PowerCycle

09/21 Not to worry anyone but this is supposedly the 2nd most dangerous city outside the capital. Honestly I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I rode around with my flashy gold necklace looking for a hotel for about an hour and I didn’t see a single hoodlum. That’s not to say I’m going to go bar hopping tonight– it is a major port town and I’m sure things get a little crazy after dark. I do know another touring rider that was robbed in the area a month ago so I’ll keep my guard up for a while.

The place I’m staying is Hotel Acon. Little pricey at $37 but one place was more ($56–Park Hotel) and 2 other hotel wouldn’t let me bring my bike in the room (Hotels American and whatever the one is across the street). The city itself is surprisingly clean for having a decent-sized port and I was riding around all over the place. Even the the area along the water looked nice.

Nothing exciting on the road today. Just more ranch/farmland. It’s hard to believe this country used to be completely covered by trees. Traffic sucked even more than yesterday. Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow. At a roadside bakery I was talking to the owner and he said the same thing that I’ve been noticing, people here have less respect for tourists than the other Central American countries. No surprises there but it’s a shame because, handled correctly, tourism doesn’t have to be a disaster like it is here.

Found an internet cafe with a printer so now I have proof that I’m leaving Panama on the off chance that they ask. I just went to American Airlines and found a flight from Panama City to Bogota (via Miami for $636?!). They let you put it on hold so I didn’t pay anything. Hopefully that works and I don’t get busted for being here illegally. I’ll book the flight for real when I get a little closer.

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09/20 Survived another day on the Costa Rican death roads. Riding has just been miserable and the homicidal drivers don’t help. There was rarely a shoulder to ride on so 95% of the time I’m stuck in the lane with a million 18 wheelers. A couple people didn’t bother to move over even though the other lane was clear which didn’t surprise me given how unfriendly people seem to be.

When a pedestrian gets killed they paint a heart with a halo over it onto the road. Saw quite a few today. As you can see from the picture of the family walking down the road its not surprising that people get run over a lot. It’s either walk on the road or walk in the tall grass with the poisonous snakes. I also saw a lot of ambulances on the road today too. It’s probably easier for them to just drive around knowing an accident is bound to happen sooner or later. Or the same one just followed me all day figuring I’m a sure thing.

Met a couple touring riders from the Netherlands this morning. That was a bit of a surprise. They are just riding around Costa Rica (for some crazy reason). The first thing they said was how bad the roads were.

I did meet one of the 8 nice people in the country today He runs a fruit stand in town. I loaded up on some delicious tangerine fruit juice and he gave me about a dozen bananas to take along. I’m glad I found the place because I needed something to even out all the rtards I encountered today.

It was very hot again today but I beat the rain by an hour. I can’t seem to drink enough fluid though and I’m downing a lot. Didn’t go to the bathroom all day which is pretty bad.

I posted the fact that I’m here illegally (no entry stamp) on the Thorn Tree forum to see how bad it’s going to be when I try to leave. It sounds like just playing the no habla Spanish card might work. We’ll see.

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09/18 After being in this country for almost a week I can safely say this place has issues. Some people have ripped Costa Rica kind of hard but when comparing it to other Central American nations there are certainly some valid critiques. My main ones are roads, the prices and the general demeanor of the people I’ve encountered. The roads basically just suck. Potholes and no shoulders I can deal with but with the amount of traffic on the roads they really need to invest in some improvements here. They could certainly pay for some of it with the taxes being collected on the already over-priced food/motels/everything else. Most of the food I’ve been buying, which is the same stuff I’ve been buying in the other countries, costs more than it does in the States. Even the small, Mom & Pop places are way more than what the same food would cost in other LA countries. And honestly, nothing has even tasted that great so far.

The people thing bugs me the most. People here are either really uptight or they just don’t like acknowledging strangers. Sure people in the touristy areas are nice enough–they are paid to be and certainly not everyone comes across as rude but when I look back at every country I’ve been in the only other place even comparable was the States. This country is basically like a mini-USA now anyway so maybe that’s why people are this way.

I’m pretty happy I didn’t get run over today but I think I might be a bit of a crackhead for riding this way. My route today could have stayed a lot flatter but instead I ended up climbing right back up into the mountains.

Found a perfect motel for $20. Think I might stay here and chill tomorrow. It’s the Cabinas Francis across from the cemetary. It’s one of the cleanest rooms I’ve been in.

Drinking and driving is legal here I found out. You just can’t be intoxicated and drive. That’s awesome and explains a lot.

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09/17 Busy day today. After a good 50 miles of hills galore I made it into La Fortuna around 2pm. Ended up climbing 4100 feet which isn’t too far from my “holy crap, am I almost there?” limit. The weather was perfect for riding in hills though: cloudy with a brisk, refreshing headwind.

I wasn’t a big fan of the highway on the north loop around Laguna de Arenal. I’ll call that section the Boca Raton of Central America. Manicured lawns, cutesy little expat-owned stores, hotel signs every 50 feet and hotels every 30 feet (slight exaggeration). It was definitely way too overdeveloped.

Things were a little better past Arenal (half way point). There was a lot less development and I managed to see some wildlife including some parrots, a bunch of toucans and a cool looking White-nosed Coati. The Coati was walking next to the road and I managed to take couple pictures before some cars showed up. The driver of the first car coming toward me stopped next to the Coati and actually opened his door and dropped a handful of freaking potato chips on the ground for it to eat. Boy was I pissed. I yelled “Hey!” at the guy (I don’t know the Spanish word for dumbass) and started to ride toward his car. He drove off and I gave him a nice dirty look. People can be so stupid. It had already eaten one chip so I picked up the rest of the chips and threw them in my garbage bag. An older couple who had also stopped said, “Good for you.”

Stopped for lunch at Cascajo’s del Arenal about 1 km from the hot springs. Great food and the chef even came out to say hi. Nice guy. A few miles outside town a guy on a mountain bike rode up who turned out to be a pretty helpful. He knew the town like the back of his hand so he pointed out some cheap places to stay. The Sleep Inn fit the bill at $10 so here I am. The owners also arrange hikes up to Volcan Arenal. The next tour was in an hour so I paid up, ran to the store to get a beer and then ran back to the hotel to take a quick shower.

The volcano ranks right up there as one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. It easily dominates the area at 5300 feet and the clouds cooperated a little so I could actually see it. The first good view was when I was riding over the dam that formed Laguna de Arenal, which is what I rode around for the better part of the day. Why they built a dam so close to a volcano that’s been active almost daily for the last 40 years seemed odd but whatever. When it did erupt in 1968, after being dormant for over 400 years, it destroyed 3 villages and killed 80 people. Now it’s one of the 10 most active volcanoes in the world. Lava doesn’t spew out of it all the time but there’s usually something going on.

The tour was surprisingly good. I was a bit apprehensive after my last volcano tour. No shotgun toting guides this time. As we hiked through the jungle the guide did a great job of showing us all the plants and animals in the area. It was pretty amazing how in those few miles of jungle trail we saw so many kinds of plants could be used as natural remedies for dozens of common health problems. Kind of a shame that we’re chopping all the jungles down.

In the early 1990′s Costa Rica had the highest rate of deforestation in Latin America. 80% of the forest cover had been lost (through conservation measures its at 52% now although man-made forest isn’t nearly as productive as natural forest). The remarkable part is what more than 30% of the lost forest cover was cleared for. Cows. Specifically, cows whose yummy beef was shipped to the United States in the form of fast-food hamburgers, TV dinners and pet food.

The highlight of the tour was when the volcano let out a huge burp of gas and black soot. Even people back in town saw it. Also managed to see more parrots, howler monkeys and some kind of pit viper snake (no good pictures–too blurry, besides one bite would have been enough to end me so I didn’t keep trying). No lava so I’ll have to track down the next active volcano and head that way.

My site is officially listed as a reference on the Answers.com page for Montana. I’m #27. It’s a mistake but it makes you wonder how the pages get generated.

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