After spending a few days in Granada I set out to San Juan del Sur, a little beach town near the Costa Rican border. I had planned on going here a couple years ago as a side trip from Costa Rica but never made it due to bad weather. It was a quiet little town with not much to do. I rode out to a remote beach one day and ate some cheap lobster, but other than that it was unremarkable.
The ride out of San Juan del Sur was hot and dry and soon led me through a plateau full of wind turbines, never a good sign while on a bike. Sure enough, it was windy. An unpredictable crosswind tested my reflexes for quite a few kilometers before gaining elevation in the highlands and leaving the wind behind.
With signs telling me that Costa Rica was 10 km off I encountered a line of semi trucks stopped in my lane. Being that I was not a semi truck I decided to start passing them. There were hundreds upon hundreds of rigs lining the road. Some drivers were checking their tires, securing loads or chatting with other drivers, quite a few had set up hammocks under their trailers and seemed content. This line of trucks continued the entire way to the border where I was told an inefficient customs office was the culprit. It's not uncommon for these guys to wait several days in the queue before crossing the border.
I was approached by a fixer and we decided upon a price of 200 Cordobas to get me around the three or four lines each consisting of at least a hundred people to get out of Nicaragua. I repeated a similar process for the entry of Costa Rica where I watched my fixer cut ahead of everyone in line and hand my paperwork to the office worker who dropped what he was doing and gave me the proper stamps before resuming his original duties.
I had to get the bike fumigated and asked the guy spraying the bike how much it cost. He said he didn't know which was a red flag. I then asked a cop how much it was and was quoted $5. I then walked next to the fumigation place where there was a little clerk office and asked the girl, "It's free, right?" To which she paused and reluctantly said, "Si" with a sigh.
After an hour of riding in Costa Rica I saw some golden arches on the horizon and pulled into the McDonalds to soak up their AC. I ordered strange things that weren't memorable, though.
Back on the bike again I rode until seeing a sign for Monte Verde and followed and extremely narrow road up into the mountains where no straight sections existed which did a good job wearing down the 'chicken strips' on the tires. (After riding too long on a straight section the middle portion of the tire begins to get worn down while the sides remain in good shape, the two resulting strips of good rubber are called 'chicken strips' and are a sign of not having had fun in the twisties. And now you know.)
As I gained elevation I was provided with a hazy view of the Nicoya peninsula as well as the surrounding mountain ranges. I had been too busy looking around to even notice that the air temperature had cooled off significantly and unzipped my jacket, stood up on the pegs and let the cool air whip through my t-shirt.
The paved road ended at a fork and turned into a powdery dry road accented with grapefruit-sized cobbles and a few potholes. The ascents on the steeper hills were dodgy as my tires are predominately street oriented. They broke traction often, especially after hitting rocks which jumped the rear tire into the air causing it to spin freely then sending a rooster-tail of dirt behind me when coming to rest on the road again. While descending a sharp winding section I had the bike in first gear which is geared unusually low but was still gaining speed. I tried feathering my brakes but the loose dirt caused the tires to slip which would set off the ABS which released the brakes, rendering them useless. I was able to get a skid of maybe a foot out of each tap of the brakes before they were overridden and kept gaining speed. I reached up with my right hand and slapped the kill switch which shut off all the electrics including the ABS system. I was then able to lock up the rear tire at will and swing side-to-side to scrub off speed until the bottom of the hill where I flicked the bike on, bump started it and climbed the next hill. The bike does have an ABS switch to turn off the ABS for dirt riding, but the bike must be turned off in the first place in order to deactivate it.
After asking directions a few times and doing a few U-turns I hit the outskirts of the town of Santa Elena which sits adjacent to the cloud forest of Monte Verde, one of the more popular National Parks in Costa Rica. The town reminded me a lot of New Zealand with rolling misty hills covered in sheep surrounding a small town with lots of cafes and extreme-sport outfitters, not a bad spot to spend a few days.
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