April Cycles Central America: 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.