The development where we are currently renting, Mar Vista, has a few nice amenities – 24-hour security, an on-site restaurant, tennis courts (presumably clay, but maybe just hard dirt?), “paved” roads, and the newest update –hiking trails.
John and I walk/run in Mar Vista about five times a week. For about 20 minutes John runs hills while I walk, and then we meet up and continue walking for an additional 45 minutes or so. We walk on the “paved” road around our house, which goes up a hill/mountain and around to other houses. It is very steep, and even though we have been walking the same route for a number of months, parts of it are still challenging. John used a phone app one time to measure the grade of the hills. They were anywhere from 13 to 16 degrees, which if you look it up, is technically considered “steep” for hiking.
Because we walk nearly every day and try to give a friendly wave to cars and construction people we meet as we are walking, we have become “known” here. At the end of last year, as we were walking along, we met Coleen, a woman who has lived in the Mar Vista a long time. She introduced herself as a master gardener, and a person who was helping the community with trail development. We just happened to run into her when we were doing one of our almost daily walks, while she was directing gardeners who were planting at a newly constructed home.
(Actually, this was Ron’s house. If you read the blog post about us trying to find a house here near Playa Flamingo, you may remember Ron – the Canadian with the hairless cats. Ron had offered to rent us his current house here, because he was building a new house, also here, at the time. We wanted to move in June 2020, and Ron thought that would be pushing it a bit. Just a bit was an understatement. As it turns out, although Ron did end up moving into his new house in October of last year, there are still workers doing something at his house every day, even now. And of course, there was the view issue from his rental – the patio/pool faced directly into a smaller house built on the same lot that his mother-in-law was living in. Ron’s new house has a fantastic view, and as of now, there is no smaller house on the large lot for his mother-in-law. We think the mother-in-law stayed put.)
Coleen told us about a hiking trail that was just going in, just off the main road that leads to the restaurant. It was clearly marked with those nice brown poles that you see designating hiking trails, wrapped with blue tape, meaning “easy”. We did hike this over Christmas break when our son was visiting. It’s a good thing we did, because the next time Coleen happened to see me as she was driving by, while I was again, walking along the road, she yelled out her car window. “Did you try the trail?” I yelled back, “yes”, at which point she gave me a thumbs up and continued on her way.
There are some serious runners here in Mar Vista. For instance, there is one guy who looks like he runs a marathon daily. John never runs beyond the road leading up to Mar Vista from the main road, that is actually a highway. We have seen this guy running along the highway miles away from Mar Vista. We always wave when we pass him while we are driving by in our truck. For the record, there isn’t really a shoulder on this highway, and running along it, or even biking on it, seems extremely dangerous.
There is another woman that we see running on the very steep hills in our development, and also along the side of the highway outside of it. She is probably in her thirty’s, with a very fair complexion, and a signature blonde braided ponytail hanging down her back. She doesn’t look so much like she is wearing running clothes, but more like hiking clothes. We often see her running along with a small backpack on her back. She is obviously in great shape, and never looks like she is breaking a sweat, even though she runs at all hours of the day, including the heat of the afternoon. Honestly, she looks like she was happily hiking along in the Swiss Alps, when she was plucked up and put down again in Costa Rica. When I see her, I often think of the song I learned in elementary school music class, The Happy Wanderer. I always hear the words in my head as we come across her, “I love to go a-wandering along the mountain track, and as I go, I love to sing, my knapsack on my back. Chorus: Val-deri, Val-dera… (at this point it starts sounding a bit deranged) Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…”, etc.
Not too long ago, during the dry season, we were doing our usual run/walk, when we came upon the Happy Wanderer, running along with her backpack. But this time, it was partly open and bulging with what looked like wooden blocks sticking out from it. She had stopped and as we caught up to her, she made a point to talk to us. We learned her name was Melanie (not something like Elsa or Heidi, as I had imagined it might be). She told us that she was putting up markings for a new trail. She showed us a home-made map, told us the trail was more “rustic” and that it would be fairly easy to get to from where we were (near our house), and you just had to crawl under a barbed wire fence, and then you were there. Easy-peasy. She said it was a three-mile hike with steep hills. We watched as she started running again down the road.
Last week was the week before Easter, Holy Week, or Santa Semana. In Costa Rica this is a very big holiday. Many people get most if not all of the week off and go to the beach. Last year, because of COVID, the beaches were shut down and there were driving restrictions. Things were quiet. This year there was a lot of pent-up demand and people went to the beach areas in droves. We had the week off from our Spanish classes and were planning on staying away from the beaches. We thought that might be a good time to try that new trail. Well, we didn’t make it on the trail last week, after all. But this week, Ofelia, the woman who cleans our house asked to come a day early, in the morning. (Ofelia probably ends up coming on the day and time we originally agreed to about 60% of the time.) So, we thought it might be a good opportunity to try out that new trail, since we had to get out of the house while she was cleaning, anyway.
Up until a few weeks ago, I had always used a hiking pole on our daily walks. I have always been extremely cautious going down hills, and the hiking pole made me feel more secure. Since we were going on a more “rustic” trail, I thought it would be best to bring my pole along. John didn’t elect to bring his.
We started down the dirt road near our house that led to the trail. We encountered a fence with a real gate with concertina wire along the top, that looked down a hill with a dirt road. The gate was open, and there was a small door at the side of it. There was an unlocked padlock on the door with a plastic bag attached to it.
In the bag was the home-made map and instructions. The first part of the instructions said to take a picture of the paper, and to leave it there so that the next person would be able to use it. The next part of it contained the actual instructions for the trail, including a map. On the back it looked like there was an elevation map.
I brought my phone in my fanny pack, just in case Ofelia needed us. Turned out it was a good idea for taking pictures, as well, like of the map. (Oh, and yes, a fanny pack! I used fanny packs over 20 years ago, when the kids were little and they were handy when we were walking on vacation (and they were in style?). Before we moved, I went through all of our family photos. I distinctly remember a photo from a trip with the kids to Arizona, at the Grand Canyon, where I am pictured with the kids, a fanny pack strapped around my waist. I remember thinking when I encountered that picture, that fanny packs were a thing of the past, which was good, because they were not exactly attractive. And, yet, it seems that fanny packs have reemerged as a fashion accessory. Other people wear them, and not just gringos. I felt compelled to buy one here to take to the beach to easily tote car keys, phone and John’s wallet. Note that John does not wear the fanny pack, even though mostly I am carting around his stuff.)
I digress. The gate gave us pause. What if the gate closed? The fence on either side of it was truly rustic, barbed wire, but it didn’t look at all like you could easily get under that fence. How would we get out? We saw a truck coming up the dirt road. We waited to see what it would do. If it got to the top of the hill where we were and they closed the gate behind it, we were not venturing in. The truck stopped momentarily at the bottom of the hill, and then proceeded toward us. It went through the gate and didn’t stop to close it behind them. We decided it was safe to proceed.
We started on the dirt road, down the hill. It was rocky, and John started slipping. He had worn his old running shoes and they had no traction. We returned to the house so he could grab a hiking pole, and despite my suggestion, he did not change his shoes. We started out again, went through the gate, and made it down the very slippery hill.
When we reached the bottom of the hill, we encountered the real barbed wire fence that we needed to “crawl” under. The fence wasn’t that secure, so you could lift up one of the poles to get under it. Even so, it wasn’t easy to get under. One of us has to crouch very low to the ground, while the other of us lifts up the fence pole and barbed wire attached to it. We have now made this hike on three of the last four days, and it seems crawling under the fence has become more of a challenge each time. Especially with the fanny pack. Hmmm…
On the other side of the fence there were maybe four or five cows off the side of the dirt road. They had their backs to us, and didn’t seem at all interested, so we easily went by them. This “trail” is really a dirt road that runs through grazing land for cows. I guess you can technically call it a pasture. Being from Iowa, I think of pastures as flat, grassy fields. But here this pasture consists of hilly, mountainous land, with a lot of trees and shrubs, and barbed wire fencing. Aside from actually seeing the cows, it was easy to know that there were cows around. There were a lot of cow droppings on the road. Our first hike was in the dry season, so we mostly encountered dry dung, but there was a lot of it!
As we progressed down the road, we encountered a bird that we hadn’t seen before. The bird walked about 30 feet or so ahead of us. It continued walking ahead of us, at that same distance. When we stopped, it stopped. When we started again, it started again. Weird. We surmised that maybe it had a nest nearby and was trying to lead us away from it. After we had walked over 100 yards or so, we came to a side road, that was marked for us not to take. The bird flew off, low to the ground, down that road. We looked up the bird in our Costa Rica Field Guide and found that it was a Double-striped Thick-knee. As I mentioned, we have now hiked this three of the last four days. Every single time, we have encountered ol’ “Thick-knee” at the exact same location, where it leads us to exactly the same place, and then flies off. Every … single … time.
We followed the markers along the roads, to make sure we stayed on the hike and didn’t get lost. Most were easy to spot when we came to a place where there were multiple options. Sometimes it was more confusing for one of us …
On our first hike we saw smoke from a fire near a house high on a ridge. We had been seeing a lot of fires in the last month. We’d been told that this year was actually a good year for the fires in the dry season.
We hadn’t seen another soul on the trail, until we rounded a corner and crossed paths with a weathered man with a long stick. He greeted us in Spanish, and then asked if we had seen cows. Even though he asked about the seeing cows in Spanish, it was evident that he was used to talking with gringos that weren’t fluent in español. When he slowly asked the question he pointed at us, then pointed at his eyes, using the pantomiming to help us understand. As it turns out, we were able to understand his question, although admittedly his hand gestures did help. We had somewhat recently learned about past participles, “visto” being the past participle of “ver” – to see. We also were very familiar with the word for cows – “vacas.”
(As part of our Spanish classes, our instructor signed us up for the language learning app, Duolingo. We do a lesson in Duolingo daily. Duolingo has different learning themes, like Shopping, Family, and even has one for Farm, that I recently completed. Yes, the word “vaca” was is in there, but the other animals included in this segment weren’t comprehensive for “farm.” There were dogs, cats, cows, horses, and occasionally pigs. There weren’t any fowl, at all, like chickens or ducks or geese. The only bird represented in that section was the owl. Plus, the animals were always doing “silly” things, like the owls wrote letters and the dogs cleaned the kitchen. The only somewhat realistic sentence was “The cat ate the fish for lunch.” I can’t even remember what the pigs did, as again, they were rarely mentioned. This may have been more of an “Animal Farm” situation. As for the cows? The cows cleaned the dogs ears – how messed up is that?)
So, we understood the question, and I told him in Spanish – yes, near the entrance. He nodded, and went off in the direction that we had just come We continued down the path in the opposite direction, using the small trail markers to make sure we stayed on the correct dung-filled dirt road.
We really enjoyed the walk, as it was different than the beach, and you just felt that you were more in nature. That probably seems like an odd statement, as we are more in nature now on a daily basis than we ever were in Iowa, but relative to walking in our Mar Vista neighborhood, you did feel that you were out in the middle of nowhere.
We came across a couple of places where you could see Playa Flamingo, as promised on the map. The views enabled us to have a better view of the new marina that they are building there.
There was some wildlife, but not a lot. At one point we could hear the howler monkeys, and we saw an owl, something we don’t see regularly. We think it was a Pacific Screech Owl, but are not sure.
The trail winds around, up and down a mountain, and eventually leads you back to the road where you started.
At this point John started musing, what is the word for “find?” He was trying to work out “did you find the cows?” in case we ran into that man again. And, as if being summoned, that man appeared from the side of the road. He indicated that he had found six cows.
Since this was now the second time that we had seen him, we introduced ourselves. His name was Carlos. Carlos then asked if we knew Melanie. I admit that I am much better with faces than names, and frankly, since it had been a while since we had run into Melanie, I didn’t know who Melanie was. John, however, immediately said, “yes”, which is somewhat strange since he keeps telling me he can’t remember anything. John tried to communicate that she was the one who set up the trail. Not sure if Carlos understood anything about that, but he did say, “Melanie es muy linda” which means “Melanie is very pretty.” Light bulb on for me as to why John had no trouble remembering her name! I snapped a photo of John and Carlos, before we parted ways.
As we were coming to the end of our hike, near the barbed wire fence, we once again encountered the cows, actually in two groups. As we got nearer, John, ever the jokester, started mooing at them. The first group had a white cow seemingly standing guard while two or three others rested in the shade. The guard cow didn’t take her eyes off of us. I found this unsettling and told John we needed to be careful. I remembered reading in one of the books by author Bill Bryson (originally from Des Moines, IA), about walking in the English countryside, and that people were injured and even killed by cows when they walked through pastures. (It is a thing, you can look it up.)
John thought I was being ridiculous and pointed out that he had a pole. OK, now who is being ridiculous? I found this laughable. Sure, John and Carlos were both about the same size, but presumably the cows knew Carlos. Plus, compare the size of John to the cow? No contest – the cow would win every time. And sure, Carlos had a wooden stick, but it was much longer and heavier than the aluminum pole that John was carrying.
And what if something did happen to us? The only other person we’d seen out here was Carlos, and he apparently spent most of his time trying to find these cows, so it wasn’t exactly like he was on top of where they were. And the cows would be much easier to spot than our trampled bodies! I was not assured, so walked past warily, and thankfully, without incident.
The next group was just ahead, and standing directly on the road, between us and the barbed wire fence. I wasn’t thrilled about getting close to these cows, either. What if they didn’t move? We would be vulnerable, crouching to get under a barbed wire fence! Happily, these cows trotted off the road as we approached. When I looked back, the white guard cow from the first group, was still staring at us.
We made it under the fence, up the slippery hill, and back to our neighborhood. Although the cows were a bit of a concern (for me), we did end up taking the hike two more times. The second time we didn’t see any cows, although we saw Carlos again, still looking for them. The third time we saw the cows, but not Carlos.
We took our third hike this morning. Interestingly, it appears that our dry season changed to the rainy season just in the last day. Before yesterday, we hadn’t had a drop of rain since December. And then, late afternoon yesterday we were hit with a downpour that lasted hours. We decided to walk today, anyway, just to see if the dirt road was muddy, or if it had dried out. Well, it turned out the road had dried out, and fortunately, wasn’t muddy. But, the previously dried cow dung found all along the road, had been rehydrated, giving it that fresh look and smell!
Remember, it's an adventure. 