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!
