Small World after All.

We decided to travel back along the coast as far as Dominical then cut inland to San Isidro De General. On the way South we had traveled the Dominical coast highway but did not stop at any of the beaches, today we thought we would snoop a bit more as these are supposed to be some of the best beaches in Costa Rica. The weather was not very cooperative and a light fog would not lift so that we could get a good look at the area. Plus it looked as if it had been raining for a few days as the low areas were full of water and the side roads looked very muddy. When we pulled into Uvita, to check the map, a couple of cyclists stopped to talk. They were expats from Montreal who had started sailing the world but once their young children spent some time on land in CR, the plans changed and here they are. They were training for a cross Canada cycling event in 2012, and said they pedal about 100km per day.


They said there wasn’t much to see in Uvita and as we started the ascent to San Isidro the weather quickly changed from light fog, to heavy fog, to clouds, to rain and back again as we decended into the Isidro valley. The city itself is alive with a busy centro and market areas. We spent a bit of time in town, had lunch and tried to phone Nelson, the guy we met at the El Salvador border, but unfortuneatly we could not get through. Instead we headed out towards San Jose. We do not want to go into San Jose after all the horror stories we have heard about traffic and lack of road signs, but we figured once we got a little closer we could bypass the city and continue on towards Arenal. Up up and up we climbed as we left San Isidro, only later to discover that this section of the road is the highest in all of Central America. Usually we love this kind of road, but it was raining quiet hard and the temp was only 6C, plus there was nowhere to pull over and put on our rain gear. With visibility near zero and a busy road to deal with, it was hard to enjoy what little we could see, we finally came upon a place to stop but it was too late, we were soaked to the bone.


After a couple of hot coffees we headed out into the rain again, we started to descend so the temperature warmed and the rain stopped. YAY! We pulled over to check the map again and Jonathan from the Reo Sereno border pulled up beside us. We just about fell off our bikes. What are the odds of meeting him again and on this road of all places? As suspected we missed the turn to start the bypass of San Jose so we turned around and headed back a few kilometres and turned onto another fun little road. It twisted it way through the craggy canyons and coffee plantations, scattered about were little villages and tributary roads that came from all directions. Most of these towns are not on the map so we really had to look for any signage that pointed us away from San Jose. We were also running out of daylight so the plan changed from bypassing San Jose to finding a hotel, which actually took us closer to the city. Oh well, we found a nice place that rented Cabanas, by the hour usually. The room was exceptionally clean, and privacy was of the upmost importance, they even had room service with a food slot in the wall so that they could pass the meal through without disturbing the activities within. We had a great supper, the owners mother-in-law is the cook and a very nice little lady, I think they gave us a free desert because we were staying for the whole night, not just a couple of hours.

Supper of Champs.