TRAVEL GEAR FOR JUNGLE HIKING

Packing light was the name of the game with our G Adventures trip to Costa Rica.  As the name of the tour implies, “Trek Hidden Costa Rica”, we spent most of the tour on foot and on the move.  After a day in the capital of San Jose and a day in the nearby small town of San Isidro, we headed deep into the Southern Costa Rican Rainforest and we were instructed to pack out a bag with only what we needed for our 3-day homestay with families in the jungle.

Our main bag remained under lock and key at our San Jose hotel and I purchased the Crumpler duffel to use as my transportable, into-the-jungle bag because of its small size, light weight and clean design.  G Adventures hires porters for many of their treks and I was originally under the impression that someone else would be carrying our bags up the mountainside – so when I realized that I would be carrying my own bag for 8 miles, I had a moment’s hesitation thinking that maybe I had selected the wrong bag and should have brought a backpack. However, most duffels can easily become a backpack by simply slipping the straps over your shoulders, so that’s what I did and off I went into the rainforest.  The bag turned out to be a blessing as it sat on my back with space between the bag and my back, so I had a wee bit of ventilation which was greatly appreciated as the climb became hotter and more arduous.

I was concerned about leaving our passports locked in my bag at the hotel but did not want to carry them into the jungle for fear that they would be ruined by all the water that we were exposed to on the trip, so I purchased two soft Travelon travel wallets, one for me and one for my daughter.  The wallets fit easily into our front pockets and each wallet had a place for cards, cash and a copy of our passport.

My best purchase for the trip to Costa Rica was the Vapur water bottle which folds flat when empty, is easily refillable at any convenient waterfall and has a carabiner which allow you to hook the water bottle to your belt for accessibility.  The water bottle stayed attached to my waist when I jumped out of our whitewater raft to swim ashore for lunch.  Swimming over to a nearby waterfall to fill the bottle before swimming to shore for lunch remains one of the fondest memories of my trip. –Claire, November 2014