By Larry and Joan Dolinski
About two weeks into the Baja, Joan was visited by Montezuma, but happilyreturned to the flower of health within a couple of days. We closed out theBaja phase with a couple of days through a good old fashioned desert(featuring cactus forests, high heat and much sand and dirt), and a day of R &R in La Paz. La Paz is an attractive resort city on the Sea of Cortez. It hasa Mediterranean feel to it with lots of people living on luxury yachts of allsizes & varieties (mostly Americans).
Looking back, our diet in Mexico consisted of lots of beans, rice, chicken,tomales and tortillas. Local contractors provided breakfasts & dinners. Weare responsible for our lunches, and have taken a fancy to quesadillas (theMexican version of the grilled cheese sandwich).
Wed 1/19 .. the day we took our 2nd malaria pill..we engaged in our first airlift. Two Boeing 727's were flown in from a Miami charter service to take usto San Jose, Costa Rica. We rose at 4:15 AM, had breakfast before sunrise andbicycled out to the airport at dawn, expecting to depart by 8:30 AM. Weconsumed the entire morning with the logistics of preparing the bikes andrepacking for the flight.
An interesting aspect of our adventure is how glitches are handled. Wediscovered that the two planes that came to transport us did not have enoughcargo capacity to haul all of our bikes & luggage. While we enjoyed two plannedrest days in San Jose, one of the staff remained in La Paz. His effortsresulted in the procurement of a Russian cargo plane for bikes & gear and ascheduled Mexican airliner for his flight to Costa Rica.
Unlike Mexico, Costa Rica is lush, green and everywhere mountainous. It hasthe feel of some parts of Switzerland. It is a countryof about 4 million people which borders Nicaragua to the North, Panama to theSouth and both the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans. The economy depends on exportsof bananas, coffee, sugar, flowers and of course tourism. We are told thatthe country is rapidly developing a hi-tech sector.
We spent much of our first day on a rain forest tour. This involved an hourlong hike to the 7,500 foot level, and a tree top adventure in what is knownas "the canopy" where we put on professional climbing gear and swung fromplatform to platform at tree-top level in the spirit of Tarzan, giving us abirds eye view of the forest. We completed the aerial exercise by rappelling50 feet from the last platform to the forest floor. On the hike back out ofthe forest we could see the Pacific Ocean over the mountains, giant lilies andhydrangeas, and experienced a typical rain forest downpour in which the sunwas shining and unbelievably, we did not get wet.
About 6 AM following our first night in San Jose, ewe were awakened by thetremors of a mild earthquake, apparently no big deal around here. Later thesame night we witnessed the first full eclipse of the moon in two years. Weunderstand that this was observable all over North America. If you had clearskies, you may also have witnessed it. But judging from the Winter storm
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