09/12 For the record, Costa Rica is not an island. You know who you are. I think people get it confused with Puerto Rico. Easiest border crossing ever. The guy didn’t ask one question and didn’t even look at me until he wanted $2. I noticed later that I didn’t get an entry stamp though. The only new stamp I saw afterward was an exit for Nicaragua. Hopefully just being in the system is enough because he definitely scanned my passport.

Crossing into Costa Rica was like someone had flipped a switch labeled “Jungle: On:. Almost immediately both sides of the road were lined by huge trees and extremely thick ground cover. Camping is going to be fun if I get the chance. I’m going to have to remember to ride with my mouth closed more. I ate like a dozen bugs today.

There are some things here I’m going to have to get used to. Apparently it’s safe to drink the tap water. I guzzled down a gallon of it already so we’ll see. That should save some money at least. The exchange rate to the US dollar is crazy. US $1 gets you about 514 colóns (the colón is named after Christopher Columbus BTW). Now I have all these bills in denominations of 10,000. I went to the bank and took out 100,000. Lunch with 2 Cokes was still US $7 though. A little pricey here.

La Cruz is in much better shape than a similar sized town in Nicaragua. The tourist dollars sure make a big difference when it comes to infrastructure. The roads in town are all paved, the sidewalks are in decent shape and the fire truck I saw looked as good as any in the States. The TV station picked up channel 10 from South Florida so I could watch some news from the homeland. I’m going to miss the food in Nicaragua though. Lunch and dinner were bland. Best food in all of Central America, including Mexico, was in Nicaragua I think.

Kids in Costa Rica don’t like getting passed on their bikes either. 3 of them were walking up a hill when I rode by. Having none of that, they jumped on their steeds and rode right behind me for a good mile before the smallest kid gave up. The other 2 didn’t last much longer. I gave them some props because they actually hung in there a lot longer than I thought.

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06/18 Made it to San Ignacio safe and sound. There are a lot more hills in this part of Belize and it made for some great scenery along the last 20 miles today. I didn’t stop and take any pictures because a mean looking storm was chasing after me. Just as the first drops started falling I saw a shelter off to the side of the road so I rolled inside and talked to a guy who was also taking cover. It didn’t last very long but it gave me time to learn a little about how people get around here. Hitchhiking is extremely common. The buses don’t run very often so when people need a ride they just stand by the road and raise their arm up and down like you would if you were flipping someone off only with all your fingers extended. There’s probably a better way of describing it but that’s all I could come up with.

Given that I’m less than a days ride from Guatemala I was thinking about some of the differences I’ve noticed between Mexico and Belize. Other than Canada these were the first 2 foreign countries I’ve ever been to. Since I was only in Belize for a relatively short period of time I can’t judge too much but the couple things I noticed were that the major roads in Mexico are much better than in Belize, the trash problem is nothing in Belize like it is in Mexico and the people in Mexico are far more vocal in their greetings (honking/waving/whistling although when you do end up talking to someone in Belize they are extremely friendly). Couple other things: people don’t drink the tap water in Belize, Snickers bars can be found in most road-side stores here, there are a lot more private vehicles on the roads, shower curtains are standard and all toilets have seats on them. No flushing toilet paper here either–use the garbage cans for waste. Hot and cold water taps are rarely labeled and never on the same side in both countries. Chinese people seem to own almost all grocery stores and a lot of the restaurants in Belize.

I went over to grab some dinner tonight and realized that I’d forgotten to account for the time zone change when I flew back into Mexico from Florida. So for the last 2 weeks I’ve been an hour ahead of everyone else.

Monkey Bay ended up being a mess. A group of students staying there were up until 1am (my time) making a bunch of noise and then these stupid dogs started barking at 4:30am. The place they stick you to camp was also overrun with fire ants.

I haven’t mentioned the World Cup but let me tell you it’s all people talk about here and every TV has it on. When Mexico was playing last week at 7am or something like that every bar/store I passed was full of people watching the game. It’s just crazy yet I still couldn’t care less about soccer.

I’ll be in town for the next 3 nights hanging out and waiting for Karin and Marten’s arrival on Sunday night. There’s lots of things to see here so there’ll be more posts.

GPX Track

03/01 Here’s 20 miles in Mexico. There should be about 20 more of these pictures but I didn’t stop until 5 miles into the ride. For the first time in Mexico I saw 2 guys picking up garbage at the side of the road. The one guy said they worked for the government. I think they are wasting their time. A bulldozer and a dump truck or hundreds of people are needed for this mess. The 40 miles yesterday were just like this. He also said they don’t have community service as a punishment for criminals. I asked him why people toss their garbage out on the road and he didn’t have an answer.

My left Achilles tendon is a little sore from all this climbing so I cut today short. Should be good to go tomorrow. Looking down the road it doesn’t look like its quite as hilly as it has been.

Update: here’s a really good write-up about the garbage problem in Mexico: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4916749.html

GPX Track