San Jose, CR to Playa Hermosa, CR (July 6 - July 8)

Route:
https://goo.gl/maps/8B37F

I am writing this blog post from a bar/restaurant in Playa Hermosas while half watching the Germany-Brazil semi final game (currently 5-0!). We are only on our third full day of our trip, yet there is so much to take in already mentally. I guess the best way to start off this post, is through my reflections on the flight to Costa Rica as well as the weeks leading up to the big start of the trip.

After an emotional good bye at the airport where my parents, brother, and sister accompanied me to the airport, I was finally on my own (at least until I met up with Matt in Denver, who was flying from San Francisco, while I was flying from Orange County). After I walked through the x-ray machine, I had some time at the departure gate before the flight left Orange County. I gazed around at the other passengers and wondered what adventures they would be going on. Were they going to be traveling for business or tourism? Were they travelling to visit family and friends or were they off to explore the unknown? Was there somebody else at that departure gate that would also be leaving all their comforts from home to do some extensive traveling through exotic countries? Who knows, but a lot of thoughts were already racing through my head.

Once I was finally on that plane I had time to reflect on the past few weeks in the US in anticipation of our departure. It finally hit me that the trip was really starting. On both flights (we had a connection in Denver, Colorado), I had about a million thoughts going through my mind. It was like a combination of memories from my last 3 weeks in CA, my almost 3 years on the East, and the future of what this extended trip would bring. At that point, everything kind of felt like a dream or surreal. This trip was a culmination of so much planning and preparation, and now it was finally happening. I was now about to jump into a lifestyle for the next few months that was so far from home, comforts, routine, and predictability.

I feel like the last 4-6 weeks have given me good “practice” for what lies ahead with this trip. 6 weeks ago it started with having to tell my boss I was leaving SmartWatt Energy, a company I had been with for almost 3 years. It was also my first job out of college. Walking into that office to give my two weeks notice was a big challenge for me due to SmartWatt being a very large part of my post-college years up until now. I had gained countless experiences and knowledge from my 3 years at this company, which I am very grateful for.

After I had finished my last day of work, I now had to say goodbye to the friends I had made in Albany, New York.  The goodbyes were tough since I had created a home away from home. My friends were kind of like family, away from my real family in CA and France. It was a tight knit group, mostly composed of upstate NY transplants either from out of state or foreign countries. Our families were all spread out across the country or even the globe. Some of us were here temporarily or permanently, for school, work, or kind of a mix of both. During my time in NY, we did several weekend trips to major East Coast cities or Canada, dinners, and enjoying the craziness that is the Albany nightlife (sarcasm). During the winter, we skied during the day and drank beer to stay warm during those harsh north-east cold spells. After experiencing 6+ months of winter, the summer months were more than well deserved (to all my CA friends/family, you know nothing about winter!) with BBQs and day trips to parks/lakes.

After leaving my friends here on the East coast the next step was to move back to CA. It started with selling all my furniture, kitchen stuff, and unused sports equipment. I’m surprised the Albany, NY craigslist moderators didn’t send me an email for spamming craigslist as much as I did. I then had to sell my car, which coincidentally required a fuel pump sending unit and cracked radiator repairs, a month before I was to sell it (cost me $1,500 in repairs!). When I thought there was light at the end of the tunnel with my move, I still had to figure out how to ship 2 surfboards, a pairs of skis, a road bike, and 4 suitcases 3,000 miles back to CA. The answer ended up being ~$550 in excess baggage/shipping fees and losing two surfboards and a pairs of skis for 3 weeks somewhere between Tulsa, Oklahoma and El Paso, Texas greyhound stations. Maybe the surf in Texas was pretty good this time of the year, and the bus driver took the boards out for a spin? After all that was finished, I was at my new home for the next 3.5 weeks: my parents’ house.

My first weekend back was spent at UCLA for Delphine’s college graduation. It was nice to relive the college days for a weekend and see my sister graduate from college. After that, it was a busy few weeks seeing old friends, enjoying the company of family visiting from out of state, and doing lots of trip related planning and gear testing. In a heartbeat, it was all of a sudden the morning of July 5^th and I’d be catching a flight in a couple hours to start the next chapter of my life.

Now that the pre-trip write up is out of the way, I can finally dig into the trip so far. It started with meeting up at Denver International airport to quickly hear both Matt and I’s names on the loud speaker telling us to go the gate information desk. Wondering what the commotion was from we went up to the front desk to be told that we didn’t have a return ticket out of Costa Rica so we would be sent back to the US when we tried to pass customs in San Jose (we had bought a one way ticket to CR, and would buy our return ticket back to the US towards the end of our trip). Apparently, Costa Rica requires an exit ticket out of the country when you get in, which was obviously an issue for us since we would be cycling out of the country (for free). So we were told by the customer agent that we had two options, either buy a bus ticket from Costa Rica to Panama (non-refundable ~$40) or a plane ticket from San Jose, Costa Rica back to Denver (100% refundable $570). Since we had 30 minutes before boarding we opted for purchasing the plane ticket that we were told to cancel once we passed customs in Costa Rica.

A couple hours later we landed in Costa Rica at 5 AM. We passed through customs and surprisingly the agent didn’t check our return ticket, but we had written our return date on the customs paper that we handed to customs officials. We reassembled our bikes and road out of the airport. We did a quick detour at a restaurant to grab breakfast and capture WIFI to call Frontier Airlines by skype and cancel our refundable tickets.

Once that was done we were off on our bikes heading west. With several detours and asking locals for directions we were finally on our way towards a city called Alajeula. Following several steep inclines we then road through Garitas, Atenas, and ended up in Orotina. For our first day back on the bikes we had quite a day of climbing (3000 elevation gain/loss). We found a cheap hotel room in Orotina and passed out around 8 PM. 

The following morning we were on the road again with our goal making it to Jaco which is a coastal beach town on the Pacific. With some more steep climbing and a nice descent, we arrived in the early afternoon and got a quick bite to eat. Casado is the main dish here in Costa Rica, which means “marriage” in Spanish. It’s a combination of rice, beans, steak/chicken, salad, and plantains. After our lunch we went to a supermarket to load up on water and met a Canadian guy from Saskatchewan, named Layton. He was 28 and had been touring through Central America since January 2014. We talked for a bit about bike touring and his minimalist travel style. He had a bike and a backpacking backpack, but no panniers. Leyton gave us great advice on where to sleep, eat, and the friendliness of locals in Central America. He shared his views on touring and how to not keep track of mileage and time on the bike, but rather enjoy the moment rather than the destination. After getting kicked out of the supermarket patio for having our bikes there too long, we decided to look for a place to leave our bikes and sleep for the night. Our first destination was the local fire station. We talked to the firemen (bomberos in Spanish) who welcomed us and made some room in their fire station (a couple feet away from a fire truck) for our three sleeping pads, bags, and bikes. Afterwards we set off for the beach to go for a quick swim before grabbing some dinner in the downtown section of Jaco. We talked with the firemen for a bit before going to sleep pretty early. 

The following morning Matt and I left Leyton (who was heading north) and we headed south. After a quick breakfast, our destination was Playa Hermosa, one of the most well known surf spots in Costa Rica. Although it was not too far of a ride, I did realize half way through that I had lost my rear bike light. While Matt watched over my pannier bags, I biked back to the restaurant where we had breakfast, but had no luck finding it. I then went back to the fire station, where it was hidden under the staircase next to where we had slept the night before. After a quick bike ride back to where Matt was, we then headed off towards Playa Hermosa. Once we made it, we pulled up to the main beach. The surf looked really fun, 5-6 feet. I decided to rent a board and catch some waves. The water was unbelievably warm (compared to CA standards), around 80F. Playa Hermosa is a sand break so I didn’t have to worry about reefs or rocks. After catching some fun ones, I met an Australian guy in the lineup named Kyle. He had gotten to Costa Rica 3 days ago after spending 3 weeks in the US. Kyle told us about how he had gotten his iPhone, iPad, laptop, goPro, and a bunch of other gear stolen in Las Vegas by some sleazy couple he had met in a casino. He was now in Costa Rica, but spoke no Spanish, and couldn’t get his banks in Australia to send him new credit cards. Nevertheless, he was happy to meet other English speakers, since he was pretty confused here in this Spanish speaking country. In terms of lodging, we found a patch of sand in front of a hotel on the beach to pitch our tents for $5, so that’s where we will be sleeping tonight. As I look behind me, the wind has calmed down, and it’s time for another surf session before it gets dark. Tomorrow we will be headed towards Quepos which is about 50-60 KM, and where we hope to spend the night tomorrow.

Adios!
-LB