Sat. Oct. 24, 2009. I arrived in San Jose Costa Rica after riding 5 countries in 5 days to meet Betty at the airport. Before arriving at the airport I saw a major accident. A transportation truck took out five cars and the line up on the bridge was at least 5 km in either direction. I was able to manouver Plat through the wreakage. When I arrived at the hotel which Betty booked, it was owned by an Italian and very nice. The owner used to import Honda Transalp. When I was ready to pick Betty up at the airport it started to rain heavy. It was night and at one point I was ready to turn around and have Betty take a taxi but the rain lasted only 1/2 hour. After I picked Betty up, we stopped at a local bar/restaurant with a good regation/salsa band and the dancing was very good. After a few local beer we called it a night.
Sun. Oct. 25, 2009. We rode in the sun up to the Paos volcano crater. It was a great ride past coffee plantations and dairy farms. One thing that is constant is the fresh smell in the air from the plants, flowers, and earth. However, the clouds came in and obscured the crater view...this of course was followed by heavy rains. We took refuge in a local grill restaurant and I finally had my Argentinian cut steak with chimichuri for the first time in many years.
Mon. Oct. 26, 2009. Betty wants to go to St. Elena, Monteverde, in the “cloud forest”. I am here slave because she came all the way here. I have to admit, that the ride was amazing. The place is unbelievable and I needed planning. Until now, I was not doing any trabvelling off major highways road. There are no shoulders on the highways and the vegetation grows right up to the pavement. Then the pavement ended and it was gravel for last 2o km to St. Elena - no guard rails as we rode higher into the mountains. Beautiful deep green valleys Once we arrived we immediately agreed that it was an expensive place with only one street paved in brick. But we still had fun in the rain.
