We got up fairly early Sept. 13 but dallied away the morning trying to send email. I won't bore you with the details, but it was a nightmare. We finally left the B&B by around noon.

Then we tried to find the bus station. Again, it was very hard without street names. We followed the directions--200 meters this way and 100 meters that way (Costa Rica doesn't have addresses, just coordinates. We even saw business cards where the printed 'address' read something like 100 meters North and 50 meters East of such and such square ... ), but that didn't work either. While we were wandering around in circles, I got another flat. We tried a new patch kit we had bought in Alajuela. It's a little different from the standard patch kit and it didn't work. We finally had to put in a whole new tube. It was extremely frustrating to be so close to leaving and yet so far.

When we did find the bus station, it was quite a zoo. Dozens of people were in line for buses to Limon, which left every half an hour. Most poeple in Costa Rica work very hard to undertand gringo Spanish. But the folks at the bus station weren't quite so patient.

When I finally got to the front of the line, I got two tickets and then asked about whether there'd be a fee for the bikes. The guy shoved the tickets at me and yelled something I didn't undertand. I got him to repeat it twice --twice more he yelled. Finally he waved me aside so he could deal with the other customers, who were practically on my back, reaching around me to get their tickets.

It was about 2:30 p.m, and our tickets were for 3:30 p.m.. We decided to wait in a soda, which had a very friendly dueno. The guy was very nice to us, and spoke in English. I told him that I didn't quite understand about our bikes, and he asked me to repeat what I'd heard. I did and it didn't make sense to him. So he asked me to show him who said that. Well of course the guy who said tht was the ticket seller, and he was under seige by a mad crowd. No matter. My dueno muscled his way to the front of the line, pointed to me, asked about the bikes, and then translated the answer: pay the fee for the bikes to the driver.

Eric and I were astounded that this guy was so helpful. We rewarded him by getting some fried chicken at his soda, and tipping him a little. Tipping is unusual in Costa Rica because most restaurants add a 10% tip to the bill. Sodas don't, but people don't tip in sodas either.

The bus to Limon was full and quite luxurious, with reclining seats. Eric wasn't thrilled at all to be taking a bus, but since it was so cheap (750 colones each, plus another 1,000 colones or so for both bikes), he didn't mind too much. But he didn't want to look out the window a lot, since we'd be seeing a lot of the same scenery on our way back across the country.

We got into Limon in the evening, and pulled our bags and bikes off the bus into a urine-stinking alley. Two people were sleeping in there, under a cardboard box. It was really disgusting and a bit scary. We put everything together as quickly as we could and then rode to a hotel we had chosen from the guidebook. Of course we got lost. When we finally found it, the owner told us to go to the one across the street, because that one had a place to store our bikes. We did. It was a total dump, but it only cost 2300 colones (about US$9). At least it was clean.

The next morning we beat it out of town and rode towards the beach town we'd heard about, Puerto Viejo. It felt great to be on the bikes, and making some distance. We rode about 45km and were happy to find sodas every few kilometers along the road. We stopped a lot. We rode by some stunning beach, but we didn't stop, because we wanted to make our destination. (Later in our travels we learned: never rush past a great place just because you didn't plan to stay there!).

One place we stopped was called the Selmar Resort. It looked really swank, with a huge restaurant--as always in Costa Rica, it was an outdoor restaurant, covered by a large roof (usually corrugated tin but I think this was wood) to protect it from the rain. It looked very expensive but we were thirsty, and the dueno was friendly.

So we stopped and enjoyed ourselves in this swank place. We got to chatting with one of the other guests, a guy named Bobby who told us an incredible story about how he came to know Costa Rica. Bobby is a middle aged guy from Virginia. He first came here four or five years ago when his son fled the U.S. on the eve of being charged with some sort of drug crime. Bobby's son told Bobby he was going to Limon. When Bobby figured out his son had left the country, he flew to San Jose right away, paid $100 for a taxi to Limon (he didn't know about the $3 buses that leave every half hour), walked into a bar that was still hopping at 3 a.m., showed his son's picture, and right away, found someone who knew his son (the end of that story is that his son worked in hotels in Costa Rica for a few years, including the Selmar Resort, before going back to the U.S. to do his jail time. He has about five months to go, and is about to get out on work release. Meanwhile, Bobby is trying to get his son's Mexican girlfriend, and their baby, papers to move to Virginia).

Bobby showed us his cabin which was excellent. It had very pretty woodwork, and a nice bed, and a clean bathroom and its own porch looking out on some beautiful flowers. Plus it was right across the street from the beach, and it had a pool and guests could use the canoe to explore the canals that wound through jungles. All for $18 a night. I was ready to stop right then. But we had a plan, so we stuck to it.

The road was flat so we made Playa Cahuita pretty quickly. Playa Cahuita has about 1200 people, almost all of whom work in the tourism industry, directly or indirectly. So said the guy who ran the soda where we stopped. Our guidebook said Cahuita could be a little dangerous, but that Puerto Viejo was not. That description, plus the fact that someone tried to sell us ganga as soon as we rolled in, made us press on to Puerto Viejo.

Unfortunately, the last 5km to Puerto Viejo is down an awful dirt road. We made it with no flats. We rolled into town and found ... Santa Cruz, Calif. beach life. Puerto Viejo was overrun with young American tourists who probably all grew up surfing and saying hey dude, in beach towns, or at least wished they had. I got a bad taste for it right off.

We scouted out some great cabinas to stay in, much like the ones at Selmar Resort. Unfortunately there were no vacancies. So we went for the cheap alternative: Cabinas Jacaranda, a $10 a night place near the center of town. We settled into our room only to find ... that we were just a few inches away from about six grown U.S. children, traveling and partying together. I suppose it would have been OK if we were 19. But we're not. Those kids were really loud and obnoxious and Nineteen. Or Eighteen or whatever they were.

We walked around town, and found the menus full of American food, often at American prices. I have to admit I was glad to have a little yogurt and granola. But it was funny to see burritos on the menu, since Costa Ricans don't eat burritos.

That night we stopped to talk to a guy who ran a bakery. He answered our questions about the town but seemed very tired ... of tourists.

After we got back to our "cabina"--really just a wooden stall in a larger wooden hut--Eric wanted a beer, so he went out in search of one. While he was out two folks tried to sell him pot. He couldn't find much that was open, except for an extremely fancy restaurant, where some entrees ran 7,000 colones (around $28). He came back absolutely hating Puerto Viejo.

Then came the worst. On the way back to our cabina, while I was pushing open a little bamboo door, it fell off its hinges, and all the screws popped out of the wall. I set the door against a wall and gathered the screws and put them in a pile near the door. I forgot about it all until sometime I guess around 10 p.m., when our innkeeper came in, and started screaming. She was initially upset about having to clean up after all the beer bottles that our American neighbors had left behind. Then she saw the door and started screaming bloody murder. "My door! My door! Who broke my door!! They're going to pay for this!"

Luckily for us, she thought it was the other Americans. Actually, it probably was, because it's unlikely that a door that is falling off its hinges for the first time would fall completely off, with all screws popping out of the wall at once. Eric and I theorize that the other guests had knocked the door off its hinges and then carefully remounted it, so it wouldn't look broken.

In any case, the innkeeper was furious. From the next room I heard the only one of my neighbors who was home--she had decided to stay in because she was too stoned (I knew this because I overheard a whole conversation between her and one of her roomates)--say, in a kind of a hung-over voice, "What the Fuck is going on out there?" Eventually the noise died down. Later all our little neighbors came back and made more noise.

The morning of Monday, Sept. 15, Eric and I beat it the hell out of there. We got up somewhere around 6 a.m., packed, rolled our bikes out, and scrammed. On the way out of town, we did stop for a lovely swim in the ocean. It was nice to see the nice part of town before leaving. We thought of going to Playa Cahuita but then thought of another plan: returning to Selmar Resort.

That's what we did. It was a long ride but we were totally looking forward to a swank cabina for $18. We did get one small surprise. When we arrived they said the rate was $35. It turns out the rate is $18 a person. But the dueno recognized us from the day before and cut us a deal: $25 a night. We signed up to stay for two nights.

It was heavenly. We took some showers, ate some lunch, and then went for a great swim in the ocean. There were a lot of waves so the swimming was a bit difficult, but that didn't matter at all. That night we cooked up some instant food on our stove in our hotel room, and went walking on the beach, looking for turtles laying their eggs. We didn't see any, as they mostly do their egg laying way north of Limon, and we were about 18k south of Limon.

The restaurant was great: a huge outdoor gazebo with an adobe style floor and chickens (dinner!) walking around freely among the tables and chairs. The waiter was very friendly. When we tried to order from the huge menu he gave us, he kept smilling and saying, No. No. Smile. No. Apparently, in the off season, they don't really stock much. It took a long time for us to guess what he had.

The next day was pretty blissful too. We took out the canoe, and paddled through the jungle for several kilometers. We saw banana trees, huge trees wtih vines, herons, and plenty of birds and flowers we can't name. At one point we both heard this huge whack on the side of the boat. We didn't see it and we'll never know what it was. But we can imagine.

While we were out, we saw Bobby, who was in a canoe with four other people (a tico, his wife and their two kids), headed for a spot on the canal from which you can walk to a banana plantation store. It would have been fun to follow along, but by then we'd been out for a few hours and we were absolutely baking. Next: the road to Siquierres

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