Days 76 to 79: Costa Rica

Disclaimer: I don't have many pictures from Costa Rica, so this post will be mostly text. 

Day 76:

We finally left San Juan del Sur on day 76, at 10 am in the morning, with the intention of crossing into Costa Rica in the early afternoon. Peter, a British rider we had hung out with a couple of times during our stay in SJDS, decided to join us on that day.

Once at the border, the first step was to check out of Nicaragua. For the first time on this trip, we decided to hire a helper. Not that the process is difficult, but it always takes a while to ask around and figure out where to get the paperwork stamped. 

Mihai and Pete took off with the helper, while I stayed to watch over the three bikes. After a moment, some guy with a bucket of water showed up, and insisted on washing the motos. I politely told him ''no, thank you'' a few times, but the dude just wouldn't leave and kept talking some gibberish that I wasn't able to understand. I was getting irritated, but just sat down on the nearby steps and chose to ignore him. The guy then sat down close to me, and only then I noticed that he pulled out a knife and was still talking more gibberish. My first reaction was to stand up and get away from the bastard. At that point, my options were to either yell at the guy, kick him in the face right there (I was standing, he was still sitting down), or pull out my own knife, which I had near by in the tank bag. So I just screamed at the guy in English: ''Don't you f**** threaten me with that knife, you POS!!'' Fortunately, that worked. The dude tossed a few insults in my direction and left. 

When Mihai and Pete returned with the helper, I told him about what just happened a moment ago. He just said ''Don't worry, that guy is crazy'', as if it's supposed to be reassuring...lol.

It took us another hour and a half to check into Costa Rica. We rode for another 100km, until we reached the pacific coast. It was quite a contrast with Nicaragua. The area is quite ''americanized'', with the usual McDonald's and others. We stopped for the night in Playa del Coco.

We couldn't say no to the McD's.. It's been a while.

Day 77:

The next morning, we parted ways with Pete. He was heading south along the pacific coast, whereas we decided to head towards the Caribbean sea. That day we rode through landscapes that were somehow reminiscent of Europe and Canada. It definitely was not what I had imagined I would see in Central America. We stopped for the night in Arenal, a small town close to a large lake carrying the same name. There, we met two other moto travelers from the USA. It turned out that we will be taking the same boat to Colombia, so we will see each other again a few days later in Panama City.

One of the most unusual things I've ever seen. There was a rainbow-like glow right behind those mountains. Very spectacular.

Lake Arenal area

Lake Arenal

Narrow, but very fun road around lake Arenal. Lots of twisites.

Anybody knows what these guys are?

Day 78:

Josh, who we had traveled with recently for about 2 weeks, has emailed us the day before that he was in Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean coast. Team Canada and the 'Murrican had good chemistry, so we decided to reconnect again.

It was relatively long day, as we had to cover 400 km to Puerto Viejo. We were warned that costa rican cops had radars, and that fines for speeding were quite high. So we drove at a relaxed pace, rarely exceeding 80 kmph. We did get busted at 84 kmph in a 60 kmph zone (sometimes it's not easy to figure out what the damn limit is... ), but this time we were lucky and the cop let us off the hook. For the first half of the day, we rode some nice backroads, but the fun was over when we merged onto the Panamericana. Way too many trucks. We made it to Puerto Viejo around 3 pm, and quickly found the hostel where Josh was staying.

Puerto Viejo is another surfer/backpacker spot. It is fun, but still no match to San Juan del Sur, in my opinion. The vibe is definitely Carribean: you hear Bob Marley everywhere, and people are smoking weed all over the place.

Day 79:

Josh and Mihai went to the beach that day, whereas I decided to do some overdue maintenance on the bike. Not much else to report. We did have a few beers in the evening, though :) 

Beach in Puerto Viejo (photo credit goes to Josh)

Tomorrow morning (day 80), we are off to the Costa Rica - Panama border.

Random Stuff:

Costa Rica definitely appears wealthier than Nicaragua. There is a lot of farming going on, and the Pacific coast is very touristic. It is also more expensive. We were glad that we had decided to spent the holidays in Nica. Thanks to Andrzej for advising us to do so. Costa Rica is nice, but Nicaragua is so far our favorite country in Central America. It is poor, but is feels safer than Honduras or Guatemala. It has a lot to offer, yet it is one of the cheapest places to travel. What's not to like?

I'm really looking forward to replace the keyboard on my netbook. Typing with a few defective keys is super slow and annoying, and the main reason why lately I have been falling behind on the blog (the two other reasons being slow wifi connections and a lot of partying ;). Fortunately  we will be meeting Mihai's mom in Panama City in a few days, and she'll bring me a replacement keyboard that I ordered on ebay a few weeks ago.