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!