Costa Rica: Trippin' with GR

The reason that I am thinking of waiting until Dec is because I am hopeful that there will be less chance of riding in the rain. Is this a valid concern? When does the wet season generally end?

Yeah I know that story on the Road of Death. Pucker factor is very high. You can't see shit and the truckers who traverse the route regularly carry on as if it were clear and sunny. I like to be at the base of the mountain by sunrise. Have yet to get socked in when I hit it that early.

Tortuguerro is nice; a different planet. I imagine it is about as close to the Amazon as you can get without heading to Brazil.

In Dec. you are sure not to get wet. High winds can be interesting though. Officially winter ends the second week of Nov. That last statement was from the hip, but seems to be holding true. I only got wet once last week in route home from The Job.

That sounds about right. I didn't see any signs or anything indicating it was off limits; and it was awesome!

For reference, and also because it's super weird, here is a link to a company that is apparently building crazy high-end homes right on the road that I'm talking about: http://www.alltravels.com/costa-rica/guanacaste/arado/photos/current-photo-86041385

I have placed a few dollar sign pins on Google Earth labled Swank in the area. I think I am going for it. Less pavement = more peace.

All systems go. A follow up with the Jefa revealed the vacation day has been “requested and approved”. The game plan has changed a bit; the wife is 50/50 on coming and the route got rerouted to add more dirt (ya’ll can thank davidbrundage ).


Spent this weekend going over my DR and all is well. A healthy beast.

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As long as the DR starts this Friday it is game on! First ferry Puntarenas-->Najranjo at 0630. See you there!

There are few things that can get me into San Jose. One is a black Friday sale I got to take advantage of on Thursday. 55 thousand front and rear … not bad for Costa Rica.

So this is what it is like packing for RTW trip is like?

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The real packing is complete and now we wait. The wife is confirmed as attending and neither of us can sleep. Ana is cleaning like a meth-head. I am just waiting out the buzz. We aim for the first ferry to Naranjo.

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So it is a little before three AM and I realized our tent is too small. I finally bailed to the hammock to stretch out. I have the Pacific on my left, palms all around and a clear star filled sky above.

I can't seem to upload pics from my smartphone and using it as a wireless hot spot has failed. I am on vacation so trouble shooting network issues isn't on my list of shit to do this weekend.

170 kms yesterday and about 100 on the dance card hoy. A few pics will get posted once we settle in later.

Until then. Pura Vida.

lookin good brother
have fun !

Current bike has 94k on it.....talk to me when you hit that!

I am way too exhausted to process the past three days into text. Two flats kicked our asses today and had to ride the last few hours in the dark.
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For now I leave you all with a few pics I will get to work on the RR someday. Enjoy.








Cheers .

Great ride reports

Up late again which is not a good idea with an alarm set to ring at 0345 for a 0430 departure. I will not sleep for weeks if ever the day comes I take off for week into the unknown.

Regardless of lack of sleep we stayed in line with the latin way of life and got a late start. Finally, at 0517 we shove off under cover of darkness.

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The ferry departure was 0630 and this trip sanely takes 2 hours. We were going to miss the boat because we had some stops to make. The first being fuel were we saw this little rig. Never would have thought to see the ice cream man on a moto. We passed on the ice cream because we were .

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Our second stop was for paper money. This was our first attempt; a complete waste of time. The machine didn’t have any money. F*ck!

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We hauled ass for the port. This was going to be lucky if we were to catch the early boat. I figured they would take plastic but ran across an ATH right on the PanAm in the city of Esparza. Bingo. I continued at a comfortable speed all the way through Puntarenas. We barely made it, last ones on the boat at 0637.

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Good bye real world, if only for a few days…

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The ride began with the ferry listing quite heavily. I remember thinking that there were going to be a lot of sick people on this boat. For the good of everyone on board the ride smoothed out and became quite pleasant.



Looking back the cloud forest was in the clouds.

The Central Valley and Central Pacific looked to be having a nice morning.


And everything looked splendid arriving to Puerto Naranjo.

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Last one on and last one off just past 0800.

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I had initially thought the roads would be dirt as soon as we reached the other side. I was wrong. In fact the road is nicely paved all the way to the city of Jicaral. We planned on eating just off the boat but there was nothing of great interest in Naranjo so we just kept riding. In Jicaral we were turning inland and after a little driving around we found the right road out of town. Hunger struck and we found a soda to squash that pain.

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Delicious and way too much food! Ever since the first port city of Puntarenas, the atmosphere has been completely different. People are darker than they are in the valley. Everyone wears less clothes and sandals. The amount of bicycle traffic has increased exponentially. Things once again changed when the road surface did.




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It was pretty torn up but easy enough to miss the big holes. We took a left off the main road and arrived to the village of La Fresca.

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That is just Manuel and his neighbor loading the horse with sal y miel.
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We stopped to confirm with the horsemen that the road was passable before continuing on.

They had said there were a few rivers.


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The road twisted and turned in and out of the mountains which were primarily covered with Teak farms.


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It got pretty gnarly at times, but since it was dry it was passable. The river crossings were getting muddier and lager the deeper we got into the mountains.



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When we finally hit a straight and flat spot so we took the opportunity to soak up our surroundings. We were far from anything.

Anything but bees. Makes sense since Manuel was loading his horse with honey.

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After our break we hit the biggest of all the rivers today. I hit it with a little speed and pulled through without incident.

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Unfortunately the ride came to an abrupt halt. We reached a wall. This wall had a very steep switchback up and the thin road it consisted of had a mini grand canyon eroded through it. For kicks I pulled out the phone and GPS confirmed it. We were on the wrong road. I would have attempted but decided against it. If I were by myself, maybe. On a smaller bike, no problem. There was another route I had actually planned on taking since Ana chose to come with, so we turned around.
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The second time through that last river almost took us down. I again took the river with confidence when one of those baby-head rocks popped the front end up and redirected us. My right foot went in the river but never to the ground. I gave it a handful of gas and we were out and upright.
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It was now a few minutes past eleven and we were right back in Mr. Mora’s neighborhood, La Fresca.

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On the second pass through we got lost in time. Coke came in glass bottles and life slowed down.

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We didn’t really have anywhere to be so we ran with the vibe…

Manuel grinds raw sugar cane into “dulce” using Ox power. Dulce is a sweet and delightful local treat.


Manuel then pulled out one of the many logs he collects.

It was filled with pure heaven made by the smallest little hornets that do not sting.

… I close my eyes and can almost taste it.

This guy stopped by and changed our lives forever (revealed in part II).

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We were like family for the hour and a half we were there. Manuel and his wife Marleni own the local store in La Fresca. They have a son who is married and lives in the states. He has a 2 BR house they rent out for 10,000 colones a night ($20-ish). Not in the budget, camp. They would love to see more good people come through. This town is in a world of its own. I bet 80% of native Ticos would not have a clue where it is. Even less have been there. It is Peaceful, Safe. I could have stayed forever but the Pacific was pulling. We needed to get moving. West to Bongo.

Always good to know they are being read. for being here.

You bought it used. I did almost 13K since last years Pacific adventure. How many miles can you but on a BMW in a year's worth of grocery runs?

Rock on.

Can't wait to see the end of Central Bunghole and into America Sur. Remember to stop at immigration/aduanas to import/export you and your bike in each country. You can't just skip borders, even if you are Gringo .

11k when I bought it....only 83k was mine....true. Call me at 83k. Or when you do 7500km in 16 days.....or 1480 in one day.....or.......or.....or

$110 for both tires....good deal. I'd kill to be able to do that.

Awesome stuff, Greg - one of the few ride reports I subscribe to. I've spent a decent amount of time out near Samara, as un amigo mio has a house 20 minutes down the coast from there. Good riding on the peninsula, for sure. I dread the day they pave it all (spoken like a true gringo, I know.) I've done the ferry to Tambor and then ridden across/up the coast from there, which was awesome. Headed back for New Years and will likely rent a bike to get out to the house. I usually take the bridge and then head towards Hojancha (cool little Tico town if you've never been there), but now you've got me looking at maps and ferry schedules. Naranjo might be in my future...

Keep it up!

It was nearing 1300 but we didn’t care. Leaving La Fresca we had to hop back on the washboard highway gravel in order to reach the turn we should have taken a few hours ago. As soon as we turned off the main drag the ride instantly changed. No cars, few people, open spaces and a single lane dirt road which leads to the ocean.







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We crossed the border into the province of Guanacaste; Ranchers and world class surf breaks. I must say the roads are not too bad either. We followed the Rio Bongo the entire way across the peninsula until we finally reached the Pacific.





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Playa Bongo was just as I imagined; HUGE! Words nor pictures can capture its magnitude. Five kilometers of empty beach.


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We did not go very far. Being only a few degrees north of the equator at sea level means heat. Playa Bongo is very desolate and there are hardly any trees. The beach road was just that, beach or DEEP sand on the “road” through the grass. I really need a smaller bike (never thought I’d say that, ever).


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Remember when I said that guy back in La Fresca changed our lives forever? That is another reason we did not stay on Bongo. That guy’s name is Adrian and he is a taxi driver. I figured he knew what he was talking about when he turned us on to a beach he said is “hecha para camping”. Locals were also telling us Bongo is known for great fishing right from shore and large crocs are ever-present feeding on those fish. So we wandered around a bit, sat in the shade and got back on the road.


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I had to ride the beach a bit to find the perfect place to pitch camp. Some Costa Rican Fall colours for you all. I know fall is over, but this will help you remember.

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Our new destination was Playa Coyote. We arrived and instantly knew we had made the right decision. We parked the bike and checked the place out. There was Pura Vida in the air here.


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We got back to the bike to set up camp. As we tore into the gear it became present that my Cheap-o topbox had malfunctioned with all the weight and bumps. I will someday rethink my luggage situation.

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This beach is small and secluded in its own little cove. There are two houses on the beach, both occupied but neither of the owners were in town. We now have a new favorite spot in Costa Ricar.


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Once we got settled into our new home it was off to find food. I also found beer. A complete bar and restaurant is only 200 meters away and they also offer shower facilities for $1. Beers, $2.

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Ana ordered rice with mariscos and I ordered rice with calamari. I bumped into a couple over-landers coming back from the bar. A Kiwi hauling a surfboard and another Gringo on a clean looking Yamihaw. That bike would nice for beach riding Bongo. The other Gringo in the background had just purchased a used moto and beginning his journey also.

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We now had food and drink. It was five o’clock and if you are on the Pacific coast in Costa Rica there is only one place to be; sunset.







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After the show I ran up to the bar for more beer and when I got back my wife already had the fire going . All that was left to do now was swing ocean-side next to the campfire.

I Do Love that place!!