Ok, so now I am in Alajuela.  I drove all day to get here, the worst of it being getting back to the Pan-AM highway.  I gassed up in Liberia, got money, and continued along after picking up a hitch-hiker that helped me with speed traps and conversation.

Costa Rica is definitely nice country. For much of the drive the trees sort of draped over both sides of the highway like an old country road leading to your uncles’ cabin.  Of course, this being the major road, it was heavy with traffic, and for the most part of the day, mostly heading the other way.   After a while, this road climbs back up into the mountains towards a plateau where most of the population of the country lives.  You could feel the heat dissipate as you climbed, and it was a good think too, as the traffic got worse and worse the closer I got.  It was a slow steady crawl up the two lane black-top, and came to a complete stop for 20 minutes or so as it was reduced to one lane for road repairs.  Yes, they actually do that here.  I was luck enough to have stopped in a spot of shade for that event.

Close to the summit, there were some spectacular views, some of which I managed to get a shot of thanks to the slow traffic.  Slow, uphill traffic in the mountains is something I have grown used to, and you just plug along as there is no use in passing just to get caught up behind another truck.  Most seem to know this, but there is always the occasional nut that just has to pass and risk and accident.  They get there about 5 minutes sooner.

The high plains here are an eyeful.  Some pictures are better left between the ears. Well, this what I say to myself when I don’t have one.

Licked by clouds, a backdrop of ochre mountains cradles a sprinkling of houses that gave way intermittently to stretches of untouched forest pressed tight against the bright green of sugar cane crops dotted with the shade of hundred year old trees. 

I re-arranged that last sentence for about twenty minutes to get it right.  It is still missing the other 968 words.

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In San Juan I fond the place I was looking for quite easily. this was what I thought would be a house dedicated to permaculture, but as it turns out, was just a really nice house that has become a bed and breakfast.

The owner, a person I met several years ago on Isla colon off the north coast of Panama, has since moved out of the field.  Permaculture is still and interest, but now only the soundtrack to her life.  This place is excellent.  My room is huge, the house a small mansion, nicely decorated with antique furniture, warm and comfortable.  She offered me a small tour around the neighbourhood, past a few museums (one riddled with bullet hols as it used to be the military headquarters, through three central parks linked together, and down to Avenida Central, which is only open to pedestrian traffic and flooded with people.

The taxi drivers were also on strike today and had parked their cars all up and down the roads around the public offices downtown. there wer thousands of them and they prevented any traffic getting through.  I have to had it to these people, when they have civil action, they make it work.  Well organised, quiet, peaceful, and effective.

The view from my balcony, that’s right, balcony, is good, although somewhat obstructed by power lines.  I am told that they are in the process of putting all the powere lines underground but had sopped just up the street from here.  Maybe next year.  She charges and incredible $14 a night here.  What a bargain.  The street is noisy, though, so she even includes ear plugs.

She had a few interesting things about here place I had never seen before.  Coffee in a sock is the way it’s done here…

San Juan is a busy city, but relatively clean.  i can’t say how safe it is.  Like everywhere in CA, bars are on all the windows and doors and there were definite gang members walking around.  They weren’t too hard to identify, and seemed to like to draw attention to themselves, although to me they look foolish.

It is nice to walk around a Capital City with a bit of a tour guide.  For the most part I have avoided big cities like the plague.

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Well, today I walked around the got myself as lost as possible.  This was easy as none of the streets are numbered here.  I had a map, but what good is it if you can’t tell where you are?

I snapped a few shots here and there, and just basically chilled for the day.

In the afternoon I joined my friend to go down to another hostel down the road to watch the airing of a documentary all about CAFTA.  Apparently, the two primary negotiators of CAFTA for the Costa Rican government who were much in the focus of this show, had threatened to sue the television station if they aired it.  They didn’t want it aired because they thought that the Costa Rican people would be become upset.

After watching the show, I can understand why.  The agreement fives so many concessions to the States that it is just unbelievable!  I can only hope that this agreement, which has no advantage to Central Americans at all, is stalled off long enough for the people to actually have a chance to read it, realize, and turn that piece of trash down.

It is nothing short of exploitation for the purposes of big industry.  Companies whose yearly profits are larger than the GDP of this entire country.

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Today I headed out for San Isidro de General, a nice little place where I had lunch behind the bus station for under 1000 Colones.  This is less than a buk, and a big plate, too.  From there, I headed towards Dominical, an awesome little town, but it didn’t have any water.

There I met up with a fellow named Darren from England, standing at the bus stop looking patient. He was waiting for a bus to San Isidro and , after a little talking and telling him what the road was like up that way, he decided to jump in with me to go to the border of Panama the next day.

We are now at a place just north of Palya de Tortuga, with just and awesome beach.  This place is where they take all those postcard pictures.

Quiet surf with a deserted beach. this place was 20 buks a night and not a lot of annoying tourists around.  The food was good, and cheap, and in the morning the coffee was good and breakfast was as well.  I will come back here.

From San Isidro the road was tolerable, but with places polluted with potholes.

COSTA RICA GET IT TOGETHER!!!

The road from Dominical to where it joined up with the Pan-Am was a great little piece of road fit for bikes.  This is how it should be done.  Every once in a while you were afforded a great view of the coast, and then it disappeared behind a wall of jungle.

I made it to the border right at noon and only had Boquette in sight.  Getting across the border was the usual hassles, some of them being the lack of money machines at the border, and the ones that were there just didn’t work.  This was a lot of walking and waiting just for nothing in the heat and humidity.

Once past the border, though, the roads were great, as I knew they were.  120 km/h and smooth.  Stopped along the way for a 35c pop, and onto David where I dropped of my rider, and then up towards Boquette, where I now am.  The pic below is the entrance to where I am staying on the road toward Boquete.

FINALLY!  I am here.  This trip is not over yet.  I still am going to Isla Colon to take a dip in the other ocean. But for now i am going to take a few days off.

I will post the missing pics at a bit later date.