Armed with their filtered water bottles, Hayley & John tackled an unsupported coast to coast trek in Costa Rica. They were kind enough to share their experience.
water for trekking costa ricaDay 1 – Playa del Rey (The Pacific Ocean) to Brujo, Duration: 10hrs
We set of from the beach at 6am, by 8am the sun was high and it was already starting to get hot. Having stepped over a fer-de-lance (a fairly deadly snake) we passed through a town called Silencio at 12pm. This was turning out to be quite a brutal introduction to the walk it was incredibly hot and humid however we were making good progress and slowly finding our rhythm. 4hrs later after climbing some of the steepest tracks we would come across on the whole trek we reached Brujo. It was a really tough day but a great feeling to have reached our first objective.
Day 2 – Brujo to Savegre, Duration: 8 hrs
After a really tough first day, this was reasonably flat by comparison. We passed another fer-de-lance and there were a few navigational challenges as the maps we were using were printed in 1963 so many of the tracks were not shown, however we made good progress and reached Savegre by 3pm. We stayed with a lovely family who told us about a short-cut through some jungle which we could take the following day, this would end up saving us a whole day of trekking.
Day 3 – Savegre to Providencia, Duration: 11 hrs safe water in costa rica
The day started with a steep 2hr climb to reach a town called Saragosa where the friends we made the day before had arranged for a local cowboy to guide us through the jungle shortcut. Our guide was called Billhillio, and he had a horse! We loaded our packs onto the horse for the majority of the rest of the day, it made such a difference as at this early stage in the trek our bags were full (of food / equipment etc) and weighed over 30kg. We covered a big distance through the jungle and made it to Providencia where we pitched out tent inside a half built house (owned by a friend of Billhillio). We found a local shop that sold some vegetables, it was a real treat to be able to add them to our 2 minute noodles.
