“The best part of traveling solo is the grand permission to be an utter fool where nobody knows you. Nothing else could convince me to dance.” – Old Sean
A Mountain Stride
I confess that I like traveling alone. Solitude gives an uncommon license for stupidity I cannot subject my recreational travel partners to.
So when I decide to hike for six hours through Costa Rica’s farmland countryside from Zarcero to Bajos del Toro, refusing to hitchhike and plodding with a hefty backpack, that’s my prerogative.
On Saturday I loaded up the minimal gear necessary and began walking, scuffling my boots on rain-slick tar as I pushed my way gradually uphill into the Costa Rican sky. Rain dominated all the scenery and I was hemmed in by a uniformly bright grey monotone across the entire sky and both edges of the road. My vision was limited entirely to whatever valley I was plodding through at the time.
Views of the Rainlands
That’s not to say there wasn’t a lot to look at. The first areas were large, graded grass fields of darkened green, browsed by herds of idyllic black and white cows. Intermittent trees cropped up, darker than the slanted fields where horses usually loitered, giving me the most appraising looks.
Past this were the vegetable fields, neat rows of plants in deep, black soil with powerlines looping almost randomly. The entire area, especially in the rain reminded me sharply of the Irish countryside, albeit with much steeper hills and mountains.
Vehicles hammered past on a fairly regular basis, gradually diminishing in frequency the further I meandered from the main road that run through Zarcero.
Costa Ricans either have a pathological dislike for changing their oil or gasoline in Central America is some crude stuff. Every car that passed had a sharp, almost aggressive smell of industry stinging my nostrils and my COVID fabric mask found a secondary use on this hike. Three times people stopped to offer rides, but I was enjoying my podcasts on tribal histories, Winston Churchill and random interviews, so I waved them on and kept going.
The really scary thing about Costa Rican mountain roads are the landslides. While I wouldn’t call them frequent, I saw their aftermaths quite often. Great slides of reddish-hued dirt cut away huge portions of a forest where water further eroded the sudden canyon. Two of these toppled onto the road itself. Fortunately it didn’t block the entire route, just the edges of a lane. I was able to lurch upward past these and continue on my way.
Handling Costa Rica Rains
One of the funny things that define this route is the rain. Though generally light, my umbrella handled keeping my torso dry. But from my thighs down, I was always a little damp. I also realized that trees are a sort of inverse shelter depending on the weather. If water is falling from the sky, canopies mitigated this pretty well. But as soon as the rain slackened, the trees would began to patter, releasing all the water they had caught in the past hour in a miniture torrent.
Finally, I had nearly reached Bajos del Toro. Prior to arrival, however, there is a terribly steep mountain doing jagged, blind-corner switchbacks into the valley. It took me nearly two hours to pigeon-toe my way down the grade. No music or podcasts were allowed as I needed my ear (singular, still half-deaf) for any cars hurtling downwards or upwards on the slopes.
Entering the Waterfall Valley
I finally entered Bajos del Toro, (Low Bull) which is a truly fantastically scenic little valley when the weather was clear enough to gain some visual distance. Lodged on a slightly risen plateau following one narrow road, the village is wedged between an active and dormant volcano.
The great sulfur crater of Paos Volcan is visible on the Eastern horizon. Between the near-constant rainfall of the season, the water-holding forests that coat mountainsides and the active hot springs that dot the terrain, Bajos del Toro is home to a daunting number of waterfalls, a fair number of them clearly visable from simply walking around.
Most of these waterfall, however, are located on private property, meaning a few of them require payment to the landowner to see. Others are an exercise in pushing social boundaries, as you can knock on the door of a house and ask to romp around their two or three acres of a backyard for a half hour or so.
Walking around town is very nice, since it’s quite level and the mountains on either side of the valley make it scenic.
There are information signs, the most prominent next to the Blue Morpho Restaurant and other, more urgent signs. Some of these request that the natural beauty be kept pristine and litter kept to one’s self.
Others are bright green evacuation signs, directing escapees in case of a volcanic erruption. These signs are green in one of the greenest parts of the world, which I question the wisdom of. But I assume if everything is ash, lava and fire at some point, perhaps reflective green will stand out more strongly.
Exploring Low Bull
My first stop in Bajos del Toro was a small restaurant Pesca de Truchas Nene, a quaint little restaurant-hotel mix on a small pond with artisanal waterfalls scattered about. While their orange-mint soft drinks are stellar, I was primarily there to access WIFI and contact my Airbnb owner. My cabin was on the far side of town, so I lugged my luggage back on and set off.
One of the pleasant things when walking around Bajos del Toro are the extremely companionable dogs. A brown Doberman-mutt-mix seemed infatuated with my plodding and kept me company on the entire walk to my new home, picking up a couple other playmates on our walk. When we finally arrived, I was pleasantly surprised.
I had rented a camping cabin and had expected no electricity, but a few charging cables led upstairs to a tiny attic with four beds crowding the floor. The downstairs area had plenty of firewood and a working wood stove, leaving me to cook a bit as night fell.
The next morning I put on my waterproof float-sack, which is about the only thing I can carry around in Costa Rica’s rainy season. I had to pull out a wooden pillar wrapped in barbed wire to exit my cabin, re-staking it to close the entrance before walking back towards downtown proper.
I ended up at La Terraza del Café de Logan, for directions around the valley, travel advice, WIFI and coffee. Happily, the owner is extremely knowledgable about Costa Rican coffee which makes up the entire specialty menu. When I expressed appreciation, I ended up getting a surprising number of free samples that made me downright jittery.
Jungle Parks
Most of my day was spent in Parque Nacional Juan Castro Blanco to the north of Bajos del Toro. Home a fair amount of greenery and some shallow streams for wading, it took me a few hours to reach the area. The best method to get there on foot or ATV is by turning onto C. Rio Segundo at the Blue Morpho Lodge (a somewhat well-advertised hotel and restaurant in the area) and wander into the mountain woods. This is a pretty easy hike, but getting off the road and into the park is a bit of a gamble, since one must follow muddy, often obscure ATV trails strange directions.
Once again, my Doberman-mutt spotted me walking through town and kept me company for a fair portion of this hike until finding something far more interesting than me in a cow pasture. I’m happy to say she seemed to find her way home without any trouble every time following me was no longer an option. The rest of my day was spent dodging ATV’s hiking through natures and wading around whitewater steams in search of waterfalls.
That about summed up my time in Bajos del Toro. I got back to my cabin that night where sleep evaded me like a master tactician. I was dreading heading back up the mountain that I took on the way in, so I woke up extremely early, at 4 AM with a safety light around my neck. I knew that if luck deserted me, I would be spending two or three hours slowly dragging myself up the forested switchbacks.
Returning to Zarcero
Luck, however, has been a stalwart ally in my life.
On the very first slope, where the ground was mostly gravel and the incline was hardly enough to make water flow downhill, a pickup truck rumbled along. One thumb skyward and I suddenly had a perfectly cordial ride, not just up the mountain but all the way back to Zarcero.
Landscape that I had painstakingly walked across vanished in under half an hour. It took me five and a half hours, mostly downhill, to hike to Bajos del Toro. Driving back was no time at all. A taxi would have costed me roughly forty US dollars. These two guys refused the 4,000 colones I offered them for gas.
I practiced my limited Spanish with my benefactors and we darted at pretty high speeds through the coutnry roads.
I should mention that Costa Rican drivers are particularly technically skilled. There are very few accidents visable on Costa Rica roads, the terrain is often challenging and winding and I wouldn’t call Costa Rican drivers particularly defensive. But I’ve not had any trouble getting around by hitchhiking where Costa Rica is concerned. The drivers in this country are very deft.
I ended up back in Zarcero where I got myself some breakfast and waited for a bus to Ciudad Quesada, which would then connect me to La Fortuna, my next hiking goal.
So until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written July 24th 2021
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The GoPro Hero Black is my go to Action camera. I’m not comfortable bringing my cell phone to many wet and rugged locations, so the GoPro does most of my photographic heavy-lifting. The only things I bring in my GoPro kit are the camera, a spare battery and the forehead mount. I upgrade my GoPro once every two years. It was particularly excellent to have during my aquatic tour of Belize.
