"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Liberia to Cañas (50 km / 31 miles)

Today was an uneventful day and I can even say it was almost a boring day of riding. I have yet to be bored on a bike day yet, although I don't really know how that's possible. I'm glad today was short because my butt and hands seem to be becoming more and more resistant to longer rides. They both get sore and numb very quickly now, and by the time we arrive I feel that neither could take another minute on the bike.

We had low rolling hills through farmland the whole way. We had some nice views of 3 volcanos, Rincon de la Vieja, Miravalles and Tenorio. I was a little bitter about it, why couldn't the volcanoes come out of the clouds when we were hiking the other day? It was hot but breezy. According to the owner at our last hotel we are past the windiest stretches of road. Today it was true, the wind didn't really hold us back and I hope the continues to be true.

We made it to Cañas in 3 1/2 hours with just one break, putting us here at 10:15. Hotels in Costa Rica are really expensive. We are paying $24 for the place we're in tonight, Cabinas Corobici. It's the most we have spent this trip for a place to stay (cheapest $5 in El Salvador). We've been pretty bored since we arrived. We wasted time looking around the Walmart grocery store, here it is called Palí, as it also was in Nicaragua. We also found the bus stop for tomorrow and of course ate lots of food.

Some things we've noticed so far about Costs Rica:
-It is much cleaner, we don't see trash dumps on the side of the road or in towns. Rivers are also free of trash and we don't see people washing or bathing in them.
-There are many more signs along the highway pointing you in the right direction and giving you distances in kilometers to the next destination. Although the distances aren't always accurate, they are still nice to see.
-I don't get cat called anywhere near as much and people don't honk and yell at us out of their cars on the highways. It's quite nice. :)

It's gonna take longer than we thought to get to La Fortuna and Volcan Arenal tomorrow. We won't be there until 4 pm because of limited buses. So we've decided we'll stay there 2 nights. We are starting to get a little behind our planned schedule but I think it will be ok, we had 6 days to spare.

2 comments:

  1. The miles are starting to wind down, arent they? You don't have a whole lot of miles to go, it seems. Are you seeing any of the places you saw while you were living with that family in Costa Rica? Do you stay in touch with them? And what about Boquette? Is that on your itinerary? It is still an amazing coincidence to me that you lived in the place with the world's absolute best coffee.

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  2. By the end of tomorrow, we will have 465 miles to go.

    Our plan is to visit Boquete, I am excited, since I rever really got to see it when I was living down there!

    I have not stayed in touch with either of my host families and I
    don´t plan to visit them.

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