Cerro de La Muerte, Costa Rica — We awake with the sun at 11,500 feet, the highest point in Costa Rica. Below are the silent distant twinkling lights of a city. As the crow flies, the Pacific lies 25 miles to the west. The Atlantic is 50 miles to the east. We sit astride a narrow band of land that is the isthmus between North and South America. Aside from a passing hummingbird, few animals can be found. But alpine flora abounds in this windswept cool blue habitat, only slowly thawed by the graphic reds of morning warmth. Shadows reveal the drops of melting ice from the previous night. We understand the perils for the tropical traveler here. This hill is known as "Cerro de La Muerte," the Mountain of Death, because many unsuspecting voyagers have been lost over the centuries.