Excited to find and pedal new cycling routes in the mountains of the Tambor and Paquera sector, in Puntarenas, Heart Akerson left his house in Finca Playa Los Vivos, to embark on one more adventure, the one that never ceases to seduce him at 75 year old.
Without imagining that the challenge that he set for himself would lead him to have to sleep in the mountains, leave his bicycle abandoned, after being lost for more than 30 hours, until he left the Jicaral sector, about 70 kilometers from where he began his journey and which will never forget.
Heart Akerson is the father of Rom, a national triathlete and Xterra world champion in 2018. Extreme sports lovers in our country recognize Heart for his peculiar way of competing, whether in cycling races or athletics events, such as the traditional Cross Country of El Chirripó.
That tall man with white hair and beard, it is common to see him riding his bicycle at mountain bike events; with his helmet, without a shirt, with a pair of denim shorts, his shoes and a knife at his waist. While in Chirripó he runs barefoot the 34 kilometers of ascent and descent from the San Gerardo de Rivas sports plaza to Base Crestones.
A curious personality
That adventurous spirit that Rom, his eldest son, inherited, often means that he does not worry about the challenges that his father imposes on himself, although he is always aware of his health and the routes, since he is clear that a fall in the mountains can be dangerous and that he has to be careful at his age.
Precisely last Wednesday, January 11th, Rom received on his phone the crossing that his father would make the next day, as in recent months. Exploring new trails and trying to find new personal challenges.
“Dad started plotting new mountain biking routes, using the GPS. He studies them and then sends them to us on the phone so that my brother, my mother and I know where he is going, in case of any eventuality”, commented Rom.
Heart, who has lived in Costa Rica for more than 40 years, and is a scientist by profession, left his home on Thursday, May 12th, at 8 a.m. m and according to the GPS he would travel about 60 miles passing through La Guardia, Vainilla and a small town called Santa Rosa, all in the Tambor sector.
“What dad didn’t know is that that little town, Santa Rosa, doesn’t exist anymore, it’s just a mountain. At around 8 at night, mom called me and told me if she knew anything about dad. I got worried and we tried to locate him, but there was no way, his phone had no signal. It was not until 1 a.m. on Thursday that we received a signal from his GPS that placed him in the mountains, so we were concerned,”said the triathlete.
Rom indicated that his father goes out twice a week to ride his bike and sometimes he arrives late, because he has a mechanical problem or he stays in the mountains, but he had never been away for so many hours.
“He is an adventurer, a person who likes the outdoors and knows how to survive. But because of his age (75 years old), I was worried that something had happened to him. That he suffered a fall or was hit hard and could not get out of the mountain. That was what worried me,” Akerson said.
“At dawn on Thursday I traveled part of the way on an ATV, to a river, then I took my sports clothes and tennis shoes to go to the mountain. I started running to find the last point where the GPS signal was. I traveled 18 kilometers, but there was no sign of him. I looked for another sector and there were only vines and mountains. It was impressive, no one had passed by and there was no sign of him,” he recalled.
Hours passed and Rom could find no sign of his dad, or his bike. He began to despair, he searched in other sectors and there were no traces that would lead him to where he was.
“I ran back to where I left the ‘block’. I tried to search the cherry trees or the most dangerous places, but nothing. At about 3 in the afternoon a call came to my phone, where they informed me that my father had left the mountain and was in Jicaral. There he asked a person to take him to the town center and charged his phone to communicate,”added Rom.
And the bike?
After competing in many events, Heart Akerson knows what it’s like to be in the mountains of Costa Rica, so he learned how to survive. That is why he spent the night awake, moving very little and trying to find his way home.
“Dad told me that he wasn’t scared, that he was just awake because of the mosquitoes and to avoid some animal. It had a signal until about 1 in the morning, until the phone’s battery ran out. As soon as the sun rose, he got his bearings and began to walk looking for the river. I knew that sooner or later, following the riverbed, he would come out of the mountain,” said the eldest son.
“When we found him he was fine, oriented, although tired from the walk and because he had slept very little. So I told him “dad let’s go home”, and he replied “And the bicycle?” It’s still on the mountain. I asked him to rest one day and the next we went to look for it,” he added.
Rom relived the same odyssey with his father. They entered the mountain at about 10 a.m. and they started trying to track the bike. Heart Akerson told him that he left it next to a wire fence, but no matter how hard they looked, they couldn’t find it.“Look at the place where my dad got into! They were vines, trunks and a lot of bushes, virgin jungle. We carried machetes and ropes, because that was the only way to get in there. I walked until the fence he told me about was finished and the
Excited to find and pedal new cycling routes in the mountains of the Tambor and Paquera sector, in Puntarenas, Heart Akerson left his house in Finca Playa Los Vivos, to embark on one more adventure, the one that never ceases to seduce him at 75 year old.
Without imagining that the challenge that he set for himself would lead him to have to sleep in the mountains, leave his bicycle abandoned, after being lost for more than 30 hours, until he left the Jicaral sector, about 70 kilometers from where he began his journey and which will never forget.
Heart Akerson is the father of Rom, a national triathlete and Xterra world champion in 2018. Extreme sports lovers in our country recognize Heart for his peculiar way of competing, whether in cycling races or athletics events, such as the traditional Cross Country of El Chirripó.
That tall man with white hair and beard, it is common to see him riding his bicycle at mountain bike events; with his helmet, without a shirt, with a pair of denim shorts, his shoes and a knife at his waist. While in Chirripó he runs barefoot the 34 kilometers of ascent and descent from the San Gerardo de Rivas sports plaza to Base Crestones.
A curious personality
That adventurous spirit that Rom, his eldest son, inherited, often means that he does not worry about the challenges that his father imposes on himself, although he is always aware of his health and the routes, since he is clear that a fall in the mountains can be dangerous and that he has to be careful at his age.
Precisely last Wednesday, January 11th, Rom received on his phone the crossing that his father would make the next day, as in recent months. Exploring new trails and trying to find new personal challenges.
“Dad started plotting new mountain biking routes, using the GPS. He studies them and then sends them to us on the phone so that my brother, my mother and I know where he is going, in case of any eventuality”, commented Rom.
Heart, who has lived in Costa Rica for more than 40 years, and is a scientist by profession, left his home on Thursday, May 12th, at 8 a.m. m and according to the GPS he would travel about 60 miles passing through La Guardia, Vainilla and a small town called Santa Rosa, all in the Tambor sector.
“What dad didn’t know is that that little town, Santa Rosa, doesn’t exist anymore, it’s just a mountain. At around 8 at night, mom called me and told me if she knew anything about dad. I got worried and we tried to locate him, but there was no way, his phone had no signal. It was not until 1 a.m. on Thursday that we received a signal from his GPS that placed him in the mountains, so we were concerned,”said the triathlete.
Rom indicated that his father goes out twice a week to ride his bike and sometimes he arrives late, because he has a mechanical problem or he stays in the mountains, but he had never been away for so many hours.
“He is an adventurer, a person who likes the outdoors and knows how to survive. But because of his age (75 years old), I was worried that something had happened to him. That he suffered a fall or was hit hard and could not get out of the mountain. That was what worried me,” Akerson said.
“At dawn on Thursday I traveled part of the way on an ATV, to a river, then I took my sports clothes and tennis shoes to go to the mountain. I started running to find the last point where the GPS signal was. I traveled 18 kilometers, but there was no sign of him. I looked for another sector and there were only vines and mountains. It was impressive, no one had passed by and there was no sign of him,” he recalled.
Hours passed and Rom could find no sign of his dad, or his bike. He began to despair, he searched in other sectors and there were no traces that would lead him to where he was.
“I ran back to where I left the ‘block’. I tried to search the cherry trees or the most dangerous places, but nothing. At about 3 in the afternoon a call came to my phone, where they informed me that my father had left the mountain and was in Jicaral. There he asked a person to take him to the town center and charged his phone to communicate,”added Rom.
And the bike?
After competing in many events, Heart Akerson knows what it’s like to be in the mountains of Costa Rica, so he learned how to survive. That is why he spent the night awake, moving very little and trying to find his way home.
“Dad told me that he wasn’t scared, that he was just awake because of the mosquitoes and to avoid some animal. It had a signal until about 1 in the morning, until the phone’s battery ran out. As soon as the sun rose, he got his bearings and began to walk looking for the river. I knew that sooner or later, following the riverbed, he would come out of the mountain,” said the eldest son.
“When we found him he was fine, oriented, although tired from the walk and because he had slept very little. So I told him “dad let’s go home”, and he replied “And the bicycle?” It’s still on the mountain. I asked him to rest one day and the next we went to look for it,” he added.
Rom relived the same odyssey with his father. They entered the mountain at about 10 a.m. and they started trying to track the bike. Heart Akerson told him that he left it next to a wire fence, but no matter how hard they looked, they couldn’t find it.
“Look at the place where my dad got into! They were vines, trunks and a lot of bushes, virgin jungle. We carried machetes and ropes, because that was the only way to get in there. I walked until the fence he told me about was finished and the bike was gone. Then I ran in the opposite direction and nothing. The bike did not appear. I also tracked it down in some sour cherries and nothing”, Rom recounted.
“In the afternoon at about 4 p.m. m. We found it deeper than where he said, on some bushes. Already tired and hungry we started to walk back. My dad was going slowly, calmly and happy because we found his bike. Coming out of the mountain, late at night, he told me that he needed these adventures and wants to compete again. He is like that, brave and loves adventure”, sentenced the proud son.
