Hike to Chirripo and back

Before I even start saying anything about my hike, I must say: Go do this. Even though you are not a hiker, even though it might feel too hard...Go for it. I promise you won't regret it and you will definitely fall in love with Chirripo.

So I arrived to San Gerardo on Tuesday because I wanted to do my hike to Chirripo on Thursday. I came here two days before the hike because I didn't want to rush things (buying food etc.).
I decided to do this two day hike after I came to Costa Rica so of course I didn't take any warm clothes with me here (seriously who needs a sweater in Costa Rica). Luckily I read from my guide book about 'Casa Mariposa'. It said that this hostel will lend warm clothes and some other things for the hikers. So I booked a room from there and I must say that I am glad that I did. The hostel is perfect. Extremely beautiful, perfect location to do the hike (only 50m away from the park entrance), staff is excellent and I really did get to borrow warm clothes and some other things I needed for the hike.
The only 'bad' thing is that it's quite far away from the bus stop so it feels forever to get there especially when you have your huge backpack with you.

When I was in Montezuma I heard from a guy who had done the hike before that it will be horrible (but worth it), it will rain, you will sweat like crazy, you will get super cold, it will take about 10 hours to get to the basecamp, there's no hot showers there, you definitely shouldn't do it alone etc etc. So I got a bit freaked out. I was expecting the worst. I was expecting it to be horrible and too much for my level of fitness.

Luckily I got myself a friend to do the hike with! She came to the hostel the same night as I and we were both happy that we didn't have to do the hike alone.
So we started our hike 5 am on a Thursday morning.
And it was horrible.
Terrible.
I am not a hiker. I definitely am not in a good shape. I definitely wanted to walk back after I saw the first '1 km' sign.
But I kept going because I am not a quitter (and I had already paid for everything sooooo...).

So there's three horrible points where you think you can't do it anymore and it feels like you are in hell and you surely keep thinking why the hell you ever decided to do it.
First one:
Your first km. When you start you feel like the first 1 km sign will never come. You keep going up and up an up and it feels like it never ends. And when you finally see the 1 km sign, all you can think of is 'what the hell, did I just do ONLY 1 km'. Yes..horrible.
But eventually your body will get used to the hike and it will become almost not exhausting hike (you even start enjoying it).
The second one:
Km between 8 km to 9 km. I swear to God it MUST be fucking way more than 1 km. There's is no way it is only 1 km. You just keep on going up and up and up and up and up and you have no idea when you will see the 9 km sign and you start saying to yourself that it will get better after 9 km (it really doesn't). I really have no good things to say about that part. It's pure horror.
Third part:
 Your last 2 km before you get to the crestone basecamp. Before your last 2 km you have hiked down. Way too much down. After 11 km you start hiking down. And you really don't want that. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO GO UP! And you just know that you are fucked. Eventually you WILL have to go up. And steep. So when you are on your last 2 km you will have to walk up. And steep. You feel like you just want to curl up to a fetus position and cry (okay you might not be that dramatic hah).

But the hike all the way up to the basecamp is so beautiful. So beautiful that you forget from time to time how your legs are killing you and how it's so hard to breathe. And eventually you will end up to basecamp (we did it less than 6 and half hours woopwoop!) and everything has been worth it. My legs hurt so much that I was 100% sure that I couldn't walk the next day. But tadaaaaaaah the next day my legs didn't hurt at all!

So the next morning we did the actual hike to Chirripo to see the sunrise. It's only 5,1 km away from the basecamp. To see the sunrise we woke up around 2 am and started hiking 2:30 am. The hike there is absolutely beautiful. The sky is full of stars and you can't believe you are seeing it. Absolutely stunning starry sky. I have never seen such a beautiful night sky (I know I am repeating myself).
The hike is actually nice and quite easy. The most difficult part is the last km when you have to hike up to the Chirripo. It's steep and pretty dangerous so make sure you have good enough light with you.

And then you are there. And it's absolutely gorgeous. If for some reason I wouldn't have seen the sunrise it still would have been worth it. The starry sky all up from Chirripo was so beautiful and breath taking that I didn't want it to never end. And little by little you start to see the sun come up and it's even more amazing. Beautiful. Stunning. Words can't explain. So beautiful.
It was so freezing cold up there and I couldn't feel my fingers but everything was totally worth it.

Then we started to walk down. Around 7.30 am we were back at the basecamp and at 8 am we started to hike down from there. I was so looking forward to it! All that hiking up and up and FINALLY I can just leisurely walk down. It was so nice. For the first half part. After 8 km it's pure agony. You start feeling the pain on your knees so badly that it's impossible to walk fast. Every km feels further and further away. You want to stop. You start wondering if it all was worth it. You start hating your life. The pain on the knees are too much. You walk and walk and walk. And you cry inside. You just want it to stop as soon as possible. You want to stop and never move again. But after long long walk down you finally see the exit and all you can think about is how amazing it will feel to take nice and hot shower.

And I did all that. All that agony. All that pain. Saw all that beauty. And it was all worth it. Every part of it.
We also got lucky with the weather because it didn't rain at all.
Now I am just enjoying my time after nice shower and wondering where else should I hike to.
Maybe Everest?