Welcome to the Jungle - Montezuma

Day 2 in Montezuma:

This day started out completely normal. Normal breakfast, (Huevos Rancheros)

(Cappuccino)

normal asking around for how to get to said 'waterfalls' and what to do there...

Downtown (The only part of town) Montezuma.

Normal no one having the same response - ever... So we never would have seen the adventure ahead. Not in a million years.

We were told to cross the bridge and take the very next road on the right, across from a restaurant called "Cascada" (waterfall). Funny thing was that it wasn't totally clear which bridge, and if the first one even qualified as a bridge - keeping in mind that we didn't know there WAS a second one down the road... On our second attempt to find the road, after doubling back, we asked two school kids if this was the road for the waterfalls. They told us, no, it was up ahead, and the older girl went her own way home while the younger boy, maybe 7 or 8 years old walked alongside us down the road. He spent the entire walk telling Ryan, in a very serious tone, all about the red tide and how no one can eat any seafood from the red tide. Sounded like he'd been learning about it in school. We walked and listened and walked and listened until we saw a restaurant called, "Cascada" further down the road than we'd thought. The boy, whose name was Giovanni, pointed us up the road and said goodbye.



We only got about 3 steps up the road when a skinny Costa Rican man jumped up and started telling us where to go, and why. We followed him, for what we thought was only going to be a few steps into a path. He led us into the woods alongside the river for a minute - Ryan and I glancing at each other trying to communicate without words on whether or not this was happening. Suddenly he stopped us in the path and pointed down at a giant grey tarantula eating some kind of bug wrapped in its egg shaped web. Apparently this spider can be the death of a horse. They step on it, the leg swells up so badly that it has to be put down. Horses step over this spider. I can only imagine what happens to a human - a fraction of the size of a horse...



At this stopping point, we looked at each other and realized that a strange man - Whose name was Carlos - was leading us into the deep of the jungle. He was fully taking us on a tour. He told us to pack everything up and leave anything we could because we would be crossing the river, and you might lose things in it. Everything our lifetime of common sense tells us has flashing red arrows pointing to this as a prime example of what NOT to do. Pretty much ever. We were looking at the spider, and looking at Carlos, and looking at the "trail" and at each other...back at the spider....back at the river....

He told us several times that the other way was very dangerous and there have been accidents, and its much easier to go UP the river than down it. At the top there is a beautiful view of the ocean etc etc etc... We asked each other a few times what either one wanted to do. I was more wary of Carlos than the idea of crossing the river. He told us he was a tour guide and had just finished this same hike with a couple and their baby, and that he had been doing it for 10 years.

Back at the spider....back at the river...at each other...

At this point, one or both of us must have had some kind of aneurism because we stepped over the spider and went with it.

Normally, this would be the beginning of one of those trendy horror movies where something terrible happens, and the whole audience is screaming "DON'T DO IT!" But Ryan said he felt ..ok about it, and I trusted that.

We kept our wits about us though. He gave me his sandals to wear because mine were slippery and would break and continued on barefoot through the jungle, all the while keeping his eyes out for spider, snakes, everything scary in the world that happens to live in the jungles....

He led us across the river, showed us exactly where to stand, what to grab, where to put our feet, and how to face the current. We continued along a path that hardly looked beaten. He pointed at pink tape and string in the ground and told us it was his "GPS" and it meant "that root was strong", and "not slippery". I think we were both simultaneously admiring this amazing jungle, and planning escape routes for possible scenarios.

Finally we ran into some other tourists and their guide, who knew Carlos and they exchanged fist bumps and greetings and a few words - and right as we passed them we came across the first waterfall. A huge misty waterfall surrounded by jungle with a swimming pool at the bottom. The mist was a godsend after the hot hike through the mud. At that moment, I was at ease.

Here we decided to keep going and finish the hike...which it turns out took an interesting turn. Our next trail was straight up the mountain side. We used roots and rocks as handles and places to step. Ryan was impressed when I attacked it without hesitation and climbed it like stairs. All he'd seen of me was my vertigo, not wanting to get mud on my clothes, side. Welcome to the jungle...

Carlos is still barefoot, mind you, showing us all the plants. The "free acupuncture" trees that are covered in thorns the size of my toes, and telling us various stories about things. At one point I asked him what animal that smell was coming from, he said, "Ah, Monkeys, Jaguars...Snakes."
"Oh good. Wonderful. Do you see many of those on your hikes, Carlos?"
"The snakes, they go underground when it rains." he said, while he played with a big leaf.
"Lovely."
"Excuse me one moment, I have to drink some water. Is spring water, here." And off we sprang, up the creek a few paces, using the leaf he'd been "playing with" to fold in half and create a water spout. At this point, I felt even more at ease since, clearly, he spends a lot of time in the jungle and knows a thing or two about it...

Our arms and legs were burning by now and at the exact perfect moment we came to the next waterfall. Another swimming pool, and a rope swing, along with an incredible view down to the other falls. Carlos took our things while we swam across the pool and climbed up to the other side while he took photos and climbed along the edge with ease.

Ryan took a jump off the smaller waterfall into the pool, and I....stood there shaking and counting to 3 before chickening out and stepping back - repeatedly...about 100 times. Finally we pressed on and finished out hike. We took a short break at a zip line dock and Carlos told us more stories. They all had something to do with saving someone, or his wife who was about to have a baby. He knew everyone, and thought very highly of 3 things. God. His father. And himself.

We made a quick stop at some strangers house so he could phone his wife. True to his word, we ended at a breathtaking view of the coast, and at the end, made another stop at a woman's small shop for a beer overlooking the trees and ocean.

He said usually people are charged $35 per person but we could just pay him tips.

We walked back to our room relieved that we lived, and amazed that we ended up on that hike. As strange as the situation was, we never would have done that hike in a million years had that strange Tico man not showed up and forced us to go on his tour. It was definitely one of those cases where the risk is worth it. But also a classic case of, "Don't try this at home."(Carlos. I'm still trying to figure out what his last story was about. My Spanish is...meh.)

Not that we could anyways. There are definitely none of those giant grey tarantulas on Salt Spring. And hardly any jaguars...