Costa Rica

Fiery Billed Ari Cari

first night camp near Bijagua near Volcan Tenorio

waterfall wet

ahh, hotsprings

Volcan Arenal

Chris relaxes by the pool...where the heck are we and where are we going?

The first thing we noticed as we crossed the border into Costa Rica (other than the cop that stopped us) was how green everything is! A great ride down the Pan American Hwy. and then east towards Parque National Tenoria where we spent a night in the bush (tons of neat birds and it was neat to wake up to the ungodly howls of the Black Howler Monkeys (they make the King of Beasts sound like a wimp). A rough 14 km ride into the Parque and a neat hike into a set of waterfalls and more importantly hot springs! The hot springs are part of a beautiful river and its nice to be able to hop from the hot water into the cold river water.

A great ride on secondary roads through some beautiful country to Volcan Arenal and the tourist trap called La Fortuna. Spent a day hiking around the Volcan (not very impressive from within the park but I found a fantastic view point outside of the park and even got to ride down a river) and watching huge rocks roll down the slope. Brought back memories of being a kid...only thing is that the rocks needed to roll into some trees etc. to really create some damage. Here they just roll down into more rocks, still...very impressive watching house size boulders bounce hundreds of feet at a time! From La Fortuna we spent a long day on the road getting to Orosi (basically all in the name of missing San Jose)...some really nice scenery and as usual the riding is great with virtually no traffic and a lack of signs just to keep things interesting!!! (Yup we got lost a few times!) Orosi is a neat little mountain town and we spent a few days exploring and ended up riding to the top of Volcan Irazu. Kind of dissapointing as I thought we were going to get some challenging riding but it's blacktop all the way to the top! None the less some nice scenery but fog and cloud prevented us from getting much (like any!) view into the crater which contains a neat little lake.

Leaving Orosi we ended up taking some unintentional extra roads through Cartenga but finally got our bearings and headed over the mountains via the Pan American Hwy to San Isidro. This is a really neat road as it passes through some fantastic cloud forest and with a rain falling we actually started to get cold (like where are my fingers cold!) Stopped at a real neat eatery on the road which is a bird lovers paradise...hundreds of gorgeous humming birds that had me running through the bush snapping photos! At San Isidro we headed towards the coast and HEAT and HUMIDITY...the kind that kills us Canucks! Free beach camping and we have this fantastic huge beach all to ouselves (after a park ranger caught me riding the bike down the beach...I pleaded ignorance...until he pointed to a sign directly behind me which (in English) said "no driving on beach..10.000 Colon fine") This place looks to good to be true and it is...after a gorgeous sunset the bugs come out and the winds dies down...canucks sweating in a tent! Went for a hike in a private park and saw toucans but no sloths! (Our "Lets Go" guidebook says "sloth laden trails"...but we know they lie!!!

After cooking for a few days those gorgeous beaches do look nice and we checked out a few just to swim, but its back to the mountains for us and the town of San Vito via a very cool, curvy, steep dirt and broken blacktop road. Checked out the famous botantical gardens which were full of Agouti's and the brightest colored birds (out with the camera) and one vicious rain storm!

Next on the agenda is back to the coast and the village of Pto. Jimerez which lies about 80 km off the Pan American Hwy via dirt roads. A very cool ride across some "interesting" bridges and it looked like were going to make it into town early...then...a flat tire in the mud. Man I sweated a gallon swapping the tube (snake bite) but made it into town just as a torrential rain storm hit...one wet one for sure! We were planning on a three day hike down a beach but the insane heat, rain and potential problems with bike security had us decide to head into Panama. Adious Costa Rica...you are nice BUT way to commercialized for us!

Scary Stuff

- a roadblock in Mexico manned by young guys with homemade spike belts across the road and black hoods and ski mask like things over their heads. They were stopping other people, but just waved us around. Thank you! What was that all about? I wasn't going to stop and ask....

- at a counter in an internet cafe in Honduras, a woman with 2 kids about 10 years old. The kid on one side holding her hand and playing with her pockets, the kid on the other side spinning an automatic pistol around on the counter. Where did that come from?

- Guns, guns everywhere - AK47 and sawed off shotguns slung over peoples shoulders so casually, like they were briefcases. At least they usually don't have their fingers on the triggers....

- a huge stingray in Utila on the Bay Islands Honduras - about 4 feet across with a huge big long stinger. Thank goodness it was stirring up lots of sand and digging a big hole so we had warning it was there..

Nicaragua

Granada and Lago Nicaragua

Chris's fishing buddies on Lago Nicaragua

enjoying the sun at Laguna Apoyo

Okay, here goes my rant about UPS and Granada - we have been in this lovely city for 8 days now - about 5 days longer then I would have liked. I thought it went 'stranded in Honduras'.... I suppose there are worse places to be stranded, but enough is enough and I am ready to get back on the road. After Chris dumped his camera and lens in a mangrove swamp in Honduras, we set about replacing it. (He has been hard on cameras this trip!) Thank you Terisa for sending us down his old camera body via DHL - 3 days later it is here. Another story for the lens Chris ordered from Leo's Camera in Vancouver- supposed to DHL it down too, but in their infinite wisdom sent it UPS instead. Eight days later it is still not here. Starting with holding the camera for 3 days in Richmond, and now it has finally landed in Managua, Nicaragua, but we are in Granada. It is to be here tonight at 7:00 - keep your fingers crossed. To add insult to injury, there are $110 worth of brokerage and duty charges on top of the $175 cost to expedite ship it here.... At this point, we would be happy just to see it. Possibly able to blast off tomorrow morning..
Have been to Isla de Ometepe and Laguna Apoyo while we've been here - would have been nice to spend most of the time at Apoyo, but needed to be here because the lens was coming at any time (so said our 20 phone calls back and forth to UPS in Managua)- enough about that. Heading to San Juan Del Sur tomorrow hopefully, then on to Costa Rica. San Juan Del Sur was a nice break from the dry arid areas around Lago Nicaragua and we had a great time exploring some local beaches and enjoying the cool ocean water. We decided to try to take a back road to the border crossing into Costa Rica but with crappy maps (that none of the locals could read) and even worse Espanol we ended up lost and had to backtrack to the border. The winds off Lago Nicaragua were insane and thousands of swallows were feeding on bugs (that made a cook pizza on our goggles) and it was neat riding through a solid mass of birds (didn't get one!) The border crossing was easy but I think we found a new record for having to check in with different offices etc. as it took 13 stops to get out of Nic and into Costa Rica! No problem!

On the way to Isla Ometepe, Lago Nicaragua

Volcan Masaya - smokin' hole in the ground















Sandinista tank

Hiking in the cloudforest at Selva Negra

Matagalpa, church at town centre

Honduras

rainforest

last night camping in Honduras & where Chris dropped his camera overboard>

We faced the Honduras border crossing with a little depredation as we have heard that it is one of the more problematic (and expensive) crossings. Thanks to Lori and her “quasi” Spanish we avoided a bribe from the Guatemalan officials (exit fee) which they finally laughed at and said “next time” (kind of upset the tourists that had already paid the fee!) The Honduras crossing was no problem at all and we got through for 30 bucks each (bike fees) vs. the 60 some previous MC riders told us about. Our first stop was the Copan Ruinas…supposedly a must see on the Mayan ruin tour. Yes it was kind of nice but sure didn’t match Palenque or Tikal. The big difference with these ruins is that there is a lot of detailed rock carving and lots of large Cieba Trees (national tree of Guatemala) as well as Scarlet Macaws.
The next day we got to see about 350 KMs of Honduras and it can be best described as lush and green! Impressive cloud covered mtns. and lots of pretty streams and rios (rivers). They have had torrential rains lately and lots of mud slides dot the hillsides and sections of road as we pull into La Cieba (which happens to be the hub for venturing out into the Bay Islands…Honduras number 1 tourist destination) La Cieba was a bit of a gong show and it wasn’t until dark that we found a hotel near the ferry terminal and guess where we had dinner. Yes…a “Booger King” and it was the first Burger King that I have ever seen with an armed guard…those Honduran whoppers are valuable! (About the same price as Canada and even taste the same) The next day we hopped the ferry to Utila (one of the Bay Is.) and spent two days getting out butts cooked and taking in some fantastic snorkeling (Lori says the best we have ever seen and I have to agree!) So many gorgeous fish, fantastic coral and rock formations (makes you want to have an underwater camera….talking of which…I dropped my Nikon FM2 and super wide angle into a mangrove swamp we were exploring by kayak. No more camera for me but I am hoping that Terisa will pull through and DHL my spare to Nicaragua. (I can hear Dan-O moaning about me and the cameras…and maybe he is right as this is number two for the trip) We also saw a huge sting ray (3-4 feet across) which was kind of cool…definitely looked like a Crocodile Hunter type killer!
Today we hit the road to Parque Muralla…Lori’s travel guide raves about the place…only place in the world where the rare Quetzals actually group and hang around the camp site…fantastic hiking etc. Well, after over 100 kms of awesome dirt road (fantastic mountain scenery and fun riding) we arrived and the place is completely shut down…nothing (which is neat in its own way!) at all exists anymore and there are definitely no Quetzals hanging around the visitor centre! However this is our first night in a cloud forest and it is neat…lots of birds calling from huge deciduous trees and it is nice and cool out. I think it is going to feel great to get back into the tent and cook over the stove! Tomorrow we will see what some of the trails look like…but this is true jungle and my first excursion into the bush makes it appear that we will not be walking too far! Until next time…

Funny Stuff

So here we go with some of our misadventures......
- Chris rode out of a gas station in Southern Mexico with his coat on top of his load and not tied down. A truck behind Lori ran over it as she pulled oper to retrieve it, and in one fell swoop, the truck crushed his digital camera, sunglasses, reading glasses and walkie talkie. (Now hows that for efficiency?)

- We rode bad roads outside of Panajachel, Guatemala (around the lake and up the mountain)..... we are talking steep day! The longest 100kms ever..... Even shattered her windshield for good - thank you for duct tape.... She really look like a rolling wreck now.

- Lori still had problems kick starting her bike - could do it, just not consistently, but then she managed to snap the decompression release cable so now can almost never start it (at least a good excuse for Chris to have to do it-poor guy!)

- Chris dumps his camera and lens overboard from a kayak in a mangrove swamp on the Bay Islands in Honduras (not funny was the epic trying to replace everything)

- Lori gets stopped twice in a row by the same police officer at the same police check in Nicaragua (once coming and once going) and the second time couldn't find a flat enough spot to put up the stand and dumps the bike on its side (for about the 20th time this trip) This time the police only asked for her insurance - probably figured she was going to need it.....

Guatemala

We entered Guatemala at La Messilla – a bit of a gong show. The main road through was closed off with people setting up their market goods so we took a side alley that ended in a steep uphill and Lori stalled her bike and tipped it over at the top of the hill because she was afraid that she would run into people. A couple of big Guatemalan guys came to her rescue and lifted the bike up for her. Then we proceeded to customs and immigration and all went through uneventfully. Headed then for Panajachel on Lake Atitlan where we spent a couple of days (after Chris got lost in Solola). Pana is major gringoville so really easy (and correspondingly expensive). Nice for a couple of days. When we left, took a back road around the lake and over the mountain and Lori managed to drop her bike 5 times that day (and did in her windshield once and for all). The backroad trip we took around Atitlan and over the mtns. was fantastic…a tough ride (on us and the bikes) but it showed us another more rural side of Guatemala. Some really interesting boulder roads and another road made entirely of interlocking bricks.
Then we headed for Montericco on the Pacific coast. Loaded the bikes on to a flat bottom scow and cruised through the mangroves to the town and black sand beaches. Went for a mangrove tour out of Montericco using a poled boat…had to get up at 5 (so Lori said forget it) and saw a lot of different types of birds and not much else.
Then we turned inland and headed for the Honduran border and the ruins of Copan. (Took a wrong turn and nearly crossed into El Salvador, but Chris’ quick thinking saved us)
Surprises – Guatemala is cleaner than Mexico…(other than the diesel burning crates that spew out huge clouds of black smoke on any hill…I had to laugh as I saw Lori attempt to pass a bus and completely disappear in clouds of black smoke several times before giving up.
Prices in Guatemala seem to have about doubled for virtually everything since we last visited in 2000…but the place looks a lot more prosperous and that is nice as the people are great! (still cheaper than Mexico)
Lots of tourists in Guatemala…especially from Europe. (We still have not run into any MC riders that are completing the SA/NA trip….a bit of a surprise!)