Costa Rica

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Sunday 18/11/12 – After spending some time trying to communicate with the ‘hotel’ workers young child, and a strange conversation with a man wielding a Mormon bible, we left town and rode towards the mist covered volcanic mountains. We had packed all our valuables into the bottom of our panniers as we knew we were heading into some remote areas and thought we might be at risk of some phony roadblocks. However after some time we started seeing tourist buses and rental cars everywhere. We disappointedly followed the rest of the map-wielding gringos all the way to the city of La Fortuna which is nestled under a picturesque volcano. The town is named ‘the fortune’ as a huge eruption in 1968 destroyed most of the jungle and villages around the volcano, except La Fortuna. Looking around my head was spinning: to the east was a beautiful volcano with jungle and mountains stretching for over 100kms, and to the west was a 20km zone of dense sky-rise hotels and bars (and even a Burger King) and then more jungle and mountains off into the distance (is it really necessary to have bars and fast-food joints out here in the middle of nowhere? I guess I can’t be too critical as I am a tourist here as well). We found a hostel with a gated entrance to park the bikes; whilst manoeuvring the bikes in, I added a purple gate-coloured stripe to Kenz’s bike, right next to the still fresh orange wall coloured scrape. We then organised a hike around the base of the volcano; they don’t let people up the volcano anymore as too many people got killed by eruptions and land-slides. We watched the sunset over the volcano (now a recent habit of ours) and spotted plenty of wildlife such as toucans and the multi-coloured red eyed green tree frog. We then went to some hot springs which were fast flowing rapids at over 35⁰C and watched the iguanas lying in the trees above the water. At one point, an older lady (from San Diego on a trip for her 65^th birthday) lost her footing and was swept away over a rapid, which fell about a metre down to a concrete slab. Amazingly she stood up and was fine, we all thought she was dead when we saw her go over the edge!



Monday 19/11/12 – We spent the day relaxing at the hostel and walking around the lively town. We visited a few curios shops and poked our heads into the local cathedral – both were thoroughly underwhelming. We finished our boring and unimaginative day by cooking some boring and unimaginative pasta in the hostel kitchen.



Tuesday 20/11/12 – We managed to navigate the bikes around the small courtyard, through the hostel gate and out the drive way with no damage to the buildings or bike. We then headed out towards the mountain town of Monteverde, well known for its wildlife, adventure activities and awful roads. We eventually rode the 110 kms between the cities in just over 4 hours of gruelling rocky and muddy mountain tracks. Most of the people driving cars were having a great old time sliding and slipping around in the mud – unfortunately on a bike the experience was equally exhilarating but much more dangerous and nerve racking. We used all of our mad bike skillz and made it all the way through the mountains, and then Kenz dropped her bike in a huge pile of mud only a few minutes from our destination. Technical riding like today’s really requires intense concentration on such large bikes, you become exhausted quickly and end up doing silly things and dropping the bike. We brushed Kenz and her bike off and rode into town much to the admiration of all the other travellers who conquered the road in their Jeeps and Landcruisers. The whole town was swamped in misty rain that was being blown horizontally by the roaring wind meaning that there was no shelter outside and you were immediately wet everywhere at once. We somehow managed to navigate the steep town roads, find a hostel, strip off our wet gear and snuggle into a warm room. After our 4 hours of terrifying adventure we decided that a leisurely tour around the local serpentarium and insectarium was a great way to unwind. We also went to check out their frog displays in the evening as this is when the amphibians are most active. We got to see many of the beautiful frogs and toads that are native to Costa Rica. My favourite was the Cane Toad (yes the ones that were introduced to Australia), they were kind of ugly and had some curious behaviour like burying themselves in holes and then popping back up again.



Wednesday 21/11/12 – Last night I had strange dreams of old men lining up to piss on me. All night the rain would hit the roof of the hostel and run off right outside our window into a huge puddle. Every gust of wind would make the noise stop for a few seconds making it sound just like an old man trying to pee with a swollen prostrate. On this occasion it ‘was the stuff that dreams are made of’, but I hope not to have those dreams again…

With the sound of pissing ringing in our ears, we stumbled out of bed before dawn and headed out for an early morning hike through the local forest reserve. We met up with a guide who took us around pointing out the various trees and birds along our path. We stopped to watch numerous hummingbirds feeding from the artificial feeders hanging in one particular tree. The walk was a good start to the day but we were disappointed not to see any larger animals, and of course the sideways rain never let up.

After our hike we went to go zip lining at an adventure park – it was an amazing experience. There were 12 zip lines that criss-crossed through many huge trees and over a large canyon which was shrouded in mist and rain. There were plenty of short hikes in between platforms and some of the zip lines were over a kilometre long and hundreds of metres from the ground. The final zip line was really long and they strapped a harness on your back so you hung like superman for over a kilometre. Because there were clouds and mist everywhere it actually felt like you were flying high up in the sky. There was also a huge tarzan swing and a very high rappel. Whilst Kenz was suiting up for the rappel, I told the instructor she was a bit of a daredevil and wanted to go as fast as possible (as a joke), but apparently he took me seriously and he let her free fall for most of it. After 1 panic attack, 1 castigating tongue-lashing and 15 more minutes had past, she finally started talking to me again; I spent the whole time with an apologetic grin on my face. After all the excitement I still wanted more, so in a regrettable moment of madness I signed up for their 143 metre bungee jump. The most frightening part of the experience was being wheeled 500m out over the canyon on a small platform which was swaying in the wind. The weather was so bad there was nothing but clouds around the platform which made the whole thing even scarier. I steeled myself, checked the bungee was attached, buttoned-up my top button (to stop shit pouring out around my collar) and jumped. There was a very long head-first free-fall through clouds before I cleared them and suddenly the ground was right in front of me – it was extremely unnerving!



Thursday 22/11/12 – We spent a lazy day inside the hostel chatting with other travellers and watching the insane weather attempt to beat-up the city. For the evening we went on a night hike in the nearby forest reserve as we had heard it was a good way to see some interesting wildlife. We were placed in a group of 12 people (8 of which were freaks who shouldn’t have be allowed to leave their own mothers birth canal, let alone their own country), one of whom was gazing at the half-moon fixatedly before asking the guide what was in front of it and why wasn’t the whole moon showing (yes I am serious). She was around my age and didn’t know about the visible stages of the moon or its position relative to the Earth and our sun; I only hope she was from a huge city were the moon is always covered by clouds or smog! With a torch in my hand and expectations like a prostrate midget, we walked into the foreboding forest. Almost immediately we came across a coati which is a mammal similar to a racoon; the name is a local native word which means ‘to be alone in the world’, for some reason the term struck me as beautiful. I quickly realised that the quality of local wildlife around me was thankfully not proportionate to the quality of travellers viewing them beside me. We got to see a beautiful orange-kneed tarantula, a viper coiled in a tree in its attack pose (apparently waiting for a bat to fly past!), heaps of colourful birds sleeping in the low branches and thousands of leaf cutter ants in long lines criss-crossing the path carrying huge leaves back to their nests. For most of the night I seemed to have this Asian man walking so close behind me he was always treading on my heels; a few times he got so close that a certain appendage near his waist snuggly prodded me in a certain special place near my waist. Being at the same time surprised (and a little worried) at how easily those pieces fit together, and being enraged that my wildlife experience was being destroyed by knuckle-grinding morons, we finally spotted some two-toed sloths in the tree which made the whole experience worthwhile. Fortunately one of the sloths was low in the tree and only a few metres above our heads; and stunningly she had a young baby sleeping in her arms. A few times the baby poked its head out to gawk at us, and the mother would stare at us and yawn – it was amazing to see in the wild.



Friday 23/11/12 – For some reason every time we have a big day of riding ahead and we rise early to hit the road, people seem to swarm to us wanting to know all about us and the bikes. True to form and after a few such conversations, we left the town of Monteverde behind us. Luckily the road out of town to the south is far superior than the road into town from the north. This means that everyone uses this road and they typically drive ‘Central American Style’ (in truth they drive with almost no style, but either almost totally ambivalent to anyone else on the road, or with the speed of a thousand gazelles!) We enjoyed the great view of the mountains in short glances whilst battling not only the locals and their lorries, but the never-ending wind tearing at us from the north. After we wound down from the mountains and onto the plains it was a fairly uneventful journey, we rode past many beaches along the Pacific coast and pulled into the small town of Rio Claro near the border with Panama.



Saturday 24/11/12 – I woke up feeling about a year older than I did yesterday; maybe it was because it was my birthday?! After being surprised with breakfast in bed (the usual horrible smashed up muesli and warm UHT milk) we rode the short 30 kms to the Panama border. By this point we have crossed many borders, we could almost say that we are getting pretty good at it, but this border was the worst yet. Why is it that the people who are employed in positions that require maybe one or two simple skills are not only totally bereft of those skills, but also of general competence??? After the customs official spent 30mins incorrectly typing out our one page information, she then spent 20 mins scratching her head as I clearly told her I wasn’t Austrian, the bike behind me wasn’t green, I didn’t have 2 K’s in my last name, Mackenzie’s first name wasn’t William, and Kenz’s VIN was incorrect. We ended up re-writing all the information out on the page and handing it back to her so she could spend another 40 mins re typing the ~100 words out correctly. The amazing thing is she wasn’t looking for a bribe – she was just incompetent. It would be like having a lifeguard who couldn’t swim, or a carpenter without any hands. The whole process took over 3 hours to complete, most of which was spent sitting around or waiting in queues. Eventually we managed to get everything in order and we rode into Panama on a fantastic road that deteriorated after just 40 kms, a shame as its only 442kms short of Panama City.

We pulled into the city of David (no, not the one in Jerusalem) and stopped at McDonald’s to celebrate my turning 31 over an icecream cone. On my birthday I usually contemplate in a melancholy manner about how another year has passed and how little I have done or how little I have changed from this time the previous year– but this didn’t happen today! Instead I sat there enjoying my ice-cream perplexed at why so many Panamanian men wear purple. With my question not answered we rode onto the city of Santiago and stayed at the 2^nd most expensive of the two hotels in town (the other was $70!). At this point of the trip when we are faced with staying in a brothel to save $50 – we jump at it! So I spent my 31^st birthday in a dingy brothel run by two Chinese women. It was probably the worst place we have stayed in: it had a dirty old padded bed head above a gigantic bead that could have easily slept 5 people; the shower was basically a hose poking through a hole in the wall; there was a powerpoint and a light switch in the shower down near my ankle; there was anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls along with the typical banal scrawlings of or about phalluses; and to top it all off their were phone numbers for girls called Rita, LaRenna and Roslyn written on the sheets in pen. It definitely wasn’t the classiest birthday I have ever had, but it certainly is the most memorable!

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