27-Nov-2009

After repairing the damage to the best of my ability with the quality tools I had (broken piece of 2x4, and bent rusty nail) we are on the road again. Just a short distance to Costa Rica, the right way this time. I think I am either getting used to, or numb to the border craziness. We got into Costa Rica in about an hour and a half, no probs. We are in the mountains again. Ya know, we have never really left the mountains, not even since Price, at least no more than you are out of the mountains by being in the Salt Lake Valley. I really did not expect that. We are both beat and don't make it very far. I pick this great hotel in a town called Esparza. It had large pets (cockroaches that would scare a medium size dog), a nice neighborhood (right next to a hall that had some kind of rockin' school party till about 3 am), simple to use shower (one handle, all cold), and an air conditioner that could almost get the room temp below 80. I think I'll let Nick pick the hotel next time.

28-Nov-2009 4793 Miles

Got up early, fear of death by cockroach mostly, and called into the radio show again. I think they are having fun with that. Of course the story they wanted to hear was the crashing bikes on a mud road in the middle of the night in the pouring rain. With potential dictators, contra-rebels, and jaguars(furry kind, not the shiny kind).

Another great day of riding. We go through San Jose and head for the Pacific again. It is 83 degrees when we get up, but we have some high mountains, rain, fog, mist to deal with today and it got a little cold. I'm sure I'm not gonna get any sympathy from the Utah contingency but my bike said it was 52 degrees. And in the pouring rain it felt pretty cold. So the temp went from 82 to 52 and back to the mid 80's by the time we got to the pacific ocean again. Lots of rain today. After we reached the coast I looked at the map and we had been up over 9000 feet elevation. That was a wild ride down. I got ahead of Nick and stopped to wait for him and 2 guys came out and started talking to me, they were Americans living in Costa Rica and had the little coffee shop there. So we stopped and visited with them for a while. Great guys, they sure could make the case for living in Costa Rica. I think the town was Pinuela, but I could be wrong. If you guys read this, you can correct me and post your website in the comments. I want to check out this pics, and maybe someone who reads this will stop by.

We carried on about another hour and a half to the border town called Cuidad Neily. We will hit Panama manana.

Have I talked about potholes. Well, I've never really seen a pothole till today. Appearing suddenly out of what seems like a perfectly good road are these holes that seem to go to infinity. I'm sure they have a bottom, but you'd need climbing gear to get there. I know you think I'm kidding but through one pothole over a bridge I could see the river below. These are wheel bending, throw you over the handlebars kind of potholes. Hitting them was not an option. So we didn't, but it took some work.

I wish I could have gotten some pics of the roads we were on today, but I figured that if I couldn't see them then the camera probably wouldn't pick them up either.