The spread for breakfast surely involved some variation of beans and rice, toast with cheese, mango and papaya, and a ridiculously good salsa that I can only hope to replicate.

We walked down the hill to the community center and got a quick orientation to the trail we’d work, and possibilities for our afternoons and off day. Then more walking, all downhill, through beautiful countryside, to pick up tools stashed at a farm close to the trailhead, and the final stretch to the fledgling trail we’d help mature over the next week.

There wasn’t much trail to clear before the stream. It was fast-flowing and knee deep with a precarious-looking log over part of it. To avoid the bottleneck and perhaps in consideration that I was carrying a camera, and a pick mattock I didn’t want to skewer myself on, I plowed through the water and hoped my boots would dry in the afternoon sun. Some waded barefoot. Others summoned courage to cross the tiny slightly-submerged stalk of tree as the locals stood in thigh-deep water with knee-high boots prepared to catch anyone that might tip in. We collectively held our breath for Jenna (with cameras poised), and she made it across just fine. But it was obvious that the bridge, which would only ever be temporary, was a bottleneck to getting us lemmings where we needed to go to build trail.

We gathered at a nice big rock at a bend in the trail for lunch.

How was the trail route decided? Well, the start point is near the community and the end point was where the feeder trail adjoins the Sendero Pacifico backbone, but the path in between was a work in development. There were some neat features like the flat-topped stone platform we basked on for lunch, and a couple large ficus trees–landmarks the trail should run past. But beyond that it might have been preference of terrain and chance. I’m sure some chaos theory was at play—the locals wanted to leave a favored tree in the middle of the path, while in another spot the chain-sawed out a large root rather than divert the trail even a couple feet. I guess that’s what I love about nature, and as much as we think ourselves “above” its chaos and more structured, maybe we still yield just a little to its unpredictable course. The trail wasn’t much different from a mountain stream; the “why” of its existence lays out its basic route, but its twists and turns and pools and waterfalls and dispersal of heavy boulders seems so random within the plan. So while the course was marked with connectable tape dots, and a corridor roughed in through the vegetation, as we collectively carved and sculpted our little stretches of earth, the passage took a slightly varied course from anything any one individual envisioned.

I have to wonder if this trail is much more significant in the grand scheme of life than the endless trails the leaf cutter ants made. Their paths crossed ours several times. They hoisted irregular little edible cutouts in an endless parade of green sails.

After lunch I started tearing out the unstable rocks near the stream, with a perhaps over-ambitious thought of throwing them into piles and making little islands for crossing. Alas, I quickly realized the water was too deep and the rocks too small and insignificant, so I switched my focus back to clearing the trail. We called it quits early afternoon, stashed our tools, hiked and rode to the community center where we got the rest of the history and vision of our project, then fought our way through pelting mist uphill in the constant presence of a rainbow. And I think there was gold at the end, just not the kind on the periodic table.

Back at the coffee farm, wet and tired, we changed into comfy clothes and relaxed over freshly brewed coffee before an early dinner.

The fluffy white ball of canine love attached itself to Jenna for the evening.

The men who’d contemplated an electrical engineering experiment with an un-grounded wire over the dinner table and a grounding source across the room by the sink were disappointed to discover it had been finished while we were out working the trail.

And since Jenna really did pack everything but the kitchen sink, to include solar panel chargers and a hair dryer, we could dry our boots!