Lemon stands, lego hats and luck

January 28th – Updates are merging into weeks instead days now. It may be laziness but more likely it is becoming less of a ‘trip’ and more of ‘life’. It is harder to pick out the unusual interesting stories because even the interesting becomes normal after 3 months. Right now I’m watching the bikes as Dan waits in a 200 strong line to get immigrated into Costa Rica. Luckily some Canadian friends got here much earlier than our sleepy asses and saved us at least 3 hours of waiting. The procedure here at the border has changed today, bus drivers used to take up 30 passports and stampstampstamp all done. Now each person has to exit buses and get in line which explains this craziness. But back to our last stint in Nicaragua.. We rocked into San Juan Del Sur, a beautiful crescent shaped bay as the sun set. There are no waves in town but a fun 15 minute dirt ride to the north took us to a picturesque beach of which I ironically took no pictures with a great wave. It was at this beach where I had a big progression in surfing and started popping onto the board on my feet. Defining moment of the week: Riding out to the beach with just the board on the bike in singlet and flipflops. We didn’t take long to sample the best food and nightlife San Juan had to offer.

I got a little down when a fin on my board snapped when my bike blew over, my battery was dying and barely starts the bike, I had lost my main key for the bike which meant I had to use my spare which doesn’t open the helmet lock which led to my helmet getting stolen, and then stupidly got some chlorine splashed on my laptop which put it to sleep. Typing on it now it is crippled and sporadically shuts down. It took me a while of being shitty to realise that these are the good kinds of problems to have in this world. It just means a bit of work and a bit of money. I found a helmet at a mechanic, its about as safe as a yogurt container on my head and looks like a lego hat but it should hold me over until San Jose in Costa Rica. A traveling buddy Ian jumped at the chance to put his surfboard repair skills into action and helped me out with a fin and patched up a crack in the board caused by some rowdy offroading. I opened up the laptop and left it under the fan for a day, the chlorine will probably start corroding things inside soon so I will take it in to get professionally cleaned (not something I do well, ask Eddy). Somewhere I’ll find a keymaker and get another spare, if I lost this one I’d be stranded indefinitely. It doesn’t help the budget dropping bank on a new rear tire, a helmet, rear brake pads and a new battery, but they are things that are part of the responsibility of traveling by motorbike. They’re the sort of things we don’t brag about when talking to a bussing backpacker. So thanks Nicaragua, you’ve been cheap, you’ve been dirty, you’ve been beautiful and you’ve been a shitload of fun, but now it’s time to see why thousands of gringos have flocked to the land they call Costa Rica.

February 4th – Weeeeeoooohhhh. What an interesting week in Costa Rica. We made it to our destination Playa Del Coco around 4pm. We’re in gringo country now, flashy restaurants, lemonade stands in the shape of a lemon and menus in English with English sized prices. It was all a bit of a shock to the system. We pattered around looking for somewhere to stay, but not really feeling the vibe we pushed on. We decided if we’re gonna go gringo let’s go to the king of all gringo towns Tamarindo aka Tamagringo and find a good party. Three days later we wake-up. and plan to stop at beaches along the Nicoya until we get to the gem of the southern tip Santa Teresa in a few days. We reach our first stop in 45 minutes, again with no waves and not feeling it we moved on. This continued until 7pm when we crossed a 3ft river in the dark (which we find out later is croc-infested) and came to yet another river and then another unsigned crossroad. At this point we were questioning whether we had bit off more than we could chew and should have stopped in the previous town. The ride had been fun but now we were looking at sharing a can of beans on the side of the road. A single headlight flicked through the trees and we waved it down. It was a young guy named Alfred on a zippy 125 and he happened to be heading in the same direction and invited us to follow him, after he had finished smoking a bowl of course. For the next 45 minutes we followed his brakelight through 4 more rivers, out onto the beach, weaving up and down the beach as the waves came in and out, across 2 rivers that came down on the beach back onto a dirt road for a bit and then a convenience store popped out of nowhere. We had made it, and we super stoked from experiencing that ride in the dark. We got Alfred some beer and looked for a place to stay. We saw some friends from Tamarindo but their hostel was full. The receptionist at the next one, Tranquilo backpackers told us they were also full. That was until the owner, who also owned a KLR, came down and offered us a Cabina in the hill above the hostel for free just because he thought it was cool what we were doing with the bikes! Thanks man! His name is Dave and he runs the hostel really well. Spent the next couple days surfing, although I got a nasty cut on the side of my big toe from a surf fin that I have been trying to keep dry. Nothing really works perfect so far the best has been a condom and duct tape.

Been thinking about some stats so far, next week I’ll be in Panama, roughly the half way mark of the trip.

Days on the road: 108
Countries visited: 8
KM’s ridden: 25,231
Flat tires: 2
Military checkpoints: 32
A little too close for comfort near-misses: 4
Bribes paid: 0
Things stolen: 1 helmet, 1 pair sunglasses.
Things that have fallen of the bike so far: 1 MSR fuel bottom with fuel, 4 bungee cords, 1 aquaman t-shirt, various parts of my muffler, 1 towel, 6 assorted nuts and bolts
Rivers crossed: 15
Favourite beach town: Zipolite, Mexico
Favourite city: Antigua, Guatamala
Favourite surf: Playa Maderas, Nicaragua
Favourite meal: Pescade entiro(whole fish), Piedra de Fuego, Zipolite, Mexico
Favourite riding road: The 2hr stretch south of Acapulco, Mexico on HWY200 or the 5 minute stretch entering the California Redwoods from HWY199.