David to Panama City - (462 km / 286 miles)

We did this ride in 5 straight days.  This is the most consecutive days we have done the entire trip and also the longest in terms of consecutive kilometers.  Surprisingly we didn´t get as exhausted as I expected we would.  Part of that had to do with the weather. It is beginning to be the rainy season, so we had clouds all day every day and rain every afternoon, so as a result it was much cooler.  When we have had long distances to cover in the past we have tried to break it into shorter distances or at least find some place to stop along the way.  We couldn´t do this with Panama though, cause there is really nothing to see between David and Panama City and we were under a deadline to get here because of our flights.  I had been really looking forward to biking in Panama since I was an exchange student here.  When I lived here, I didn´t get the opportunity to travel as much as I would have liked.  Sadly, what we saw was disappointing. :(  The scenery in Panama is by far the most boring of all the countries we´ve cycled in, and I can even go as far as saying it´s even ugly in places.  We rode the Pan-American Highway the whole way, which in many parts is like a standard US freeway with multiple lanes across, which isn´t the most lovely thing to do a cycle tour on.  There was lots of traffic and all the forest that I imagine was once along the highway has been clear cut to make room for towns, homes and farms.  Most of the farms seemed to be vacant, we occasionally saw livestock and crops, but not a whole lot of it.  I had ridden the bus between David and Panama City so many times, and I was certain that Panama was completely flat!  I could not have been more wrong!  This was pretty difficult biking, especially since it was so many days in a row. :(

Day 1:  David to Tole (106 km / 67 miles) Tuesday April 3rd

The first day was really exhausting  because we had not been expecting hills, and there were hills the whole way!  The first 25 km leaving David we didn´t have a shoulder, then the road suddenly improved and we had a 10 ft wide smooth shoulder.  The hills seemed to get a little easier after this.  And they weren´t real difficult hills, but they were just one after another and it got tiring.  Also we had no idea where we were, we had no map, no kilometer posts of road signs to give us any idea of our progress, so that made it a little hard too.  It is nice being able to mark progress, it helps keep me motivated.  The sun stayed hidden away behind the clouds almost the whole day, only peeking out around noon when we were taking a break anyway, so it didn´t matter.  By 4 pm, we had one last big hill to go up to get to Tole, the town we were staying the night in, and it started raining pretty good.  I didn´t mind though, all my bags are water proof and I was already wet with sweat.  I have sweat more on the ride through Panama than I have the whole trip, probably due to the humidity.  It was rather gross.  It will be interesting to go home and not feel humidity and to actually feel what it´s like to be cold again!  Tole was about 2km off the highway, up another giant hill.  It is annoying to have to venture off the highway, especially up a hill, but we were in the middle of nowhere and we had no other options!  We stayed at a convenience store that also rents out rooms.  It was cheap and nice, only $10.  I was so tired I went to bed before 7!

Some interesting things about the day.  Tons and tons of cashew trees along the highway, and no one picks the fruit or collects the nuts!  Seems like an incredible waste to me.  The fruits I don´t think are actually edible, but you can make juice with them, really good juice.  We saw tons of wasted fruit the whole way to Panama City.

Also we see lots of dead things on the side of the highway, usually dogs, sometimes cats, cows, snakes, iguanas and frogs.  But today we saw a dead alligator, with no visible water nearby!  It was quite strange, but also kind of exciting, we have no idea where it came from. :)  It was a pretty small alligator, about 3 feet.

Got my first flat tire of the trip, a little piece of metal, no bigger than a staple got in my back tire causing a slow leak.  Of course it had to be the back tire, making it more difficult to change!

Day 2: Tole to Santiago ( 95km / 59 miles) Wednesday April 4th

We´d expected climbs today, cause another cyclist had left an overview of the ride at our hostel in David.  It was awful though, several long hills, multiple kilometers long.  This mountainous area lasted for 30 long kilometers.  We at least started seeing more kilometer posts, so we had some idea where we were.  We were in the middle of nowhere all day though, no towns or places to refill water, at once place we stopped, they told us the water was not potable.  It once again stayed cloudy and cool and was even foggy and quite pretty in the morning.  But all the humidity in the air had me soaking with sweat all day again.  I was exhausted all day, wanted to drop dead on several occasions.  I burned a ton of calories and was constantly hungry, so ate a ton.  After the 30 km of mountains ended, we had a huge down hill of about 10 km, then continued to have less difficult hills for about 30 more km.  Once we got close to Santiago, we started to have a little more flat between hills and the hills got smaller. My legs we like jelly at this point.  The sky was turning dark as we rode in to Santiago, there was wind thunder and lightning.  It looked like we were riding into the eye of a hurricane, we of course got rained on again! We stopped at the first hotel we saw in Santiago, a cheap Chinese run place.  It was conveniently located across the street from a restaurant I liked that the bus used to stop at half way though the ride for people to eat at.  So we loaded up on Panamanian food there, then went a block away to get ice cream at McDonalds, then went another block down to the grocery store and had even more ice cream and a half gallon of milk. By this time I was feeling a little bit revived. :) Went to bed real early again.

Got a second flat tire, cause I didn´t remove all the metal bits from the tire the first time!

Also doesn´t seem to be much availability of  fresh fruits or vegetables in Panama, so naturally I have been craving what I can´t have.  We haven´t seen fruit stands like in other countries.  We did find a watermelon stand on the way into Santiago and I was so excited, but our watermelon was rotten!  So I´ve started eating canned fruit from the grocery store!

Day 3: Santiago to Anton ( 115 km / 71 miles ) Thursday April 5th

Finally some flat!  It was easy going all day!!  There were some hills but they didn´t even feel like hills, it was wonderous!  It was cloudy again and we even had a light breeze.  Lots of street signs and kilometer posts today, and we were able to keep up a pretty quick speed.  The sun came out for 2 hours at the most and we were mostly in the shade at that time! We made it the 95 km to Penonome (our original planned stopping point) easy.  We ate at the McDonalds there.  I´d have been happy eating tuna or beans, the stuff we´d already bought from the grocery store, but Craig couldn´t resist McDonald´s.  It was very popular with locals, there was a huge line!  It took 35 minutes from the time we got in line to the time we got our food.  They have strawberry soda in the fountain there!  It rained while we were eating, so we thought we were safe.  We decided to keep going to the next town, Anton, 20 km away since we were still feeling so good.  It again was easy riding, but we got absolutely poured on!  There was water sloshing in my shoes, it was quite fun! :)  We hauled ass to limit our time in the rain, cause Craig doesn´t like being wet, and we managed to do the 20 km in just over an hour.  That´s probably a record for us.  There was only one cheap hotel in town and it wasn´t really cheap, they´d jacked up the price for Semana Santa (All Saints Week).  So it was $28!  The power went out shortly after we arrived and we again went to bed early. We actually still felt good and probably could have gone to the next town to look for a cheaper hotel.

Day 4: Anton to La Chorrera ( 96 km / 60 miles) Friday April 6th

The first 12 km of the day to the next town were easy riding, but after that, the easy riding came to sad end!  We had lots of large hills to go over, one after another for about 25 km. We then got a short break from the hills before we had a final 4 bad hills to go over.  The last one was a small mountain pass, and at this time I got another flat tire!  Craig of course was way ahead of me, as he almost always is.  I have asked him many times not to do this.  He rides ahead and waits for me, says it´s hard for him to keep pace with me.  He has all the tire changing equipment in his bike bags, and I had to walk my bike up this mountain pass and just hope he had stopped somewhere along the way and not gone the whole way up!  Luckily he wasn´t too far, but I was still really mad!  I fixed the tire and we got over the hill.  The last 30 some kilometers were more rolling hills, but easier.  It was a very exhausting day and for some reason I was getting side aches and stomach cramping, which made it even harder.  To find a hotel in La Chorrera we had to get off the freeway.  There were actually exit ramps here, instead of cross streets, and none of the exits were marked, so we just chose one at random.  We must have looked lost, cause a family stopped in their car and helped us find a hotel.  It was close by and only $12 for 12 hours, haha! :)  We weren´t near food, but took a taxi into town.  It was Good Friday and the town was shut down, very little was open.  Craig found a Dairy Queen to eat at and I got yogurt and beans and chips and an avocado from the grocery store.  We walked around town after eating looking for an internet place so we could look at a map of Panama City and find out where our hostel was located.  I was surprised by how dead it was, we almost gave up looking then found a little place on the second floor of a building, almost didn´t see it.  Felt very lucky to find it.  We wrote down directions and headed back to our hotel to go to bed early yet again.  We had some trouble getting back to the hotel, the taxi driver didn´t know where it was, and neither did we!  He drove us around until eventually we passed it, that was luck!

Day 5: La Chorrera to Panama City ( 57 km / 35 miles ) Saturday April 7th

We left a little later than we have been the rest of the days, 6 am, slightly over staying our 12 hour limit. :) It was no problem though.  We had some rolling hills to get to Arraijan, the next town on the highway, but really nothing bad.  Then a series of long lovely down hills to the Bridge of the Americas, that crosses over the canal.  This part of the highway was really pretty, it was foggy and we were surrounded by green rainforest and no development!  It reminded me of the 163 into downtown San Diego.  We continued to have our giant 10 ft wide shoulder, which we´ve had almost the whole way, but it went away right before getting on the bridge, when it disappeared completely.  There was no shoulder at all on the bridge, luckily there were 2 lanes in each direction, so cars could go around us.  It was hard to enjoy the views though because of this!  I was focused on getting off the bridge!  Signage coming off the bridge was confusing and we ended up out on the Amador Causeway.  It was built with the stuff that was dug up in the construction of the canal.  It is a lovely palm lined boardwalk out into the water, and was a lovely place to get lost.  We had views of downtown and of the bridge from there.  We only had a little trouble navigating the rest of the way through town.  The original route we planned didn´t allow bikes, luckily my Lonely Planet map was detailed enough that we were able to choose another way.  It was nice riding through town, it was much more developed than I remember it being.  It is by far the most developed city in Central America, tons of money here, lots of sky scrapers.  Lots of stuff that wasn´t here last time I was, and it looks like there is on going construction.  It was a very pretty sky line and we encountered nice bike paths.  There was very little traffic because of Easter, lots of people have vacated the city.  We got very close to our hostel and called the place cause we didn´t know the rest of the way.  The owner came out and met us and walked us the rest of the way.

What a relief to be done!

Yesterday and today have been relaxation days.  Nothing is open today anyway.  Not much to do.  Just reading.  Tomorrow we will visit Parque Metropoletana, the Canal and Casco Viejo and of course look for snow cones!  We also have to find a suitcase for my bike and a box for Craigs and pack up.  Tuesday afternoon I fly home.

A cashew fruit. the nut is enclosed in the thing on top of the fruit

Me absolutely soaked in sweat from the humidity!

View of the Pan American Highway

Amador Causeway

Me in front of the Bridge of the Americas

View of downtown and Cerro Ancon from the Causeway

Bike Path along Avenida Balboa. Large buildings of Punta Paitilla ahead.

View of Casco Antiguo from Punta Paitilla

Me at the Canal

Large ship going through

Canal

My bike didn't fit completely in the suitcase.  The rims had to go in Craigs bike box.

David, Boquete and Cerro Punta

Due to laziness and lack of planning, our two days off in David were wasted. We had grand plans to go to Cerro Punta the first day (the town I was an exchange student in) and stop off in Volcán on the way. In Volcán we were going to eat at two of the restaurants that I ate at a lot when I lived there, and also going to walk to a nearby lagoon that I used to go to with my friends a lot. In Cerro Punta, we were to visit Parque Internacional La Amistad. This is a place I never got to visit, because the day my school went there on a field trip, I was vomiting up bile and strapped to an IV. I had then planned for us to stay the night at the Los Quetzales EcoLodge in Cerro Punta, which actually has dorms. The next day we were going to hike from Cerro Punta to Boquete. Then we'd have spent the second day exploring Boquete and possibly doing a coffee tour. It was a big agenda and not really rest, like we probably need.

This is what we actually did:
Los Quetzales dorm bed prices have skyrocked to $20 per person and for some reason were not available this week, and the trail to Boquete has been closed for over a year due to land slides!

So day 1, which turned out to be Palm Sunday, we caught a bus to Boquete, with no plan in mind. We didn't know it was palm Sunday until we got there and saw people walking around with palm fronds. Lots of businesses were closed. We considered touring some gardens in the area, but they were closed. We were too late for a coffee tour and they were rather expensive anyway. We could have hiked, but we ultimately decided we didn't feel like it so we ate some food there and headed back to David early. Once in David I proceeded to take a 4 hour nap! Apparently I needed it!

Day 2, today we wanted to get on the first bus to Cerro Punta at 5:30 am, cause it takes 2 and a half hours to get there. We missed the first one and the second one drove right past us without stopping! So we were on the 6:30 bus and had woken up early for nothing! We headed straight for La Amistad park. We had to pay $7 round trip (each) for the bus to Cerro Punta, then $6 for a taxi to the park entrance, then $5 each for park entrance fees. I had always wanted go to the park since I missed that field trip. It's supposed to be really pretty cloud forest scenery. We hiked to a waterfall, the trail was slippery, muddy and damp and the waterfall was just ok. That is the only hike we did and we are glad because it started to pour down rain when we got back to the park entrance. And it is quite cold in Cerro Punta, not a place you want to get soaked! We'd planned to try and hitch hike back to the road, but we're forced to get another taxi back to the bus stop. By the time we got on the bus, we were tired and hungry, and went straight back to David without stopping in Volcán. We are at the rotisserie chicken place, repack and hand washed our laundry. So it was an expensive day and not really worthwhile.

We are getting up early to start our bike ride towards Panamá City. I can't wait to get there and be able to sleep in! We plan to do about 100km a day for the first 4 days and then have a short day on the last day so we can get into the city early and find the place we're staying, Hostel Aleman. I'm sure that isn't going to be an easy feat! It's gonna be hot and probably somewhat miserable riding. Each day seems to be hotter, and Panamá City is considered to be the hottest capital in Central America, but we'll make it!

Quepos to David, Panama (253 km / 157 miles)

Day 1: Quepos to Palmar Norte (105 km / 65 miles)

Another sweltering hot day on the Costanera with little shade again!  We got an early start, 4:30, and by 9 it was already boiling, we could see the heat radiating off the road!  The highway moved inland for the first 40 km and was pretty nice scenery, palm farms to Dominical, the first beach town we came to. On the way there were found some African Palm fruits that had fallen from a truck.  I was excited to see them, they are huge and heavy!  The road was flat to Dominical as well, then we started climbing some small hills, but the hills always seem to coincide with the heat arriving!  The hills however weren´t for nothing, we got some lovely views of the coast, some of the prettiest coast we´ve seen the whole way!  Turqouise water, lots of cool rock formations, kinda reminded me of La Jolla in San Diego.  I was of course dripping sweat and dying from the heat so we stopped for me to cool off in a river. I really should have started doing that sooner, I´ve been looking at rivers longingly but for some reason never thought to stop! About 10 km past Dominical the hills stopped and we arrived in another beach town called Uvita. There we stopped for water refills and snow cones, the best snow cones in the world! We sat outside the supermarket in town and took a rest. While we were there, we ran into a friendly American who actually knew something about our bikes! He ran a restaurant a little ways down the road, and invited us to stop by for a drink. We rested a little longer before starting out again, we weren't real motivated to go back into the sun and heat. The restaurant is call Roadhouse 169, it's at km 169 of the Costanera. It was 8km away, and we were glad for the break, because there were several hills to get there. The restaurant was not air conditioned but kind of open air style and surprisingly cool inside! The owner Bob is a cyclist himself. He made us a smoothie and talked to us for a bit. We ended up ordering hamburgers, the only real hamburgers we've had the whole trip! It was very hard to leave there, I had no motivation to go back in the heat!  Leaving there we had about another 10 km of hills then the road mostly flattened out to Palmar Norte.  We had mostly forested scenery the rest of the way, with frilly lime green ferns and orange tipped trees.  Costa Rica seems to be known as being really developed, but that is not necessarily the case.  Populations seemed to be centered in towns leaving the stretches in between along the highway unaltered.  In other other countries we´ve been through, there seems to be endless civilization and farm land, so this is quite nice for a change.

We got to Palmar Norte by 3:30, and it was still rather hot, but we had gotten a light breeze the last hour.  We very easily found a cheap place to stay right off the highway.  Today was a good day, although it was terribly hot, we never got too worn out, but that didn´t stop me from going to bed at 7:30!  It helps that we can drink the water in Costa Rica and can get refills anywhere, thus drinking more.

A palm fruit fell off the truck! These are the the fruits that are pressed for their oil.

a truck full of African palm fruits!

cooling off in the river

view from hills near Dominical

entering Dominical

Day 2: Palmar Norte to Ciudad Neily (76 km / 47 miles)

Another 4:30 start, but luckily there was room to bring our bikes into the room, so we could leave them fully loaded, meaning little getting ready time in the morning.  We got up at 4:15 and just threw on the dirty biking clothes from the day before! :)  It was actually cool out at this time, as well as foggy with some light wind!  It was very nice!  It is not light enough out to turn off our headlamps until about 5, and there are lots of potholes in the road, which are real hard to see.  I ran into a pretty deep pothole, it didn´t knock me off my bike, but it caused my steering to go a little crazy, causing Craig to run into me and both of us to fall off our bikes, luckily neither of us were badly injured, but scary nonetheless.  We had lots of flat road with very few hills, the road however was pretty crummy, with a rocky/gravely sort of pavement, lots of patching and potholes and no shoulder.  There was almost no cars on the road the whole way, so it wasn´t too bad.  Partway through the day we merged back in with the interamericana, and surprisingly, the road condition improved little, if at all!  We saw lots of pretty white rock rivers and more forest along the highway with lots of brightly colored flowers and banana trees.  The last half hour was so hot it felt like the sun was burning my skin through my shirt, and it probably was.  We went up one final hill and were surprised to discover all of a sudden we had arrived!  It was only 11 am!  The town we stopped in was only 20 km from the border, meaning we could get there nice and early and hopefully avoid lines.  We again found a cheap hotel right off the highway, it was way too easy!  We again were left with energy and still feeling good!  We had about $10 in Colones left after paying for our hotel, which was enough for a cheap meal, if were lucky.  Right away though we encountered an ice cream shop and couldn´t resist, so the cheap meal idea was out the window!  We ended up having more fun going to the grocery store and the bakery and getting beans, bread, avocado and cheese and making torta sandwiches for dinner, with a little bit left over!

this river somehow had a school bus in it!

Day 3: Cuidad Neily to David, Panama ( 72 km / 45 miles)

We started even earlier today, 4 am, had the bikes in the room again.  It was a little too early to leave I think. I prefer not to ride so long in the dark before the sunrises.  I got run off the road by a giant tour bus, less than 15 minutes into the day.  There was no reason for it, because I was under a street lamp and also have reflectors all over my bike and there was no traffic coming the other way.  I went off into a bumpy grassy patch, but somehow managed to stay on my bike.  It would be really nice if the road had a shoulder!  Tons of locals ride bikes to work!  We had expected a big hill to the border, cause a local guy we met in Miramar last week told us there was a hill, and we believed him cause he used to buy cars from the US often and drive them down, so he knew the road.  However there was no hill, just an ever so slight incline the whole way there.  We arrived by 5:30 and were greeted by a huge line.  We are guessing it had something to do with All Saints Week (Semana Santa) and people going home to visit family.  The Costa Rican side moved pretty quicky, about an hour spent in line there.  The Panamanian side was ridiculous, only one window was open!  We waited in line over an hour, only to be told we needed to go to an internet cafe and print out our proof of onward travel (airline ticket)!  The guy told us we could cut to the front of the line when we came back, which makes me uncomfortable, but I wasn´t about to wait again!  Three hours later, we were across the border, and we lost an hour going into Panama (time zone change), so it was 9:30, worst border crossing ever!  We noticed most people were having their bags searched as well, we were at least spared from that.

Once in Panama the roads were instantly nicer than Costa Rica, smooth and no more potholes or patches.  Our shoulder quickly disappeared and we had a steady slight incline for almost 30 km to the first major town, La Concepcion.  The highway was a 4 lane divided highway, so we didn´t have to fight too much with traffic.  It was unbearably hot, and our legs were getting fatigued from the constant uphill.  After La Concepcion we had 20 km of more downhill than uphill (but still some annoying hills) into David.  Once in David we rode in circles for awhile before finally founding the hostel around 2:30.  We are staying at The Purple House, which is run by a lady who volunteers here in the Peace Corp almost 15 years ago and stayed.

We got to eat at my favorite restaurant in David (Rosticeria Pollo A La Leña) and had snow cones in the park. :)  The restaurant is only a few blocks from our hostel, and I didn´t remember where it was, just that I used to see it from the bus on the way into town.  So we got on a bus headed towards the terminal, and within a block I saw the restaurant, and immediately got back off the bus!  Everyone one all the bus must´ve thought we were retards. :)

My rash in finally going away.  In Quepos, I figured out that the Lotrederm cream I got from the pharmacy is actually an antifungal cream!  I specifically asked for a cream for an allergic reaction on the skin!  So I went and got another called AllerGel, which seems to be doing the trick. :)

We surprisingly again weren´t overly exhausted, like we have been before on multiple day bike rides.  This leaves me hopeful about the 5 consecutive days we have left getting into Panama City.

Yay!

guayacan tree! my favorite!

Patacones, yucca, and rotisserie chicken!  Super yum!

Quepos / Manuel Antonio

Today we visited Manuel Antonio National Park. The main attraction here is the beach, there are several of them, each in it's own little protected cove. The water here is warm, the waves are calm, the sand is white and each cove is surrounded by lush green rain forest. Most people just head straight for the beach and skip the trails. We explored the beaches and hiked too. It was soooo hot though! I was drenched in sweat and got tired and dehydrated quickly. We did get to see tons of moneys, three different kinds, and lots of iguanas. There was an insane number of monkeys and some of them were tame, cause in the past people have fed them. I hate idiot people like that. Despite being too hot, it was a very good day.

View of public beach Quepos

Secluded beach in Manual Antonio

lots of idiots all sharing the same beach

Capuchin monkey

Racoons in the trash!

Tomorrow we bike again. Getting up at 4 am. :( We're gonna ride as far south as we can. We're running out of days this last week and a half we're gonna have a lot of consecutive biking days and it's gonna be hard.

Puntarenas to Quepos (140 km / 87 miles)

bike path South of Puntarenas

Day 1: Puntarenas to Jacó (72 km / 45 miles)

On Monday we left Puntarenas headed towards Quepos, which is home to Manuel Antonio National Park. We stopped about half way at the very popular Jacó beach. We got started at 5 am and got to watch the sunrise over the mountains as we headed back inland from Puntarenas. The sky was lit up pink and reflected in the water of the gulf of Nicoya. The bike path we were on continued about 15 km past where we got back on to the main highway (called the Costanera). Then we were on a fancy 4 lane divided highway! It's the fanciest road we've seen yet! We had some hills to deal with, and they looked harder than the ones from our last biking day, but they didn't feel harder! Then we even got a stretch of road with rainforest on one side, and shade! Shade seems to be very limited on the roads here in Costa Rica as all the vegetation is cut back quite a ways from the road. The day was going great, but by 10 it was already too hot! Shortly after 10, we were only 12 km from Jacó when we were met by an evil long hill. There wasn't even enough shoulder on this section for me to get off and push! I took lots of breaks and nearly died of heat and dehydration. I made it up, but it probably took an hour! The last few downhill kilometers were lovely and dried me of my dripping sweat. The beach in Jacó was pretty, but we didn't swim. It's a very famous beach for surfing and as a result has become overrun with tourists and retired old people from the US, lots of condos! So everything is expensive and we decided to camp. We ended up spending the evening taking turns playing guard for our gear, as we couldn't find the campground host. There were lockers available but we didn't have access to them. Finally at the end of the evening someone came by to collect our money. It was already bed time at this point and we had sandwiched our bikes between a tree and the tent to keep them safe, so we didn't get a locker. The place was called Camping Hicaco and cost us $7 per person!

Jaco Beach

Day 2: Jacó to Quepos (68 km / 42 miles)

Another 4:30 am wake up call and on the road by 5 am. Yesterday was an easy day. Almost no hills and we arrived by 10:30 before it was too unbearably hot. We had a fairly big shoulder the whole way and a pretty good smooth road with little traffic. There were almost no hills. At the end we rode through at least 20km of palm tree farm, the same kind we saw on the road to Telà. I have since discovered that these palms produce a large pod of fruits from which palm oil and palm kernel oil are extracted. It is palm kernel oil that is used in so many candies in the US, like Snickers and M&M's. We also saw lots of toucan filled trees and a river full of crocodiles! We got to Quepos so early that it was almost as if we had the day off. It was fantastic!

We are staying in the Wide Mouth Frog backpacker hostel, which has a pool that we have been enjoying very much in the horrendous heat! It just keeps getting hotter, we are in the middle of summer here.

I will post new pictures soon! I'm using free wifi on my iPhone to post this, Internet cafés here are expensive, as is everything else.

Strangler fig around a palm tree with an iguana

Crocodiles under the bridge!

African palm fruits above each frond

View from the top of the awful hill

lots of bromeliads in trees around here

Puntarenas / Miramar Ziplining

We took a day off today to do a zipline canopy tour.  This was my fourth zip line tour, but Craig´s first.  One of my coworkers in Mammoth recommended this one to me.  It´s claim to fame is that it is the only one over 11 waterfalls.  It follows a river down a canyon and over the several waterfalls it creates.  It was really pretty, but since it is the dry season, the waterfalls aren´t so full.  It was a lot of fun, there were well over 20 ziplines, 2 rappels, and we got to swim in one of pools in the river.  

To get there we took a 1 hour bus ride to a town in the mountains called Miramar.  It has lovely views of the Gulf of Nicoya and the Nicoya Peninsula.  From Miramar we had to take a taxi the extra 6 km to the hotel.  The tour included a delicious typical style lunch.  And we were able to hitchhike back to town.

We are back in Puntarenas.  This is our second night here.  Our hotel is costing us $24 a night and is a complete dump.  I am starting to get tired of staying in dumps!  Especially at this price!  It is a small room with dirty wooden walls and a foam mattress.  When we were moving our stuff in, we found a used condom on one of the shelfs hanging from the wall.  It was just about at eye level, how do you miss that when cleaning a room!  We also discovered our room has rats, as there was rat poo and an eaten through package of crakers in my stuff this morning!  I have tied my bag of snacks to a nail high up on the wall in hopes that the rat won´t come back tonight to ruin more of my food.  I have also been sleeping with my own blanket and travel pillow.

Puntarenas is also a dump.  Based on its location on the map, you´d think it would be pretty, but it´s rather run down.  It on an 8 km long peninsula that jutts out into the Gulf of Nicoya.

Tomorrow we have about 70km to ride to Jaco beach.  Where we will camp (at the outrageous price of $7 per person)!

Above you can see there´s a zipline over this waterfall

This was a bit on the creepy side to walk across!

view of zipline path

View of the Gulf of Nicoya from the hotel property

Cañas to Puntarenas (87 km / 54 miles)

Cool dinosaur on the side of the road!

Super cool watermelon helmet!

We slept in til 7 and I woke up even more sore from the hike than I was the day before.  So it was a hard day of biking.  Starting late is also bad, cause it means more time in the heat and sun.  We also had more hills than we expected.  There were several long, fairly steep hills.  We figured out that the route seemed flat on google maps cause they do their elevation changes in increments every 200m or something crazy like that!  It wasn´t too bad, but in my condition I tired out real quick.  We stopped about half way through at a roadside watermelon stand and split and watermelon and a coconut water.  To entertain myself I made a watermelon helmet, and Craig cut out ventilation holes.  I wore it for awhile, and it was rather refreshing!  Eventually too much watermelon juice leaked into my eyes and I had to take it off!  But temporarily it made me feel better.  We ended up taking quite a few breaks and didn´t get into Puntarenas until just after sunset.  There is a nice bike path the last 8 km into Puntarenas, it was flat and breezy and we saw lots of local families out getting exercise.  It was a pleasant end to the day.

We are going to try to start camping more to save money, cause the lodging here is just too much for what you get.  An average hotel is $24 and in Nicaragua was under $10!  It surprisingly more expensive here than Belize was!  I don´t remember it ever being this bad, prices have really sky rocketed in the last few years.

We have also started get more food from the grocery store, since food in Costa Rica is not cheap either, an average typical style meal is $6, where in Nicaragua it was $2!  So we´ve started eating bagged refried beans and chips, tuna and crackers, yogurt and fruit.  I also buy powdered milk, which I love, it is soo good down here!  It is made with whole milk, which I have never been able to find in the US (only non fat dry milk there).  Grain beverages are also really popular down here, like oatmeal and milk, or one called cebada, which is barely, vanilla and cinnamon.  One I really like is called pinolillo, which is cocoa powder, corn meal, vanilla and clove.  There all sound horrible, but I really like them.  They make a good breakfast mixed with water, powdered milk and sugar.

I have continued to deal with rash on my skin since Leon.  It keeps sort of going away and then coming back.  I have a cream from the pharmacy called Lotrederm, which is supposed to be antihistimine and help with itch. I´ve also decided to take benadryl the rest of the trip.  Currently neither medicine seems to be doing much of anything and I am miserable with itch.  It is currently mostly on my ankles and has thankfully gone away from my face.  I hope that the upcoming beaches don´t make it worse!