Over the last few days I´ve been climbing Cerro Chirripo, Costa Rica´s highest mountain and the tallest point between Guatemala and Peru. To put it simply, the hike has been incredibly intense and took some three days in all. Not quite the vacation from work I was hoping for, but really, how many times can you stand in one place and see the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the same time? Incredible. More impressive pictures to follow [eventually].
At the same time, it suddenly occured to me after reaching the summit that I´ve come a long way from both the Smokeys and Mexico, hiking-wise. I have this habit, it appears, of over-estimating my previous climbing experiences* so when I thought my latest attempt - Cerro Chirripo, 3820m or 12532ft - was about on par with my earlier exploits, I guess I thought wrong. By, oh, about half. I mean, I´ve already made it to the top (getting back is a different matter entirely, actually), but it truly is an order magnitude greater than anything I have tried before: the next tallest thing I´ve climbed might actually have been Cerro de la Silla (1820m or 5971ft) all the way back in the early days of Monterrey. Even Maderas, which brought me such endorphin-induced joy a few weeks ago was smaller than that. I mean, that makes sense, in a way (both were one-day climbs, whereas Chirripo has become a three-day affair) but you try telling that to my aching feet...
Still, tired though I may be, the same old feelings are there: equal measures exhaustion and exaltation.
* Maybe this has something to do with the metric system or maybe it´s just a way for me to feel better the next day when my knees don´t work, but who knows?
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