rediscovering great falls

We wanted to hike Billy Goat A at Great Falls - accessible only on the Maryland side, but we were so engaged in conversation that I didn't even notice when my phone's map sent us to the Virginia side.

Growing up in Georgia, I was relatively far from other state borders. We had to work to get to somewhere else. My mom would honk the horn when we would cross the border into Alabama or Florida, Tennessee or South Carolina. We'd holler our hoorays. I always felt this bubbling excitement of the unknown. Like crossing that state border would show me something so special I couldn't even imagine it yet. It always filled me with that mix of excitement laced with a tinge of fear of the unknown. To this day, it's the feeling I crave most.

It still isn't ordinary to me that I cross from DC into Maryland or Virginia with such ease and frequency. They're all right there, practically on top of each other. At Great Falls, you can literally wade from one state to another. You can accidentally end up in Virginia when you meant to go to Maryland. And if you want to fix your mistake? It's less than 20 minutes.

Maybe that's a reason why I feel so at home in DC - it's a place that isn't a state, it's neither here nor there, neither Virginia nor Maryland, Yankee nor Southern, but in so many ways, it's the epicenter of America - at least in my nerdy, political, international affairs world. It's a place where there's always something new to discover.

(I'm not sure where that tangent came from, but it felt good to write. Do you ever just feel good writing? It doesn't even matter what comes out, it just feels right to say it all.)

I love Great Falls, and this hike with Jess rejuvenated my soul. That sounds so crunchy, but damn if it isn't true. I haven't been hiking in far too long. Zan and I did some good walking in Costa Rica, but it wasn't the same. I need that nerves on edge, heart pounding, lick my lips and all I taste is sweat, kind of hiking. And I need a view that makes me want to sit and stare and think and be grateful for everything. In the past few years, I've overlooked Great Falls for mountains and bigger peaks and more expansive views. But sometimes the best view is what's in my own backyard that I've left untouched for too long. This was one of those days and one of those hikes.

I'd never seen the Great Falls themselves - in nearly four years of living in this beloved city. Isn't that crazy?

I'm so glad we went to the wrong state. It was the right hike. Standing up there on those rocks, looking over the cliff to the river below, I was excited with just a tinge of fear. The best way to be.

If you're interested, we started near the Falls and made a loop that combines the Patowmack Canal, Matildaville, and River Trails.

costa rica day 6 | the caribbean coast

Today, Zan and I had one of the best experiences yet on this trip. There were caves and coral, reefs and waves, jungle and ocean. And all it cost us was the price of bus ticket.

"All this fun for $2," I joked to Zan while we slid through mud and carefully stepped over tree roots in bare feet. "I feel like I won Costa Rica!"

I have been obsessed with how expensive Costa Rica is so it really did feel like a victory...

We slept until 7:30, the latest of the entire trip. We had a lazy morning reading in bed (ahem, looking at our phones), before an equally lazy buffet breakfast at the hotel. There were homemade banana pancakes that were divine. We decided to take the 9:45am public bus out to Manzanillo, a small fishing village and beach town with a large wildlife refuge about 10 miles from Puerto Viejo. The bus showed up at 10:15 -- everything really does run on Caribbean time!

Zan had been unsure if he wanted to go to Manzanillo, but one of the very friendly hotel convinced him, more so than I could. I had read about an 8km hike along the coast to Punta Mona nad wondered aloud to her if it was safe (I also read about a robbery on the trail), if we could do it alone, and if we needed to hike the entire way. Excitedly, she pointed to a spot on our map of the area, saying it's only a 2-3km hike to reach a stunning lookout point and to see a giant rock that has become the iconic image of Manzanillo and this portion of Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. I had read about caves along the hike and hoped to find a few of those, too.

Finding the trail was easy; the path that ran through town essentially ran into it. A Dutch couple introduced themselves, and the four of us hiked together. It had rained the night before, and the trail was slick with mud. We all had to use our hands - and lend hands to the others - for leverage at the steepest, most slippery parts. The trail ran along the coast, with the sound of the waves on one side and verdant, overgrown jungle on the other.

We reached the lookout quickly, and it was every bit as beautiful - and even more - than we'd hoped. The giant rock emerged from the ocean floor after an earthquake in 1991, and now it stands about 20 feet tall in the ocean, waves lapping at its base and spray shooting several feet in the air. We gingerly stepped on the spiky coral rocks at the lookout point to see the view from every direction.

The trail led us to several more beautiful areas, most of them deserted beach coves. The last one we went to had an enticing alcove of coral and heavy rock, and I climbed up to explore. The Dutch guy joined me and saw a nearly hidden entrance to a cave, only accessible by leaping over a foot gap in the rocks, jagged rocks and ocean below. The cave was wide and high, easy to walk in and around. Looking up, there was a natural skylight, but the beams were so bright I couldn't glance up for long. The view from inside looking out - at the waves bouncing off the geometrical rock formations, was extraordinary.

After exploring a while longer, we hiked back to town and found a simple stretch of beach to enjoy for an hour or so before lunch.

The woman at the hotel had recommended a reggae restaurant named Cool and Calm Cafe. Walking around town to find it, we heard it before we saw it. Andy, the owner, is a Manzanillo native, Caribbean to his core. The outdoors cafe is funky and as cool and calm as the name suggests, with a menu featuring fresh fish caught locally and Caribbean chicken. Zan had fish tacos, and they out with fried fish piled so high he had to eat his way down to the tortillas. The Caribbean chicken was flavorful, and I finally experienced rice cooked in coconut milk, a local favorite. It was our most expensive lunch yet, at $30 for the two meals and some guacamole and chips to start. (The guac and chips were $7, and literally there were 13 chips. Counting chips is a sign of mental instability, I'm sure, but seriously, were we in Costa Rica or San Francisco?!)

Stuffed to the gills, we spent a few more hours on the beach before catching the 4:00pm bus back to town.

That night, the rains we were told would drench our entire trip, came. I don't know how we lucked out with such fantastic weather, but that night the rain came down so hard it was as though the sky had been holding it in all week and couldn't any longer. It was deafening, and I lay in bed listening to it for hours, or for at least as long as I could keep my eyes open.

For dinner, we went to Marco's Pizzeria at the far end of Puerto Viejo. Marco has a wood-burning oven sitting outside and standing right there, amidst a handful of tables and the sound of crashing waves, he rolls the crust and delicately applies toppings. His pizza isn't just good for Puerto Viejo or Costa Rica, it's comparable to - or better than - the best I've ever had. And I'm a certifiable pizza snob. We raved about that pizza all night and for days after.

After dinner, we wandered a few hundred feet up the dark road to The Point, a sports bar Zan has wanted to check out since we were in DC researching this trip. We chatted with expats, including a woman from California who came to Puerto Viejo to teach yoga for four months after being laid off from her job. I'm drawn to people like her - ones that choose the unexpected paths and take the risks and live big. The "ones who are mad to live," as Jack Kerouac so perfectly said.

Puerto Viejo is a lot of things - expensive, surfer's paradise, a party town - but mostly it's a haven for people looking for a new life, a healthier life, a life filled with more reggae music than buzzing phones. There was the expat who told us he and his family moved down here to have more time to put family first. And the one who turned her back on a cushy corporate job to find herself. And the couple who heeded the irresistible call of the jungle and now dedicate themselves to protecting native wildlife.

It's a hippie town, full of vegan, raw, and vegetarian restaurants, yoga studios, and weed. I have complicated feelings on Costa Rica from this trip, but I understand wholly, in my soul, how a traveler planning to pass through Puerto Viejo ends up calling this beautiful place home. 

a hike in rock creek park + transitions

All of the greatest experiences in my life have required me to adapt. To be uncomfortable until I know nothing else. To find joy and contentment in my initial discomfort. Living abroad was certainly that way. I didn't know how to eat with chopsticks when I arrived in Japan, let alone how to speak to my neighbors in Japanese or even how to work the washing machine. Every day there was a new challenge to tackle. Until suddenly, it all felt commonplace, comfortable, my new normal.

The same with going to school out of state. And taking my first solo trip. It was to Mozambique after a girlfriend bailed on me. I was scared out of my wits when I got to the airport and had to figure out how to get to my hostel. In the end, that trip lit an eternal flame in me for adventuring by myself, and for finding my way into - and out of - crazy situations.

Right now I'm going through it with living with Zander. We've planned and worked for this moment for a year, and now that it's here? It's uncomfortable and strange. How much food do we buy for two people? Do I have to watch another car/fishing show? Do we do our laundry together or separate? I'm so fiercely independent that the walls of that small one-bedroom apartment feel like they just don't have enough air sometimes. But I know with a little patience, and a whole lot of trial and error, this will become my new normal, too.

The same was true with adopting Theo. In fact, maybe more so than any other decision in my life. Adapting to his schedule, planning walks, skipping happy hours, hiring a dog walker, playing endless rounds of fetch, training him -- it didn't come 100% naturally to either of us. But now our routines are so intertwined that I don't need to set alarms anymore because he wakes me up at the exact same time every morning. And without thinking, when I get up from the couch to use the restroom or get a glass of water, I open the back door for him to go outside. As I brush my teeth in the morning, it's second-nature to pour him a cup of food.

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen a few of these pictures from a recent hike Zan and I took with Theo. Mr. Man (one of Theo's many, many nicknames*) is spending the summer (or at least a month or two) with my mom in Georgia until Zan and I can rent his place and find one of our own that allows dogs. It's a weird transition. My space feels awkward without Theo there to share it with, to insert himself right at my legs, or put his head on my lap, or to walk by my side in the woods.

It's strange, and it's awkward, but it's the right choice for right now. I thanked my mom for the billionth time the other day for taking care of him when she already has a dog and several cats and a bird (a zoo!) to take care of already, and she said, "This is what family is all about."

Before Theo made the long car ride down to Georgia, we took him on an early spring hike in Rock Creek Park. It looked like a gray day with clouds that threatened rain, but on the trail everything was golden, more like early fall than a persistent winter. It was a fairly easy hike, but Theo laid down in every puddle of mud he found, every pond he could stand in, and chased every stick Zander and I threw. That dog is seriously the joy of my life, you can't tell, right? He and Zander and some golden woods, and I am the luckiest.

A lot of things in my life are in transition right now. I'm leaving my job in less than a month to start an internship on Capitol Hill. I'll be in graduate school full time for two years after that. Zan and I have to move again in a month or two. Zan and I are making big decisions and asking big questions about what our future will look like now that my career is decided (and decidedly nomadic).

Many things right now are up in the air, but I know for a fact that I'll always look back at this time as one of the best of my life, uncomfortable transitions and all.

We hiked the 3 mile Northern Loop in Rock Creek Park. Check out Active Life DC for hike details! 

*Theo's other nicknames: Baby Bear, Pumpkin, Mama's Boy, Little Man, Munchkin Man, and Theodore (generally reserved for VIP guests and/or when he's ignoring me). Never, ever Teddy.

the ridge hike | remote andes mountains, ecaudor

I trembled as I straightened my legs. I inhaled deeply, and I caught myself thinking that I could really die up here. As though my fear were a pesky fly buzzing nearby, I shook my head to shoo it away. I placed my hands on my thighs, took in another deep breath, and willed my legs to stand tall and to please god stop shaking. I balanced one foot in front of the other; the trail was too narrow to stand with them side-by-side. The not quite foot-wide trail dropped precariously off on either side. It was sheer cliffs down either. For a moment, when I finally rose to my full height, for one minute the danger gave way to the sight of verdant mountainsides and downright breathtaking scenery. At somewhere between 11,000 - 13,000 feet in the air, with mountain peaks that shrank beneath me, and a heavy sky weighing down on top of me, I felt like I'd reached the top of the world. Like I was standing on the very point where earth and sky meet, and were that the case, I can promise you that it's a sight to behold and worth the death-defying climb to reach it.

Zan bellowed from 40 feet below me, his voice stricken with fear that camouflaged itself as anger. HOW MUCH FURTHER?

My legs started to shake again. I'd taken in the view, and for that one instant of total clarity, my fear had receded, but his voice brought me back into the moment, the physicality of our situation, the responsibility that weighed on me. In search of where the trail led, I made the mistake of looking down.

I'm not afraid of heights. I love the feeling of flying while barreling down a 100 foot drop on a roller coaster, and I learned to rock scramble just for the thrill of jumping off cliffs 30 feet above swimming holes below, but this. This was a different sort of height. To my right, the drop was vertical. To the left the drop was vertical. And all that was between me and those vertical drops was this narrow dirt path and the wind, that was unfortunately picking up.

I pulled the hand drawn trail guide out of my jacket pocket. I unfolded it carefully; it seemed like every move I made in those few moments was calculated, was exact, was more cautious than I have ever been. My heart raced trying to read the map standing on this ridge. I reminded myself that Edmundo, the owner of our guesthouse, had discovered this hike when he was 8 years old. Eight. If he could do it then, I could certainly do it now. And then I thought that 8-year-old feet were much better suited to this sort of thing and got flustered all over again.

But I read and re-read the guide.

You will squeeze through a gap in the rocks and come out on the other side of the mountain. I flashed back to the narrow crevice we'd crawled through 20 minutes earlier. Check.

The path splits, with the left heading downhill. Take the less developed path on the right... We'd seen that and gone right. Zan had been leading at that point. We pointed it out and checked it off the map. But early in the hike we'd thought we'd finished one instruction, and we hadn't. We had to retrace our steps. What if we turned the wrong way?

Continue on top of the ridge. Well, there was no doubt we were on the ridge.

Once you get to the plateau, keep along the left edge. What plateau? I couldn't see any end in sight. The ridge was just a balance beam of dirt.

I thought about turning back. Could we scale down the ridge? That seemed as dangerous as moving forward. I read back through the guide and went with my instincts: we had followed it correctly, and this path would - it had to - eventually come out to a plateau.

I moved onward.

Zan, terrified of heights, followed behind me, yelling ahead every few minutes to ask about my progress, what I could see, and for the love of god to stop taking pictures!

I couldn't. The thrill of the ridge hike paralleled my fear, and every time I found large shrubbery to grasp onto or a skinny rock to squat nearby, I took the opportunity and  kept snapping photos.


I repeatedly told Zan I was stopping to catch my breath and that all was fine, and the trail was great to keep encouraging him to move forward and to stay calm. The truth is that every 10-20 feet I re-read the guide, prayed a little that the plateau was ahead, and tried to swallow the pit in my stomach.

At one point, I laughed at the handwritten note at the top of the guide, Warning: If you are afraid of heights, you may not enjoy this hike. So much for that!

Five minutes later, out of nowhere, the ridge emptied into the plateau. It was a large, open area covered in beige reeds and spindly shrubs. Zan fell to the earth and lay there recovering, practically hugging the security beneath him. When we had reached the ledge, he could have asked us to go back, he could have said absolutely not, we don't even know that this is the right path, and I'm terrified of heights, but he stayed on the ridge. And I think that when you find a person that will walk across a foot-wide trail to stand on top of the world with you, that you have everything you'll ever need.

My legs finally stopped shaking, and the adrenaline-laced euphoria eventually subsided until my heart beat normally again. The rest of the hike was less harrowing but only the tiniest bit less beautiful.

When I look back on Ecuador, it's the ridge - that moment of nothing but the sky and the earth and me, and the adrenaline of hiking a tightrope trail - that fill me with every feeling I could ever feel. That hike... every traveler searches for that hike. Every traveler has those few and far between experiences that, like an addictive drug, keep you exploring to the ends of the earth for another.

15,953 feet on cotopaxi volcano

I cried when we reached the shelter at base camp. I'd gone into our hike on Cotopaxi volcano thinking that the altitude would make it tougher but not that much tougher. We'd only be gaining 1,000-1,500 feet of elevation while hiking, and that should be nothing for me. I didn't anticipate how hard the altitude would make every step.

We reached the dirt "parking lot," where our bus let our group out to start the ascent, and I knew something wasn't right. I was the tiniest bit dizzy, my stomach the tiniest bit topsy-turvy, and my vision felt out of sorts. I felt off, and I felt it immediately. I slowly drank some water, trying to mentally calm down. I took in breaths slowly, hoping it was just nerves and the anticipation of the altitude more than the altitude itself.

Zan and I started hiking and found ourselves squarely in the middle of the pack. The guide told us if we reached base camp with enough time, we'd hike up to the glacier. We all wanted to see the glacier and picked up our pace. Even with an accelerated pace, we weren't moving quickly.

Within 10 minutes, I slowed down to a snail's pace. I would take three or four steps and need to stop to regain my balance and clear my sight. I was breathing hard and the dizziness came and went in increasingly stronger spells. Zan told me to turn back more than once. At some point - about halfway to the refuge, I started to agree with him. I knew I'd regret turning back; I'd always regret turning back. On the other hand, altitude sickness is very real and scary. I kept taking a few more steps. And then stopping for a slow sip of water and to reconsider. Step, step, and reconsider.

And then it began snowing. The trail turned from black volcanic ash and rock to pure white in a matter of minutes. The snow came down like hail, pelting us on every surface. We shielded our faces and talked through the storm. By that point, I felt nauseated. We'd long ago lost track of the majority of our group. Through the storm, we couldn't see anyone ahead of us or behind us. We walked and stalled like that, getting colder by the minute, until a group of three men, not with our group, rounded the switchback and neared us.

"You're only about 10 minutes from base camp," the guide said, pointing to a blanket of white in the distance. Clouds and the snow obscured our sight of camp, but it filled me with hope and renewed determination. Ten minutes with the long switchbacks meant we didn't have much more to gain in elevation.

We kept on like that, with Zan encouraging me, reminding me to take it slower. My biggest problem was starting out with a burst of energy, which exacerbated my headache and other symptoms. Hiking so slowly I didn't think we'd ever make it, we rounded the switchbacks one by one, until finally, the refuge came into view.

We climbed the last small hill and stumbled inside, desperate for warmth and tea. Tears pooled in my eyes. The feeling of accomplishment overwhelmed me. After a few cups of coca tea, my body started to adjust a little better, and we went outside just long enough to watch the snow storm end and the clouds break the tiniest bit. The entire volcano was covered in white.

We were standing at 15,953 feet on one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. The descent was straight down and we half walked, half slid down in the snow, the whole group re-energized from the break and the view. We weren't able to make it to the glacier because the storm made conditions hiking further up dangerous, but by then none of us cared.

We rode back down the volcano on mountain bikes; Zan was the first one down, and I was the second to last. I slowed for potholes and bumps in the ash road, and meandered to the side about 100 times to take pictures.

We booked our day trip to Cotopaxi on a whim and the recommendation of another traveler the night before. Like most unexpected things when I travel, it was a highlight of our trip.

if you go...

day trips run about $65 with a reputable group, English-speaking guide & lunch

it's doable independently - look up bus times from Quito & be prepared for freak weather

a great guide for climbing cotopaxi on the cheap

wear: hiking boots, layers, wicking & waterproof, gloves, hat

it's possible to climb to the top of Cotopaxi, but it's a technical hike with crampons & other gear

about 2-3 hours from Quito