The bus rattled and whirred as it swung around the winding one-lane road up the mountain at speeds that made my heart pound furiously. Trying not to look at the thin and winding road that we were rocketing up, I stared out the large window in awe at the lush, tropical greenery that covered the mountainside.

Occasionally, I would recognize a flower or plant that we had learned about from our tour guide earlier that day, but most of it was foreign to me and we were moving too fast to really be able to see.

Next to me, my mother was as absorbed by the view as I was. She had won the trip to Costa Rica as an award for high performance at her job, and she had decided to take me with her so that we could have some “girl time” together in a new place, and I couldn’t be happier to be in such a beautiful country.

It seemed like everywhere I looked there was some kind of life, whether it was plant or animal. We had already seen ten different species of hummingbird and a coati rummaging through the garbage like a raccoon. We had yet to see a sloth, but everyone we spoke to said it was only a matter of time and that they were impossible to miss. I had been trying to identify some songbirds and insects using a field guide Mom had bought, but they were all so fast and strange that I hadn’t had much luck, though the ones I did see were beautiful.

Our bus came to a wheezing halt in a small parking lot surrounded by forest. Our guide had told the tour group that it was a cloud forest we were visiting, meaning it was tropical and frequently shrouded in fog. I could hear birds chattering in the trees, but the woods were so dense that I couldn’t see far past the very edge of green.

The couple on their honeymoon disentangled themselves from one another and people all around started to shift out of their seats and mosey towards the door. My mom and I grabbed our bags and started down the narrow aisle, excited to finally get to go on a hike after the hour-long and nerve-wracking bus ride up.
When the entire group had assembled outside, the guide faced us with a grin.
“This is an active volcano we are standing on top of now,” he said with a grin and a strong accent. “You have the opportunity to explore without a guide. There are two paths you can follow when we get into the woods: the first is a shorter loop and will take you back here in forty minutes or so, the second will take you a longer way, and you should be back here in an hour and twenty minutes. The longer loop is very steep, but certainly doable. You should all be back here in two hours, which should give you plenty of time to admire the beautiful wildlife of Costa Rica! Any questions? No? Great, go ahead and get started!”

The small crowd dispersed and gradually trickled into the cloud forest, chatting with each other excitedly. Some stopped almost immediately to take photos of themselves or some odd looking plant while others hiked quickly along the path, so people were fairly spread out and there wasn’t too much crowding on the narrow trail.

Mom looked at me uncertainly.

“I assume you would like to do the longer loop,” she said after a moment.

I nodded. We only had five days here, and I wanted to see as much as I possibly could in that time.
Mom still looked uncomfortable.

“I’m not sure I can make it the whole way. The guide said it was steep, and I haven’t been exercising at all lately, so can we wait and see what I feel like I can do when we get to the split?”

I was confident that my mom was completely capable of making the whole trip. Our guide had said it was doable, and he must have been used to plenty of people who were out of shape coming on his tour. All the same, it was Mom’s call about whether or not she thought she could do it in the amount of time we had to make it back to the parking lot before the bus left to take us back home.

I agreed, and we set out on the thin trail that led further into the dark cloud forest.

It was incredibly beautiful. The trees grew in such a tangle that it was impossible to tell where one plant ended and another began. There was all the greenery that one would expect to see as we made our way on the little dirt path, but it was surprisingly cold. I pulled my jacket closer around me, glad that my mother had insisted that I wear it. The low layer of mist was there, just as our guide had said, which made it somewhat difficult to see far ahead of ourselves.

After about ten minutes of walking and taking pictures of the beautiful mountainside, we came to the split in the path. We were in a large clearing full of tourists that looked out over the volcano’s crater. Finally managing to jostle our way up to the railing for a good view, we could see a huge hole filled with blue-green water that was letting off large amounts of white steam. When the wind blew in the right direction, we could smell sulfur.

I had never seen a volcano before, much less an active one, and the sight was breathtaking. I kicked a pebble accidentally, and watched it skitter down the side of the crater, across the rocky side, and stop just before the pool. There was little life on the rocks, just some moss, and it contrasted greatly with the cloud forest that covered the sides of the volcano. I thought that it was incredible that most of the mountainside was home to hundreds, if not thousands, of different species, but that this relatively small portion was almost completely barren.

We spent a good amount of time marvelling at the top of the volcano, but then fell back to let another family see.

This was where the trail went off in two directions. A wooden sign pointed out the different paths and gave the distances of both. The longer one was three miles. So far, the scenery had been wonderful, but everything had been mostly flat. The altitude was enough that we were starting to huff and puff, but my mom and I were both feeling pretty good, and I was truly hoping that Mom felt alright enough to go on the longer loop.

Visitors clamored for a spot to see the crater, reminding me of a bunch of over-crowded seals on a small beach, and I nearly didn’t hear my mother when she spoke.

“I feel like I could do the longer trail,” she said, pulling her phone out of the back pocket of her cargo pants to check the time. “We still have an hour and thirty minutes until the bus heads off without us, so we should be okay, I think.”

I was delighted, but I wanted to make sure that she really wanted to go and wasn’t trying to make a sacrifice for my sake.

“Are you sure? I’m perfectly willing to take the shorter path if you would prefer,” I said, trying to make myself heard over the voices of the others.

Instead of answering, Mom just grinned and started going off down the trail marked as the longer one. Smiling, I stepped off into the forest again behind her.

At first, everything was essentially the same as the route we had used to get here. Then so gradually that neither of us realized, the road got steeper and steeper. Soon, the path was so uphill that some kind soul had installed a railing to grab onto for balance, or in our case, haul ourselves up the mountainside with.
A little old lady in a red coat and a sun hat passed us like we were standing still, which we almost were, and scrambled up to new heights like a mountain goat. My mother and I watched in awe as she kept walking as if on flat ground.

“Maybe we need to take a break,” I said, gasping.

Hastily, my mom agreed, pulling over to the side of the steep trail. It was impossible to really regain our breath in the thin air. We were so high that moving very much at all sent us into another round of huffing and puffing.

My mother was having a worse time of it than me. Her forehead was slick with sweat despite the cool temperature, and of the two of us, she was the more red in the face from climbing.

“I think I might have to turn back,” she said reluctantly, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes with one hand and fanning herself with the other. “It’s just so hot and miserable, doing all this hiking, and I don’t want to miss the bus because of a hill. Sorry….”

I assured her it was fine if we had to go back down to the shorter path, but I must have looked dejected because a moment later Mom decided that she could go just a little bit farther, but that if the route didn’t start going downhill soon we would head back in the opposite direction.

I was enthusiastic about this plan and started up the trail again, pulling myself quickly along the railing, occasionally looking back over my shoulder to see if my mom was still behind me.

Mom seemed determined to make it the rest of the way, and she didn’t stop again. Mist drifted across the dark dirt path in front of us, so it was impossible to tell how much further this trail went uphill.

After what seemed like an eternity had passed, the two of us came to a flat, rocky landing where we paused for a moment.

Birds cawed and called out to each other, hidden from view by the dense foliage. Frogs sung out in deep voices. Everything sounded so different, so much richer than it did in the suburbs of New Jersey.
My mom and I listened in silence for a while, just appreciating the beauty around us before beginning to walk again.

We readied ourselves, preparing for another grueling climb, but instead discovered that the trail led back downhill. As far as we could tell, we had reached the top and shouldn’t be going up again anytime soon. Clearly relieved, Mom let out a sigh.

“I’m just glad we’re through with that hill!”

I smiled and led the way down. Without worrying about how much longer we could stand going up such a steep incline, it was much easier to appreciate the smaller details of the cloud forest, such as the strange, arching patterns that some of the tree’s roots made and the countless shades of green that the plants boasted.

Finally, we made it back to the parking lot where our bus waited, just as we had left it.

The guide gave us a wide smile, telling us that we were among the first people back. There was only one other elderly couple who had made it here before us, and they had taken the shorter route.

“The long trail wasn’t so bad, eh?” the guide asked with a cheerful grin. “You just have to know to keep going when it gets a little tough.”