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Published: October 21st 2015
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Nicaragua to Costa Rica and Panama.
With an early start we left the comfort of our fortified hotel in Granada and headed for the border with Costa Rica. The ride was uneventful until the border where we first of all had to exit Nicaragua, it was stinking hot and everything was done at windows with the people inside with Airconditioning and us out there in the heat.
The entry into Costa Rica was just a matter of formalities and finding our way to the stamp in our passports and on our papers to temporarily import our Motos.
We chose not to use the Carnet system as they have moved on from that silly costly system over here and just issue you with a 30 or 90 day temporary import document. We have to buy some insurance in most cases.
Costa Rica was a nice change, the people were very helpful and made our entry the best of the trip so far even though we spent three and a half hours there (mostly in Nicaragua)
During the ride to San Jose, Gerardo wanted a photo of the sign that said Puntarenas as he lives in Punta Arenas in southern Chile, also we
stopped for a couple of photos by the see, this put us quite far behind the others and we were running out of daylight. There is really no dusk here, once the sun goes down or the black thunder clouds come in, it gets dark very fast.
As the others left the freeway for our hotel, there were two other headlights there, assuming it was Gerardo and me, but they turned the other direction at the next intersection........What could they do but to go directly to the hotel that Trev had managed to find on his GPS.
Meanwhile,Gerardo and I had completely missed the turn off to the hotel and we finished up in down town San Jose. Gerardo went to a restaurant to ask directions and finished up getting hold of Doenitz, our friend that lives here, we met him in Anchorage while he was riding his Ducati and he had organised the hotel for us. He said he would meet us at an off ramp on his VESPA.
About now the plan gets way outa control as Gerardo sees a fellow on a Honda, makes some sort of connection in Spanish with him and we follow him??? After
quite sometime this fellow just tuned off....Bugger. I then said to Gerardo that it was Not a Vespa we were following!!!
We then get off the motorway and back on to get back towards San Jose and look for Doenitz on his Vespa. Meanwhile the others were all the hotel wondering where the hell we were as like an hour and a half had gone by since they had arrived.
So, as we ride back down the motorway and payed more tolls, I spotted a red Vespa and we were reunited with Doenitz for a guided ride to our hotel.
After a well earned shower we had a very pleasant meal with him and his friend, Rodolfo and a good catch up on each other's travels.
San Jose to Punta Bellina.
No pressure today as we left probably the best hotel that we have stayed in so far around 10.30 am for our ride to this 'Resort' in Punta Bellina,well we get it right mostly but this was pretty basic.
On the way we took a mangrove boat tour and hand fed some White Face Monkeys, I really enjoyed that as it was our first real contact with the locals....
We arrived with our wets on to a thunderous welcome but not a lot of rain.
Very basic cabins set in a mountain side with views to Pacific. Had a nice dinner outside at the hotel. Into bed by 9.00pm.
Costa Rica to Panama
We were away by 8.00am in fine hot but dry conditions. We arrived at the border at 9.00am.
Leaving Costa Rica was no problem and lucky for us we at least could park the bikes in some shade as we went from window to window getting stamps and paying our exit fee.
We were out into Panama by 12.45pm and arrived at David around 2.30pm which changed to 3.30pm.
The ride from David to Panama City was 458km of mixed terrain including some nice mountains and jungle close to the road.
We left our hotel at 7.00am and rode on 150 kms of motorway construction and arrived at our hotel around 4.00pm in 35 deg and 99% humidity. I was soaked with my own sweat.
The phone GPS took us somewhere silly in the city,but we got a security guy on a motorcycle to take us to our hotel.
We have two nights here before we
catch the boat that will take us to Cartagena in South America.
So cheers for now. Rosco
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Monkey's abound
Nice one