Hugh Trenchard

Looks like I have a little time to write one final post here before I leave for the airport in a couple of hours. This last day here is a nice warm sunny one, moreso than yesterday, Christmas day. Yesterday, I finally made it to Puntarenas, a coastal town located on a narrow spit ten kilometers long, and barely a kilometer wide. It is largely an impoverished old fishing town, with a ferry terminal that crosses to the Nicoya region of Costa Rica. There is a fantastic beach that runs along much of its 10km length.

Here is a photo of the farthest western tip of Puntarenus, and the road that rounds it.

…and looking out into the ocean, a flock of pelicans that seemed to float in suspended animation as they drifted by.

Puntarenas is about 70km from here on the road that I took, 140km round trip. There are a couple of other routes, but they were either longer or on busier roads. So, I chose the one with the very difficult 11km climb on the way back in. I was not looking forward to the climb on the return, but it was the price of admission to that region and the best roads for a cyclist to travel on. I was relieved when I finally hit the top of the climb and could relax with a few km of descending back into Atenas, marking my last ride in Costa Rica.

It was a relatively cool day here, and I was able to enjoy a relaxing afternoon reading and chatting with the hotel owner over my ¨Christmas dinner¨!

Now, after a half hour easy run and a nice breakfast in the warm morning sun, I have but a couple of hours remaining in Costa Rica. While I am looking forward to returning to Victoria, and I sense these last weeks will carry me nicely through to Spring, I think it may not be long before I begin to long for the warmth and sunshine again!

Hmm, well I just lost several paragraphs of a post I was just writing. Oh well, here is the abbreviated version. This may be my last post before I return to Victoria on Thursday.

Yesterday I enjoyed a longish run of 1hr 35 mins around Atenas roads and backroads. I was feeling a bit bonky right from the start, and needed to stop at a store for some fuel. But it was another great Costa Rica run.

Today, despite a lot of accumulated fatigue, I rode 89km, through towns and villages in the Atenas region. It is no exaggeration that half of this distance was climbing, and much of it up very steep grades where I was proceeding no faster than 10 to 12km/hr. So, 89km under these conditions amounts to a difficult ride. I have definitely noticed improvements in fitness, and all these hills, despite being slow going and requiring an intense effort, have been feeling really quite good; there seems to be no hill that can defeat me, and there are a lot of very steep ones around. There is definitely a sense, however, that one would like just to do a 100km or so on some nice flat roads for a change!

Here are a few misc photos.
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Sometimes, traffic is forced to stop because of Brahmin cattle herds…

And occasionally you find roads that are nice to ride on and are completely deserted. Like this one, which is gated off between main roads, but provides a nice main highway underpass. The only people I saw on this connector road were three mountain bikers.

Or you pass over bridges under which flow waters you might find anywhere in BC…

And then when you have been riding up and down arduous climbs all morning, you get near home, and you see off in the distance the smoke rising from the garbage dump down the hill near your hotel, allowing you to locate it off in the distance, to the right of the photo, quite nicely.

And finally when you are home and showered, and you look at the size of your cheekbones in the mirror, you know three weeks of riding and running up and down the hills of Costa Rica has sucked off some fat from your body…

Well here we are. Two more days have come and gone, or nearly gone. Yesterday, after my longer run on Thursday my legs felt really quite nice and limber, so I decided to do an interval workout rather than a ride, which would have left my legs heavy for a hard running workout. Seemed to make good sense to me.

So, I ran down the gravel back road, past the dump, and down the hill to a grass soccer pitch, did a few strides in the warm morning sun and then set out for the following interval workout, 5km race pace, along the paved road nearby: 12min, 8min, 5min, 2min, with about three minutes rest between. Given the gradual rises and descents in the area I was running, it was a hard workout, but also allowed me to really stretch my legs on the descents.

The total run was just over an hour, which presumably gave me a lot of time during the day to do other things. Part of the day was spent exploring the town of Atenas a little; part was spent reading more of The Fountainhead, and part spent studying a math course I am taking. The hours seem to pass very quickly, and there is an exaggerated sense of that, in my mind, when it is dark before 6:00 pm here. As I have mentioned before, one gets used to starting their day around 6:00 am, to maximize use of daylight hours.

Today my plan was originally to ride to Puntarenus, a coastal town about 65km away. My ride began with 4km of climbing out of Atenas to a summit that then plummetted down in a corkscrew for about 11km before I finally hit the bottom. Atenas is at about 2100ft elevation, and I´m guessing the initial 4km of climbing took my up another 1000 ft. The many switchbacks on the descent left no opportunity to open up the speed, and my hands were actually becoming fatigued from keeping the brakes on so much. I did manage to pass a convoy of vehicles slowed in their travels by a bus, cautious by necessity. After passing the group, I essentially had the whole lane to myself without concern that any vehicles would try to pass me, reassuring on that sort of twisting descent.

But what goes down must return skyward, and I knew the return would be arduous. I continued on toward Puntarenus until a road I had turned onto connected to the main PanAmerican highway, and with 20k left to Puntarenus and that road the only access into Puntarenas, I could only see big trucks and no lane shoulder as far as the eye could see. At that point I decided I did not need to see in Puntarenus all that desperately, and turned back. Along the way I took a short excursion to Orotino, but then was off to hit the massive climb on the way back to Atenas. The climb was roughly like riding Mt. Seymour, in North Vancouver, albeit with many more switchbacks, and some sections that were steeper. The total ride was only 93km, but with the kind of climbing in these parts, any ride over 20km is bound to be hard.

As a comparison to my ride to Volcan Poas the other day, the climb to Volcan Poas was more than twice as long. Alejuela, where I started my ride that day after dropping my car off, sits at about 2800ft elevation, while the Volcan Poas peaks at 8800ft. So that was 6000ft of climbing, not including all the other ups and downs during that ride. Putting that in perspective, the Malahat is about 1200 feet – the ride to Volcan Poas is like riding the Malahat five times!

Here is a photo from near the top of the climb today, looking down into the valley. If you look closely you can see, very far away and down, the reflection off buildings of a town I would have passed through.

Here is another shot from a few km further down the hill, depicting the lushness of the vegetation in the region.

After yesterday´s relatively long and gruelling ride to Volcan Poas, I decided this morning to go for a longer run, which, when finished, would leave me a greater proportion of the day to relax, read, study or what-have-you.

Rather than run into town, I thought to venture out the opposite direction from my hotel, taking me down a 2.5km gravel descent to a quieter paved road. When I came to Atenas I drove in this way, and was worried it would be the only access to my hotel. I had had enough of gravel roads for the duration of my visit, and that road is steep, replete with sharp gravel and was certainly nasty even for my rental car at the time, let alone a bike, not to mention a long way to walk to the nearest amenities once I had returned my car. I was quite relieved when I learned that was the back route, and travel to the main part of town was well within walking distance.

In any event, only a couple of hundred metres from my hotel along the noted back route, this is the view looking back at my hotel, the red-roofed building at the hilltop.

As my run continued, three or four hundred metres further on as I crested the hill that leads down to the paved road, just past a small town garbage dump, the road looks like this

Just back from this location, farther up the hill behind me here, the view is yet more amazing, but obscured somewhat by wafting smoke from slow burning refuse at the garbage dump.

My run then descended further to the paved road. There I ran up and down more long hills, of about one to two kilometres in length, with a couple of excursions onto side trails. As you go, every few metres is heard rustling in the fallen leaves or the bushes, such sounds created by iguana, salamanders, or perhaps roosters, and always there are long uphills and downhills and around every bend, of which there are many, there are new stunning vistas.

Eventually I found myself on a gravel road that plummeted in corkscrew twists down into valley where a tempestuous river ran, and over which spanned a rather rickety looking old bridge that appeared barely safe or strong enough for pedestrians to cross, let alone vehicles. Even so, after I had crossed, observing carefully the spaces between slats where a misplaced step could spell disaster, a car did approach from the other side, and stood witness that indeed the bridge was sufficiently strong to sustain the load of a car!

As it was about an hour into my run, the bridge seemed a good turnaround point for me and, when I passed the car on the long uphill on the rough gravel, I could not resist but to remark to the driver, ¨It´s faster on foot!¨ I suspect he did not understand my English. I actually remained comfortably ahead of the vehicle for nearly a km up the hill until we hit better pavement. It is a reminder that there are many places in the world where travel on foot is preferable and easier than traveling by vehicle, even on trails that are designed for vehicle travel!

This fantastic run lasted about 1hr 45, having passed on the way back one of the main excursions I had taken on the way out. I had not eaten breakfast, and returned to my room to cook some huevos – eggs – and to consume a couple of bowls of Fruitloops. The kitchenette is well supplied, and very handy! I can save some expense in food over the next few days.

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Here are a few other miscellaneous photos. Moving backward in time, here is a view of the main street market in Puerto Limon, 45km from the village and beaches of Cahuita, my last place of stay. Puerto Limon is a major centre and, when I first travelled to Cahuita, I was under the impression I was to stay in Pto Limon, and was thankful to discover that Cahuita was well away from Limon. The traffic in Limon is the craziest I´ve experienced – not that I´ve driven in a lot of foreign places, but it´s worse than in Mexico and anywhere else in Costa Rica I´ve been, including traffic near the yet larger centres of San Jose and Alejuela – the taxi drivers and others aggressive and quick to anger. So I discovered when my brand of B.C. driving became the source of some local’s frustration more than once!

Here is the main beach at Cahuita, nearly vacant due to high tide. Along this beach, following the line of sight depicted, just a few metres inland, is a hard-packed sand trail, fantastic for running. At 2km long, it is tantalizingly short, but long enough to enjoy the nearly perfect running surface and to observe at least one magnificent blue butterfly.

Still moving back chronologically, as I was leaving my place near Samara, which now seems a very long time ago, this local farmer stopped and allowed me to take his photo. I have heard from previous trips to Mexico that, in such instances as these, it is customary to provide some small monetary compensation to your photo subjects, which I did.

Finally, here is one of the beaches near my first residence. There are few visitors to this beach, as it is several kilometres from the busier beaches of the tourist town, Samara. In the estuary, a few hundred metres out of view to the left of the photo, there are crocodiles. I did take couple of poor quality photos of two of them, which I will post later.

In Cahuita yesterday I took my final early morning run from my cabin along the gravel road that parallels the flinging waters of the Caribbean, toward the centre of Cahuita village, and then along the hard packed sand trail through Cahuita national park, also adjacent the blue morning waters of the ocean. The run in total was only 40 minutes, and largely ceremonial to mark my last day there.

The day before, after a morning ride to mark my last ride in the region, I had arranged to give Davide, the hotel manager, his wife, mother-in-law, and daughter a lift in my rental car into Puerto Limon so he could take care of some banking and enjoy some family Christmas shopping. As the days become dark here at about 5.30, I’d agreed to give them a lift as long as it wasn’t later than 3.15, and that if they were to take longer than about half an hour to 45 minutes I would return to Cahuita, a 45km drive on treacherous roads, without them, as I did not want to be driving that road in the dark. It was 2.45 when we left and I think Davide was disappointed that I would not wait longer for them in Puerto Limon, but in my mind I had to hold firm on leaving in time to beat the darkness, as it is bad enough driving that road alone in the dark – and I would not have driven it in the dark unless absolutely necessary, aside from short stretches to town – let alone with a precious cargo of people I had never met before.

I actually felt a bit guilty about it later, since I think Davide was worried about having to take the bus with cash and his family’s Christmas presents in hand. He did not communicate this concern to me, but I do believe that Puerto Limon has a reputation as being unsafe. When I was there, aside from a purchase at the pharmacy and a short traipse down the market centre, I had no desire to stick around, and in the end Davide was able to arrange a return with some friends. I sensed that this was an inconvenience to his friends, but I no longer felt guilty when I learned he was able to make alternative arrangements.

In any event, yesterday, after my final run and a last breakfast at Bananas, I felt a twinge of sadness leaving there, as I often seem to, especially when I have just begun to get to know some interesting people, such as the German owners of Bananas, who moved to Costa Rica 30 years ago.

The drive to Atenas – a centrally located town about 20km from the airport and not far from Alejuela, one of three major centres in Costa Rica that includes San Jose, the capital – was a long one, owing to having come through busy roads in the central city regions, and having to navigate my way ultimately to Atenas, population a few thousand, and located on a plateau high up with stunning views of valleys and mountains. After arriving, I oriented myself about town, which is only about 600m from my hotel, with a 25minute run around its mostly quiet streets. When I found a bike shop from which I could purchase their last road tire of the proper dimensions for my bike, I realized that I will enjoy my last days here in Atenas without complaint.

My dwelling place is the nicest of the three main ones I’ve now stayed in, with high regal ceilings, sliding glass doors looking onto all manner of wide bladed foliage, trees and flowers, a kitchenette and three single beds to choose from.

This morning I returned my rental car, making it on time only just barely, as I would have been charged for another day had I been much later. Again, finding the place was a challenge.

In tow was my bike, and originally my plan was to find my way home relatively quickly on less-busy roads and then to decide where I might like to go from there. But soon after departing the rental place, I saw signs indicating the direction to Volcan Poas, 38km away. I decided then that I would take the long route home – first a ride up to Volcan Poas, a destination I had desired from the first I had decided to stay in Atenas – and then to find my way home. Poas is an inactive volcano but features a huge crater filled with pea green water, and looks quite amazing from the photos I’ve seen.

The climb to Poas was long and arduous – 36km of climbing, with a few breaks of flat for couple hundred metres, and one or two short bits of down hill. The last 15km were particularly hard, and for long stretches I saw the speedometer reading only 11 or 12km hr. By the top I was greated by a thicket of clouds, and the crater was shrouded in the thickest fog you can imagine. The reward for my effort was applause from a few tourists who had passed me in busses, and of course the pleasure of the effort itself, as difficult as it was. In a sense I was relieved for the cloud, since I had neglected to bring my camera, and somehow the clouds justified that neglect.

The total ride was only 103km, but it took nearly 5 hours, with a high speed of 77.6km hr, my new max for the trip. If the roads weren’t so narrow and twisting, I could easily have attained higher speeds. I was fortunate to find good roads back to Atenas, albeit interspersed with a few more km of hard climbing. I was glad to be back, to have lunch, and to relax for a while and to read Ayn Rand’s, The Fountainhead, which I have found myself completely immersed in, even to the neglect of some of the other studies I have promised myself to work on!

As a quick update over the last few days, today the morning began with overcast skies which turned to rain for a couple of hours. Fortunately my timing was good, as I slipped out for a ride at about 7 am before the rain started, and did a spin for about 65km up to Bribri, and onto the great flat road that leads to the border town of Sixaola, the only road so far I”ve encountered with a paved shoulder, and the only one on which I have actually felt safe and relaxed riding. The rain began soon after I returned to my cabin.

Today I did not ride all the way to Sixaola, as I had two days ago on Saturday. On Saturday, the ride to Sixaola left me with my first tire puncture as I was forced to ride through a pothole of the mooncrater variety as a big truck passed, leaving with me a pinch flat to fix at the roadside. Ironic that I sustained my first puncture in this way, the day after carrying on about my “pothole typology”.

The total ride was about 109km, and was largely uneventful, aside from being detained by the police after returning from a brief stop and the border between Costa Rica and Panama, and having snapped this photo of the sign that said “Panama” and the bridge crossing.

About a km before this bridge there was a police station, which I did not see, and from which no police were out to stop me as I passed. However, on the way back, one was out to stop me. I was asked for my passport, which I had neglected to bring with me. Not having seen me go through from the Costa Rican side, the policeman evidently was unsure that I was telling the truth when I tried, with some difficulty, to explain that I was not from Panama and was staying at a hotel in Cahuita in Costa Rica. So he coralled me into the station and told me I would have to wait while I wrote out my identification specifications for them. As I had some difficulty communicating with the two submachine gun toting police in the station, I had to wait some more for a truckload more to arrive, one of whom spoke English quite well. He explained they would need to send a police person to my hotel to check to verify I had checked in as I had explained and to see my passport number.

I was worried this process potentially could take hours, although the one fellow promised only about 20 minutes. In the meantime, the troupe had fun checking out my bike, lifting it up and checking its weight, looking at the speedometer and asking about the cost of it and my cycling shoes. Generally they seemed quite impressed, although I could only think to myself how old and worn my bicycle is and how much lighter and generally better the current models are.

One police fellow enjoyed taking my bike for a spin around the parking lot, with my permission, depicted by this photo here.

Fortunately, I was not detained for longer than 25 minutes, although upon returning home I learned the police had not even contacted the hotel. So, it appears they just wanted to make me squirm for a while. It certainly taught me a lesson about taking my passport with me, especially to border towns.

On the way in to Sixaola, I took the following photo of an amazing banana plantation near Bribri. Unfortunately this shot does not do justice to the plantation’s magnitude, and the light for a good photo was actually better in the evening, when I was out for a ride the day before in that direction.

In any event, yes, Friday I went for a run in the morning, about an hour, and then a 45 km ride in the evening, out toward Bribri where this plantation is.

The day before I managed a 55 min run that included a 13 minute race pace effort. It was nice to be able to stretch out the legs on flat tarmac, and the first time I’ve felt really fluid and strong on a run since arriving.

Yesterday, I did a short 4km run before breakfast at Bananas, a restaurant about 200m from my cabin, and a harder 40min run through beach town Puerto Viejo in the evening. Pto Viejo is about 15km from Cahuita, where I am, and I drove most of the way there along more heinous gravel roads, before getting in 40minutes, 18mins of which was race pace along the waterfront.

Tomorrow I head out of here for Atenas, a small town about 15km from the airport where I’ll leave from on the 26th. I will return my car on the 19th and will be carless for the rest of my stay.

Potholes in Costa Rica

There are many potholes on the roads in Costa Rica. I’ve been developing a system of classifying them. The first thing to observe is that there are two main kinds of roads in Costa Rica, or really anywhere for that matter, but here, in addition to asphalt roads, gravel roads are frequently the only routes between some relatively major centres. It is to be observed that there are stretches of roadway where efforts have evidently been made to fill in potholes, so it cannot be argued that there are no government programs at all to alleviate the problem, albeit one imagines the comparative budget is still small for pothole repair in Costa Rica.

So, we begin with a broad pothole classification, and develop a typology from there based partly on their physical characteristics, and partly on the type of driving responses required to ensure safe passage:

I. Asphalt potholes

a. shallow potholes

These are usually characterized by depths of four inches or less, usually indicating a loss of just the first layer of asphalt. Diameters range between a few inches to two feet, approximately. In the volcano region near Lake Arenal, these potholes are highly visible due to their strong reddish hue, the color of the lava soil beneath the asphalt. If it has rained overnight or is currently raining, they will be filled with water, making it difficult to ascertain their depths, but if you know the region in which you are driving, you can estimate their depths with a certain degree of accuracy. Generally, this type of pothole is found in the
Lake Arenal road region. In other regions shallow potholes also occur frequently, but are not characterized by a reddish hue, and tend to blend in more with the color of the asphalt.

Because of their visibility, particularly in the Lake Arenal region, there is apparently no need to mark shallow potholes with spray painted yellow circles around them. Pothole marking is not commonly obsevered, if at all, but there is a certain sense of security when driving in the Lake Arenal region knowing that shallow potholes are highly visible. Generally if you drive through these, your reaction is “shit”, or something similar,
but there is little fear of losing an axle, or your transmission, for example.

b. mooncraters

These are deep potholes, with depths ranging from four inches to several inches or more, and diameters ranging from a few inches to two feet, approximately. The main
characteristic of mooncraters is their significant depth. If you were to actually drive through one of these, you might imagine potential damage to your vehicle, such as significant scraping in the best case, wheel alignment problems, pulling an axle, or losing your transmission, for example, in a worst case.
While the writer has not had occasion to measure their depths, drive-by observations revealed that there were some for which he was unable to see their bottoms from the angle at which he was observing. These may be described by a further sub-classifcation, namely, bottomless pit mooncraters.
When you pass mooncraters, but especially bottomless pit mooncraters, your reaction is “holy shit, good thing I missed that one.” You do not try to imagine what the consequences to your vehicle might be if you actually went through one. Fortunately these are relatively rare, but if you are driving in a region where these are observed — found particularly in the region between Fortuna and Valencia, before the main highway to Puerto Limon — one recommends slowing down and proceeding with caution.

Sub types of shallow potholes and mooncraters.

Single lane potholes

These potholes occur only on one side of the road, namely the side on which you are driving. If there is one on the other side of the road, it is of no concern to you, although occasionally, if you are curious, you may glance over to see if it is of the shallow or the mooncrater variety. If there is no on-coming traffic, these may be safely avoided by swerving into the other lane. If there is oncoming traffic, you must either drive on the outside of them, if there is room, which is rare, or you must direct your vehichle such that your wheels are on either side of the pothole. This is manageable by most experienced drivers. If, when there is passing on-coming traffic, and avoidance appears unmanageable, it is recommended that you adjust your speed so that you can swerve into the other lane when there is no imminent oncoming traffic.

Double lane potholes

These potholes occur on both sides of the highway in the same proximate region, which is to say there are several within a few feet of each other, spanning the width of the highway. These are not as easy to avoid as single lane potholes. If they are shallow potholes, you may drive through them, albeit with “shit”, or something similar as your reaction. If you suspect one or more may be of the mooncrater or the bottomless pit moon crater variety, it is recommended that you slow down and navigate your way through them with caution. This may result in slaloming, described in more detail, below, or if the situation is particularly serious (ie. there is too much on-coming traffic and no way to avoid them by swerving, or there are simply too many potholes to avoid no matter what you do), then you will likely have little choice but to go through at least one. In that case you must pray, silently or aloud, that you are not going through the bottomless pit mooncrater variety.

Shudder potholes

These potholes are usually of the shallow variety, but are characterized by relatively high concentrations of them in the same general vicinity, such that there is no way to swerve or slalom to avoid them. As such you simply must travel through them, and experience the shudder effect. Generally your reaction is “je-ee-ee-sus”, or something similar.

Tailgater’s surprise

This is not actually a separate sub-type of pothole, but is characterized by circumstance. There are many trucks that travel more slowly than the general flow of traffic, and frequently you find yourself behind one. Or, there are numerous occasions when traffic behind you is evidently impatient with your rate of travel. In the latter case, following vehicles will sometimes come in very near to your tailgate, evidently with the intention of passing when possible. Sometimes, such following traffic is stuck there for relatively long durations, depending on the number of vehicles ahead of you and the magnitude of oncoming traffic flow.
There are occasions when such following vehicles can become somewhat of an annoyance. In such instances, you have the opportunity to approach potholes with a certain level of cunning, and wait until the last possible moment to swerve by them, then watch in your rear-view mirror to observe the tell-tale “thud” and “bounce” effect in the vehicle behind you. Generally, your reaction in such cases is “take that, asshole, hehehe,” or something similar. When the vehicle increases its distance behind you, that’s when you know for sure it worked. It is not, however, advised that you try this for bottomless pit mooncraters.
Of course, the effect works against you if you find yourself too close to big trucks or busses as well, so it is recommended that you take caution when driving close to vehicles ahead.

II. Gravel/dirt road potholes

**this is a work in progress, and typology is currently under development, and descriptions are to follow, under the following headings***

Roller potholes

Strafe potholes

Football trainers

Shudder potholes

Slalom potholes

Before breakfast this morning at the Hotel Mystica, located off the main highway that wends toward Fortuna, I slipped out for 1.5hr run along roads adjacent Lake Arenal, large enough to appear nearly as the ocean, albeit a green one rather like our own version off the coast of BC. It was raining and windy, but it was a warm rain, and there was the occasional break in the clouds revealing blue sky and rainbows, and the hilly winding road offered fantastic views. From the training perspective, I pushed hard on the hills, of which there were several along my route, and each up to about two km in length, providing for some good strength intervals.

Here is a photo of Lake Arenal, taken from the restaurant at the Hotel.

That proved to be the highlight of the day. The drive to Fortuna was not far, but the winding road is a slow drive and several kilometres are fraught with crater- like potholes. On my run I had the opportunity to observe that most of them are not deep, only a few inches, but they are still best avoided if at all possible. Makes for a lot of slaloming on the roads.

Since arriving in Fortuna, the clouds have shrouded Arenal Volcano, although during a short bike ride this afternoon before darkness there appeared to be a moment when it that it might clear to reveal its pinnacle. This did not happen, unfortunately, and now it is raining.

My attitude is that if I wanted rain, I would have stayed in Victoria, so tomorrow I´m off for the east coast, and for Limon. This will be about a four hour drive, and with the able assistance of the hotel office receptionist, I´ve been able to figure out some logistics for my drive there, my rental car, and another place I´d reserved. Still some sorting to do, but at least I have a clearer plan for the next two weeks, but it is subject to change.

Again, I had hoped for more photos… they will come eventually.

Costa Rican truisms 2 and 3:

2. When the guidebooks ¨recommend¨ four wheel drives in Costa Rica, that word is a euphemism for ¨absolutely essential¨.

3. When you are on your bike on narrow roads in Costa Rica and you think the roads are barely wide enough for one lane of traffic let alone two, and one oncoming car passes another and times it so that it is passing you at the same time and you are momentarily three abreast, you realize the roads are actually wider than you thought they were.

Well things started off quite peachily this morning. I awoke to the sounds of birds and other exotic creatures, showered and donned my attire for the run to Nosara to pick up my rental car again. It had rained with great intensity during the night and though the gravel road to Nosara was drying rapidly at 7:00 am when I set foot upon it, it was still a little slick in places, and the run there felt rather painful, while the humidity from the evaporating rain and the heat oppressed any sense of light footedness. This was combined, of course, with some accumulated fatigue over the week’s activities. Still, I ran the way there at a quick pace and enjoyed it.

I then obtained my rental car without incident. From there I drove the way back to the Paraiso Cocodrilo for a last breakfast there, to gather my things and to check out.

The plan was to drive to Monteverde, but after exiting the main highway there is a point where the pavement ends and the road turns to gravel. The travel guides all recommend four-wheel drives, but when someone “recommends” something, in my mind it doesn’t suggest necessity, but rather suggests the best option, and if one is diligent and exercises prudence and caution, other options are still on the table. With this attitude I thought to drive my low suspension rental car over gravel roads that became gradually more treacherous in direct proportion to the steepness of their grades. The closer I got to my destination on such roads, the farther away it actually became.

Still, I persevered at a turtle pace for a couple more miles, tried one route that had a hand painted arrow on a sign saying “Monteverde 4wd only”. That sign was serious, as the road simply became too steep and full of near boulder-sized sharp rocks for me to continue. So, I trundled back down that one, and tried another. After covering another km with the speedometer needle barely registering above the zero, and finally getting to the point where the wheels were spinning over the rocks and every bump resulted in gut-wrenching scraping sound beneath the car, I decided that to continue any further would qualify me for a date with a psychiatrist, not to mention that losing an axle or even the transmission would cost me a fortune, and getting a broken-down car out of those conditions would probably require airlifting it out – also probably exceedingly expensive. Insurance here doesn’t cover personal negligence, and they also point out that they don’t cover you for problems resulting from crossing rivers!

So, to cut to the chase, prudence was the better part of valour, and I turned the car back around, albeit slowly, and bounced my way back down the mountain. Although there is another way into Monteverde, I am told theroads are probably just as bad. When they “recommend” a four wheel drive, they are not kidding around. Granted, it is possible I took one branch road that was worse than the one “you’re supposed to take”, but there were no signs, and when I passed one such branch on the way back down, I didn’t have it in me to scope it out as my nerves were already a little fried. I was just happy to make it back to the paved road without losing an axle. In fact I had heard from Frank Oddux how he lost axles in a four wheel drive on Costa Rican roads, but I just chalked that up to his crazy driving.

In any event, I am currently at a roadside hotel overlooking Lake Arenal, on my way to Fortuna
instead, located near a massive active volcano, where apparently you can see the lava flowing at night. The temperatures are cooler up here, so I may have a pleasant run before breakfast tomorrow morning. Breakfast is included in the price of the room, so I might as well take advantage of it. Hopefully there will be cheap-ish rooms in Fortuna available, where I’ll stay for a couple of nights, forfeiting my stay in Monteverde. After that I head to a third stop, somewhere closer to San Jose – will see how that goes.

Costa Rica is far more accessible than Mexico. Costa Rica is not much larger in area that Vancouver Island (maybe about 1.5 times as large). It is mountainous, lush and warm, and so far my experience with it is far different from my Mexico experiences. It helps to have my bike with me – to cover significant portions of a country on one’s bicycle really gives them a feel for it’s topography and scenery that isn’t possible by car alone. There is an intimacy one acquires for a locale when he or she feels every rise in the road as an increase in heart rate and a decrease in pedal revolutions. While the roads here are generally not well suited to cyclists, when I see mothers riding along the main highway with infants in their baskets, I realize that many people are higher risk-takers than I am! Drivers are allso aware of cyclists, generally.

One truism is clear on narrow Costa Rican roads: when you are riding your bike and a car in the on-coming lane passes another, you can be sure the road is clear behind you!

This is my last day in this location, near Samara. Samara, by the way, is in the Province of Guanacaste, the most north-west province in the country. I´ve learned that the area has only very recently become a hotbed of international investment, and properties all along the coastline nearby have been purchased by Hollywood superstars and others of the rich-famous variety. Tomorrow I´ll run back to Nosara, about 10miles, from where I am, and rent a car again for the journey to Monteverde, located in a ´cloud forest´.

I had the option of either taking a bus that left at 4:00am, taking a shuttle to Fortuna and staying overnight in Fortuna then taking a tour that ended in Monteverde, or renting a car again at the same rate I had when I arrived. The bus is cheap, but long; the tour was enticing, but total cost was nearly as much as the car rental and I decided it will be handy to have a car again as Monteverde is also only accessible by travelling from the paved road over about 15km of gravel roads. I´d heard from a couple that it was raining there the last few days, so the roads could be wet and if I want to use my bike I´d prefer to drive to the nearest paved road and go from there – today I hope will be the last day I have to ride my road bike over gravel roads. I haven´t quite decided yet how best to deal with the car from that point, since I will be making two more location transitions before I return on the 26th.

Yesterday I cycled the route from my place to a town called Hojancha (pron. ¨ohancha¨, I´ve learned). This was about 130km round trip, and the climb into Hojancha was about 6km of gut-wrenching, but well worth the effort for some spectacular views of the lush green countryside. The town itself was nothing to write home about, but the views certainly were.

With the calves a bit inflamed this morning after a great nine and a half hour sleep, I decided to take the opportunity to rest my body a bit and have so far spent most of the day studying course-work in a gazebo near the estuary where crocodiles linger, located about half a km from where I´m staying. Then it was back ´home´ for a coffee and some more studying at the facilities there. It´s quite amazing to be able to do academic work outdoors so comfortably, since even in the height of summer in Victoria is it rarely so comfortable to work outdoors.

I´m going to try to upload a couple of photos here. Unfortunately I see I didn´t successfully save very many onto this little portable f: drive memory stick, so this all I have so far to post…

Hope these work, and I´d better sign out now. Computer time here adds up rapidos! Looks like the captions aren´t working…the first one of me shows me well rested after nearly 10 hours of sleep the day after I arrived. This is the ¨´before shot¨ so the after shot should leave me darker and probably more haggard looking. The next show my views from the dinner tables at the Hotel Paraiso cocodrillo. Better run…