actually led you to the waterfall that happened to be on the other side of the stream. Mustafa and I accepted the risk of getting our shoes wet so that we could make it to this natural beauty. Mike, however, took the hard way scaling the wall of rock refusing to sacrafice his shoes to the water depths. He did so only to find that he still needed to walk across the water to place his bags down on the dry land. Mike started strong connecting early with his inner backpacker. After frolicing in the pool below the waterfall we floated on our backs in awe looking up at the everflowing shower of water from up above. The boys climbed halfway up to show off some impressive jumps in the pool. After a while it was time to head up to waterfalls 2 and 3 where we heard it was the best place to jump in. This required us to gear up get mobile and head towards a cliff looking piece of land covered with tree roots yellow spray painted arrows and pink ribbons to guide the way up this verticle path. I led the way determined that this was the worst it could get and not allowing the weight of 20lbs to hold me back while Mustafa and Michael worked their way up with more significant weight i would learn later on as I braced the rocks trying to pull their backpacks out of the water...we will get to that part later. After the endless climb we made it to the top where the path was lined with even more gloriousy pink ribbons and about a foot of path that was literally a cliff over the rainforest and waterfall. We reached the end of the pink ribbons to find a blue rope and (can you guess it) an even steeper climb down to the 2nd and 3rd waterfall. It was time for us to truly dig deep within ourselves and find that survival mindset within us. We reached the bottom to find a large pool of water with rocks and a ropeswing to jump off of. We indulged ourselves for the next couple of hours with the pure joy of 8 year olds. The trecherous climb and hike with backpacks had all been worth it for those couple of hours under the sun sitting by the Montezuma waterfalls with the constant sound of falling water and screams of joy resinating in our ears. When the sun began to sink then came the dreaded thoughts of how to return. Lucky enough for us we saw an alternate path at the top of the rocks where a ziplining group had come out of and left out of. We decided it was worth the risk...the risk of swimming our bags over across the pool of water with only a tattered trashbag to try to prevent water from soaking all of our belongings. Mustafa took the initiative by putting his bag in first as mike swam it over to me on the other side. As a I braced myself against the rocks with my feet Mike handed me the bag and with the strength of a lion I pulled it out and carried it to the top. Just kidding...at this moment I was deemed utterly useless in the voyage of our luggage since I could not lift the bag up. One by one the bags made it across and up refraining from detrimental soakage but getting a little moist on the outside. Last but not least my pride and joy was carried across the river over mikes head as he struggled heroicly while the bag slipped and tossed in his one hand. I sat terrified across the pool with the look that a mother would have if her child was being brought over a ricketty bridge that was suspended above lava. My camera made it to me safetly after I snapped out of shock and helped grab it from the exhausted Mike. We geared up once more and up the alternate path we went choosing the left side. We climber for about 5 minutes which led us to a locked gate of a yoga retreat. We were kindly let in by a woman who was quite shocked to see our packs and it was determined that only because I (a girl) was traveling with Mike and Mustafa were we let through and out towards the road. The road which only about a hundred feet down had the same grey fence that we had ventured through earlier. We now consider ourselves true backpackers.