Costa Rica Road Trip Part 4 — Climbing Cerro Chirripo, 20-22/11 2025
20 November — Thursday
The highest mountain in Costa Rica, Chirripo, stands at 3820 meters above sea level. There are three routes leading to the peak, of which only one does not require a guide. The unguided route starts in San Gerado de Rivas and back and forth it features 40 km of hiking with 2800 meters of elevation gain. It is recommended by the park authorities to make the hike in 3-days — staying two nights at the hotel located 5 km from the peak — but we will do it in one straight push.
At dawn we are away, we stayed the night at Hotel Uran, located directly at the trailhead, which allows visitors to leave the car at their parking lot while summiting Chirripo and to use their showers upon returning.
The trail is well maintained and easy to hike. While hiking you will walk through different climate zones; rainforest, more traditional forests, grassland and more rugged alpine terrain.
Up until the hotel — yes a hotel, a massive hotel at that, not a mountain hut that I was expecting — the weather was perfect, but while we make a short stop at the hotel the rain starts pouring down, and it is accompanied by strong winds. Now I feel at home. The rest of the hike is walked in rain and low visibility, no amazing views are awaiting us at the summit. Typical.
We summit the mountain, take another stop at the hotel and make our way back down. It took us about 11 hours to summit Chirripo, including the long breaks, and I must say I’m a bit disappointed, I expected a more physical challenge. Still it was nice to get back to some more longer hiking.
Back at hotel Uran we shower, drive to Kapi Kapi for some dinner (as always, delicious), and lastly we go to a hotel in San Isidro.
21 November — Friday
The plan was to continue the long distance hiking by going to Irazu Volcano National Park, but the old man’s knee has taken some damage so instead we go to Quepos to visit the Manuel Antonio National Park for some more easy hiking and chill on the absolute amazing Playa Manuel Antonio. Google it for overhead pictures! You cannot really capture the magic of Playa Manuel Antonio from the ground.
I’m glad we went to Manuel Antonio instead of Irazu as we finally got to see the Sloth, and not just one, but both species; The Brown-throated three-toed sloth and the Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth. To be honest the only reason I know we saw the Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth is because I overheard a guide telling his group what species it was, we only saw the belly of it. The Brown-throated three-toed sloth, however, we got a good look off.
In addition to the sloths we saw much other wildlife, as always, and the beach was just spectacular.
The downside with Manuel Antonio is that it is one of the most, if not the most, visited park in all of Costa Rica. The nearby town Quepos is the very definition of a tourist town, with guides, and other people trying to sell you stuff, constantly up in your face. They try to guilt you with “you will not see any animals without a guide”, etc. They are partly right, you will see more animals with a good guide that knows the area, but the fun comes with doing the work yourself, not being handed everything. But if you want a guide, do not forget to haggle. As we continued to turn down their offers, the price suddenly dropped from 50k to 30k. Given that 50k was “an absolute steel”, I wonder what 30k would be considered.
From Quepos we drive to Jaco, once more, to spend the night slightly closer to San Jose.
22 November — Saturday
Today my dad is flying back home to Sweden. We planned to take it slow, we went to beach and I took a run. Then the plan was to chill at the pool and take a late check-out. However, it is freaking unbelievable, but my phone screen stopped working, again! So we rushed to a nearby shop to have it fixed as the coming days of travel would be problematic, to say the least, for me without it.
Luckily, they had it fixed in an hour. How the screen can break from lying still is a mystery to me. I have had IPhones for about 13 years and when I was a bit younger and more careless I dropped them repeatedly, and I did not even have a protective casing as I do now, never broke a single one until now. Now it is apparently enough that you shake it a bit to hard. Clearly, not all technology is improving.
With the phone fixed, we take a walk on a nearby beach, eat lunch, drive to San Jose with a stop at fruit vendor that has some fruits I have never seen before. We tried two, one absolutely delicious, one meh.
In San Jose my father drops me off at the central bus terminal from where I will take a bus to Siquirres and sleep before making my way to the Pacuare Reserve tomorrow to volunteer for a week. Will I see jaguars? Hopefully, stay tuned to find out!
Costa Rica was not what either me or my father hoped for, but it was a great road trip nonetheless. It was also great not being alone, but now I’m back to solo traveling. I have about 2 months to go before I will return to Sweden, and soon the real hiking begins.