After toughing out the last few winters, I decided it would be nice to take a winter vacation somewhere warm. We'd been to Costa Rica, and enjoyed it, so we decided to go there. I, of course, suggested a bike tour, and much to my amazement, Susan agreed. The last time we were there I came to the conclusion that biking in Costa Rica would be an extremely dicey proposition, due to the rather spotty nature of paving on the allegedly paved roads, and the fact that you could hardly go in any direction without encountering monster climbs. I decided it might be more reasonable if we were to treat it like a mountain bike trip only on roads. It got to looking more feasible when we found a description of a tour someone had taken there. He did three weeks, but we decided we could do a portion of this, which involved going around a lake at one point, so how bad could it be?
Our timing was almost perfect, as we managed to depart just as the first snow of the season was approaching, and the temperature was about to plummet into single digits. I said almost, since it started to snow the day we had to leave, so after a harrowing drive, we got to sit on the runway at Logan for about four hours as we waited for the single deicing truck. The bad news was that we missed our connection in Miami. The good news was that there was another flight leaving soon. The bad news was that it left so soon, the bikes didn't have a chance to come along. So we spent an extra day in San Jose, which we used to go into the city to get maps. Since I thought the detailed topo maps were too big to carry, we opted for some less detailed ones, which turned out to be a big mistake.
I had contacted a local mountain biker over the internet, and asked if he could dig up some information for us. Since we had an extra day in San Jose, we ended up going out to dinner with Javier and his wife. Our discussion of the area we were about to cycle in was a bit of an eye opener. He mentioned that it was an extremely windy area, so much that you had to worry about being blown over. At one point he suggested we carry some rope. This was so we could tie the bikes to ourselves when we forded the rivers. This was beginning to sound more like an Indiana Jones trip than Butterfield and Robinson.
Next day, our bikes showed up, and we were off to Monte verde which was an all day cab ride. Monte Verde is in a cloud forest, which should have been a pretty good indication to expect some precipitation. Everyone else there was a bird watcher, and it would have been a nice place to hang out for a couple of days, but we had miles to go before we slept. The hotel staff were encouraging about our biking plans, but muttered something about the weather. The weather didn't seem so bad when we started out, but that was to change. Susan had been looking forward to this ride for a while, since it was described as a four hour descent to our destination. The term roller coaster was used, and that was more accurate. While it was generally downhill, the route was punctuated with an endless series of steep hills, whose chief benefit was to momentarily shield the gale force winds. Javier's predictions came true, as at one point I was literally blown off the road. I was relatively unscathed, except for being completely covered in dirt. The road was volcanic rock, so we went almost as slowly on the downhills as the uphills, being not too fond of faceplants. The 35 kilometer downhill run turned into an all day affair.
Since we had set out in the morning, we were on roads that did not appear on our maps (should have bought the topos). We used PPS (People Positioning System). That is, you get to a fork in the road, then wait for someone to come by and ask them which way to go. At one point we asked two guys in a pickup truck with mountain bikes which way to go, and they were pretty nearly as clueless as us, so we ended up turning the 35km ride into about 50. There were never any signs for the place we wanted to go, but periodically, we would see signs the other way for Monte Verde, which seemed to be a constant 35km from wherever we were.
After several hours, we got to a "population center," which I opined was near our final destination, Tilaran. "Let's wait until we get to Tilaran for lunch," said I. As it turned out, this was only the first in a series of false Tilarans, and at the point we were probably only half way into the ride. This was the last good feeding opportunity, so in fact we never ate lunch, and the only food we had with us was a plastic wrapped almond cookie which was dessert on the flight down. This came to be known as the "emergency cookie" which I carried through most of the trip, until it had been reduced to crumbs. I guess, this is, as they say, how the cookie crumbles. The gale force wind was shortly accompanied by torrential rain, as we slogged on to the mythical Tilaran. We finally got to a section that was paved, and it was beginning to look like we could finally make good time, letting the speed creep up to double digits. At this point Susan's front tire exploded, and she ended up executing a faceplant. After dragging the bike off her, and her off the road, it turned out she had a nice series of bruises, but was basically OK. But there was a mondo hole in the tire, and we had no spare, so we got to walk.
We were pretty close to the true Tilaran by then, so we found a house with a phone and ordered a cab. When we finally got to Tilaran, we got out our reservation information, and found that the place we were staying wasn't actually in Tilaran, but in the Tilaran "area" which seemed to encompass most of Central America. It was in fact another 35km away, the last 3km of which was uphill on the worst rocky road we had seen yet. Can you say "cab?"
Next day, we awoke to more rain, and with Susan's bike broken and Susan a hurting unit, it was another cab day to our next destination. We were able to stop at a bike store en route and pick up a new tire for Susan.
As we were being driven to Fortuna, we noticed cars coming the other way blinking their lights. Since there generally seemed to be a pretty cavalier attitude toward speed, I didn't think they were signalling for a radar trap. They were in fact signalling that there had been a landslide, and you can't get there from here. So we took the great circle route, which was fine since it was pouring rain anyway. And so it continued for our stay in Fortuna. Fortuna is very close to an active volcano, Arenal, and a tourist attraction since in the evenings you can watch the lava flowing down the mountain. For the entire time we were in Fortuna we never even SAW the mountain.
After holing up for a day or so, subsisting entirely on gallo pinto (rice and beans) and rum, I got cabin fever and decided to go for a ride. There was a waterfall that was allegedly only five kilometers away from where we were staying, so I girded my loins with raingear and set out. The five kilometers was mainly steep uphill (surprise, surprise).
The nice thing was that the steepest sections were paved. Of course, road maintenance or lack thereof being what it is in Costa Rica, by now most of the concrete had cracked exposing jagged pieces of rebar, making it slightly more hazardous than the dirt road would have been.
After the third of these 20% grades, I started thinking what it would be like to go down, and decided to abort the mission. Had I gotten to the waterfall, I probably wouln't have gotten to see it anyway, since it sounded like it had been converted into a tourist shrine, with an admission charge, and probably a gift shop.
As I was coming down one of these precipices, wet, ragged and covered in mud, I watching a busload a happy smiling tourists being conveyed to the waterfall and gift shop, wondering "what's wrong with this picture?". At this point I was wondering why we had gone to great effort and expense to put ourselves in a life threatening situation, and began thinking maybe tour buses weren't all that bad.
Costa Rica is surrounded by two oceans, so the beaches are popular with the tourists. I'm not a beach person, so elected to stay in the mountains, which in retrospect may not have been such a hot idea, as reports came back that there was actually sun in the lowlands. So we dedided to give up on the concept of ever seeing the volcano, and head down. I picked a destination town pretty much at random, secured another cab, and off we went. It turned out to be a pretty good choice, we stayed at a very nice place, where it wasn't even raining, and managed to do a bit of cycling in the coffee plantations.
We were within striking distance of San Jose, so the next day we actually rode our bikes back to the B&B we'd stayed the first night. We had dinner at what was now our favorite restaurant, and next day back to Boston.
I hope this tale does not deter anyone from going to Costa Rica, since most of our travails were self induced. There are a number of companies that offer mountain biking trips, with the added advantage of sag support, people who know where they're going, and someone to fix things that break. One that sounded particularly interesting was a trip from the Caribbean side of the country to the Pacific, by mountain bike, whitewater raft, and horseback. The horse part put me off, but this sounds like a pretty neat adventure for the more equestrian types. Of course, what Costa Rica is noted for is its vast diversity of species, so leaving the bike behind and taking the hiking boots is an attractive alternative. It is possible to rent mountain bikes there, and the ones I saw seemed to be pretty decent.
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