09/28 If they had a Dairy Queen every 20 miles, that also sold fried chicken, Panama would be perfect. It’s hard getting used to the great roads, friendly people and gorgeous scenery. Even the grazing land around here looks nice. Saw a huge waterfall off in the distance but I couldn’t find a side road to get me closer. Wildlife was plentiful. Along the road in a kind of squished state was a python. Lot’s of cool birds including a hawk of some sort. Lizards are everywhere–they lay on the road catching some sun and they take off when I get close.

I didn’t beat the rain today even though I was on the road at 7am and only stopped for 20 minutes. The worst part is having the sweat run into my eyes and almost blinding me. It’s still coming down now.

The shoulder on the PanAm is amazing. It’s usually at least 4 feet wide and there are no potholes. There’s a bit of glass to watch out for but nothing too bad. I’m glad it was pretty flat today because my knee is a bit sore from yesterday.

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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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09/16 Had a great little mini-break in Liberia with Karin and Marten. Sadly the chances of us meeting again are kind of slim. They need to be in Columbia for a flight back home to the Netherlands so they’re riding straight through. I wanted to head to the mountains so today we rode together for 30 miles before I had to take another road. They are both amazing people and I’ll miss our evening chats. They are also extremely generous which Marten proved once again this morning when I ran into a little bike problem.

The new rims held up today but the mechanic didn’t see notice that the magnet for my bike computer was attached to my old spokes so at 7am when we were leaving I was rather dismayed to see it was gone. The shop probably didn’t open until 10am so I would have been stuck sitting outside waiting for 3 hours. Marten happened to have some spare magnets so he gave me his and used one of the spares on his bike. That guy is like my guardian angel. First he gets my bike rack for me and now this.

After turning off the PanAm toward the mountains, things went from flat to almost solid climbing for the next 20 miles. The scenery was decent but I think tomorrow is going to be much better when I ride around this huge lake before getting to the volcano.

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09/13 Big day today. I’m getting new rims installed on my bike. The old ones could have lasted a bit longer but the surface was concave which is a sure sign of old age. No point in waiting for one of them to suddenly collapse. There’s a great bike shop here that has the best brand name bike parts you can buy. I ended up getting some Mavic rims which are supposed to be pretty decent. There are better ones than the 221s I bought but that’s all they had. The wheels should be ready by tomorrow afternoon but there’s a slight problem with the timing.

September 15th marks Costa Rica’s 189th anniversary of independence from Spain (along with the rest of Central America except Belize). To commemorate the holiday a torch is carried all the way from Guatemala to symbolize the spreading of the news of independence throughout Central America. Back then it took a month for Costa Rica to find out it was independent. Eventually the torch will make its way to the old capital city, Cartago, where President Laura Chinchilla will receive it. It arrived in Liberia this evening where a massive crowd was waiting to see it at the plaza.

Along with the torch were hundreds of people on bicycles and motorcycles who had ridden north during the day to meet the torch at the border with Nicaragua and follow it back to their home towns along the route (PanAm highway). I was wondering what was going on when I saw so many riders heading north and finally found out from someone later what they were doing.

Leaving tomorrow would be out since my bike won’t be ready until noon and leaving on the 15th might not be a good idea. So maybe I’ll hang out here. Heavy rain is forecast for the next 3 days anyway and there are big cans of Rock Ice beer and bags of gummie bears available at the nearby supermarket so I’ll have sustenance.

Liberia is pretty much like heading into any city of 35,000 people in the States. All the fast food places are here, there are fancy restaurants/hotels all over and the sidewalks/roads are in great shape.

Karin and Marten are nowhere to be found but I think they took the northern route along the lake so maybe there’s no internet. I’m kind of worried because I haven’t heard from them in a couple days though.

Update: I rewrote the whole entry because my English sucks sometimes. Karin and Marten are in a hotel a mile out of town! Somehow I passed right by them yesterday without seeing them. I Skyped with them and we’ll meet up tomorrow.

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