May was a relatively low key month. I made one out of town beach day trip on May 1st, which is Labor Day here in Costa Rica. I had some fun in town adventures though! Sonia, Jenny, and I went roller skating one night. It was a lot of fun...and more difficult than I thought it would be. It's sort of similar to ice skating, but I think I would have done better with roller blades, since that's what I used when I was younger.
The last weekend in May, I went with some of the volunteers and one of the Tico staff members, Mario on a day hike near San Pedro. It was a lot more challenging than I thought, but the views were spectacular...you could see most of the Central Valley from the top!!
The hike is called the Three Crosses, because there are three crosses about evenly spaced. These made for good resting points...especially at the second cross, where the group stopped for a snack break. Once you get to the top (and the largest cross), it flattens out a bit and gets a whole lot greener! How to get back down the mountain? Well, come back the way we had come, which was steep and muddy, or go down the mountain side stepping and butt sliding...the result being a flatter walk at the bottom next to a creek. We chose the second option, and boy am I glad we did! We had an amazing time just hanging out by the water and enjoying the afternoon.
Mario was right...the way down the mountain was worth it, and it was flat at the bottom...just a few places where we had to cross the creek, but other than that, it was nice to have a break from the strenuous climb back down the way we had come.
After reaching the paved road in the "expat capital" of Escazu in San José, we stopped at a cute little café/soda for lunch while waiting for our transportation to pick us back up. Overall, it was a great day to see some great views of the Central Valley while getting a workout in and enjoying the clean air of the mountains!
