Tuesday, Sept. 17, we were determined to make it to Siguierres, which turned out to be about 70km from Selmar Resort. It was nice flat riding so it wasn't too hard. We managed to do it without going through Limon. Instead, we stopped just outside of Limon, where we were set upon by very aggressive school children, Several young boys took turns trying to play Eric's French horn, while a few of the girls asked me how much my bike cost, how much Eric's cost, etc. One of the little black boys had the word "Nike" shaved into his head. I was sort of enjoying being grilled by the schoolgirls but Eric was getting annoyed because the boys were starting to ask him for money. So we left.

We were hoping to make it to Siquierres in time to change some more money, but we didn't get into town until 5 p.m. Luckily we found a hotel, Hotel Central, that let us check in and pay in the morning (2,300 colones). As was the case in Limon, the room was quite plain, It had two beds and a fan. We carried our bikes up the stairs and settled in and thought about what to do for dinner.

Although we both like Costa Rican food a lot (one favorite: arroz con pollo, or chicken with rice), we decided to save a little cash by cooking up more of our camping food. Later we went out and wandered around town.

Siquierres is fairly small--maybe 15 square blocks. It wasn't particularly interesting, although it did have a store that sold saddles and other horse supplies.

The next morning, after changing some money at the bank, Eric went to that saddle store and picked out a hat for 450 colones: It's a canvas cowboy style hat that says its from the Siquierres Veterinary Pharmacy. I told him it looked pretty dorky and that sold him, so he brought it and a little rope to go with it (the rope winds around like a hat band.)

That day, we encountered a little uphill as we made our way though more banana plantations, also the traffic was horrible--many trucks were bombing from Limon to San Jose, and after a while, it got unnerving riding so close to them, Eventually we made it to Santa Clara, where the road to San Jose turns off, and things lightened up considerably, After that, to our surprise, the rest of the ride to Puerto Viejo was mostly downhill, We finished the 78k ride by around 4 p.m.

Puerto Viejo is a party town for banana plantation workers and according to our guidebook, gets lively on Fridays, when the workers get paid. We saw all sorts of places where workers could blow their money: jewelry stores, toy stores. clothes stores, and of course, bars.

Eric and I got a room in a cheap (2,000 colones) place called Monte Verde cabinas, The cabinas were basically concrete rooms, with corrugated tin roofs to keep out the rain, And as always, they had no hot water (but then again in Costa Rica, where it's mostly very hot, you really don't mind taking cold showers).

Unfortunately, our cabana was right next to a cabana that doubled as the owner family's residence. For the first several hours of the evening, we endured a very loud sitcom in Spanish. I couldn't understand the words, but it seemed pretty stupid to me anyway. Finally I asked them to turn it down and they did. Eric coped by listening to classical music on his headphones while reading.

There's not a lot to do in Puerto Viejo. We took a walk by the soccer field, watched a bunch of guys play, and got a beer.

The killer ride was this morning (Sept. 19). Back in San Jose, our Pension innkeeper, Albaro, had warned us that the first 32km out of Puerto Viejo west would be very hard. He was right.

At first the rise was gradual. We barely noticed we were going up. Thinking the day would be easy we stopped for quite awhile to talk to a guy who owned a banana stand, Juan Gabriel. Juan sold us two bananas, gave us some guavas off his tree for free, and was very impressed with Eric's French Horn rendition of Scotland the Brave.

Then came the hills. The road wound up gently at first, but then we hit a few switchbacks and I feared I was done for. At times the ride seemed as hard as the one up Volcan Poas. We had started at about 40 meters, and our goal, San Carlos (also called Cuidad Quesado), was 650 meters high.

We passed over many beautiful, streams, each filled with rocks and rapids, It was hard to truly appreciate the green scenery because the ride was so painful.
Around lunch time, we passed a place called La Virgen, but didn't stop because we weren't quite hungry. Boy did we regret that. Right around there I got it in my head that I wanted a papaya batido (milk blended with papaya). That's when we spotted Soda Mary ("soda" means food stand in Costa Rica). The soda owner was surprised when I ordered two batidos, both for me. Eric got a Coke. And we both got lunch.

I have to note here that Soda Mary is the first place I've had arroz con pollo in Costa Rica where I didn't get tiny little bones and fat globules mixed in with the food, The food is good and cheap here but it's easy to choke on arroz con pollo, I was so impressed I told the soda Mary worker, and he said it took a lot of work to prepare the chicken carefully. By the time we left, I had ordered a third batido. Eric helped me drink about 3/4 of a batido, so I wasn't a total hog. We joked a little bit with the Soda Mary guy about how the ride might give us a heart attack. But he seem genuinely worried, so we dropped that.

It rained hard in the afternoon, blinding me (I lost the visor that goes with my helmet--normally that would keep the rain out of my eyes). I had to put on a hat under my helmet just to be able to see. I rode like that for an hour, while the rain practically flooded the road.

When we had about 12km to go, Eric got a flat. We had bought new patches at a gas station en route, so we used those, but they didn't work. Then we pulled out a new inner tube, but it wouldn't fit in Eric's knobby tire. Finally we had to take off Eric's knobby tire and put on his spare road bike tire, with the new tube. It took an hour.

The last hour was wretched riding. Let me describe it in three words: pain, pain, pain. One hilight: we say five young men riding road bikes going the other way. They were the only road bikers we've seen in Costa Rica, and the only bikers wearing helmets, They were totally decked out in neon bicycling togs. We figured there was money and comfort somewhere ahead.

Next: Cuidad Quesado.

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