A Special Hike Up a Seemingly Random Trail to The Summit of a Seemingly Random Mountain Near Jaco, Costa Rica

 We had a day to 'kill' at our nice place near Jaco so why not wander a bit around the 'neighborhood' to see what one can see.  The Airbnb listing noted that you can walk up a path across the road if you would like.  We like!  It did not say what would be there but we saw no houses in the near vicinity so off we went.

This was the wide path that seemed to lead, unobstructed, up a long hill for some nice views and hopefully some nice nature encounters. Can you see Oswald, our first obstruction right in the middle of the trail?

Here is a close up of Oswald.  He truly had no desire to move to the side for us so over the top of him we went.

Here, our second obstruction of the walk.  The barbed wire fence usually means the hike is over but there was what seemed to be a purposeful opening to the right?

The opening was not as wide as I would have liked but, save for a rip in my shorts, we were off and up the hill!  At least they were the oldest pair of my hiking shorts.

Boy we could have taken an entire day just photographing the trees on this hillside.  The plant life in a cloud forest seems to be never ending.

Much of the hillside was a recently mowed path.  Never saw a house, cows, horses or another soul. Someone must have had  a lot of time on their hands to mow the entire path up to the ridge?

The uphill portion of the hike must have been over 2 miles and the gradients were steep much like the other hikes we have found in Costa Rica.

Google shows this to be a palm oil fruit.  Never heard of it but the nuts were very hard.  If they were not that hard our friends the toucans would probably have eaten all of them already.

Saw this really pretty orchid looking flower on our way up.

The view from the summit was awesome. Never expected to actually reach a summit but the 360 degree views were spectacular.  The beach in the middle is where we would continue our hike after descending.

Still could not believe someone spends the time to keep this trail in golf course shape.  Here is the view of the trail heading back down to our place.  Looks serene eh?

Once we made it down to the beach we walked for a while looking for a peaceful spot to listen to the surf and to read our books before the impending thunderstorm.

Doesn't Laurie look in the mood to have her picture taken before reading?

The smile says it all!

Check out how graceful the pelicans are around here. How they flap their wings then glide ever so closely to the surface of the water in search of their lunch is amazing.

On our way back up the hill we stopped to take this picture of our place just before the heavens opened up in a torrent of rain.  No rainbow this time but a soak in the pool on the deck cooled me down perfectly.  Still find it interesting that Costa Ricans use their used tires as landscaping fixtures.

This is our front door.  Not a jail just a way to keep unwanted folks from wandering in.  It worked fine except for the local cats, dogs and crabs as we are close to the beach! There was actually a really heavy door to close if we wanted but the temperature was generally too hot to close it.

Here is a video of our Christmas cat.  She came to visit in the middle of the night and, boy did she howl until we paid her some attention.  Each and every day she came around for some lovin'.

We named our daily visitor toucan 'Sam' as that is what we grew up watching commercials on TV knowing.  Toucan Sam the Fruit Loops bird.

Managed to catch Sam and his mate in flight.  Much more graceful than their eating habits.  Boy do they make a ruckus when they grab the nuts in the trees.  Turns out that toucans are monogamous for life.  As we tried to figure out last year in New Zealand with the Albatross being monogamous, what happens if one of them dies?

Off they go into the sunset!