Last night we went out for dinner at a ………….Mexican Restaurant to celebrate, the end was in sight. There was live music and the place had a vibe, but it was smack-bang in the middle of this Tourist Trap, so the prices were very high, but the food was really good. There are so many Americans that stay in these resort towns, they come here to retire, and I think their Dollar goes a lot further here than back home. And you have your little slice of paradise.

The most beautiful Margarita glass ever, it has small Mosaic Glass inserted into the glass  :

 

Doc does not drink alcohol but always orders a home made “Lemonade” which is basically a frozen Margarita without the alcohol:

Yesterday I was full of praises for Costa Rica, but we only saw the tourist area along the coast, today we cut inland to San Jose and very soon the country showed its real face, the face the tourists don’t see. The roads are all in good condition but are single lane roads, and they are curvy, which is good, but the road is so busy with trucks and cars and once again, scooters. We made a big mistake with the navigation today and Peens thought we would all turn right onto a bigger road 64 kilometres into the ride, I knew we had to turn but was riding towards the back, so when my GPS said to turn right I saw Millsy ride past and then Pie, both their GPS’s were inside the tank bags (they were navigating using Google Maps and there phones can’t handle the heat like the Garmin proper GPS’s can, so you need to keep the phone out of the sun.) Sadly Peens did not wait and he got lucky and had the better road, a wide toll-road, while we fought our way past the trucks and cars on the twisty mountain road.

Peens even stopped to take these photos.

As you can see above, it’s back to the 3rd World, with lots of rubbish lying all over. And below shows there is some 1st World influence trying to break through.

We rode to the Bonded Storeroom next to the airport and spoke to the security guard, they were closed.

 

Not much shade, but Pie found the slither of shade under the signboard which translates to Bonded Storage. We will return tomorrow and hear how much it will cost to store the bikes in there as the 90 days we have in Costa Rica before the bikes needs to be out gets suspended while in this government storage, so we could have as much time as we want and no penalty, but, the storage might also be so expensive that it will be cheaper to pay the penalty and go over our 90 days we are allowed legally. But this is Rocky’s department and I have no doubt the correct decision will be made tomorrow once all the T’s has been crossed and all the I’s dotted.

Chevy is making a very nice double cab for the Latin American Market:

Then we went to the airport to see the customs officials there, but once again they were closed on a Sunday. There was an island between two roads at the end of the runway and there were many people having a picnic on this island, some had a Braai going and they sat on chairs and blankets looking at the planes taking off.

Then we went into San Jose trying to get a feel for the city. The GPS took us to a very bad part of the city, there were lots of razor wire on roofs and all the shutters were locked, the streets were full of suspicious types of people, and it was similar to going to Down Town Johannesburg. So we re-routed to a trendy Restaurant area about 2km away. It had the feel of 4th Avenue in Parkhurst. I will take some photos of the street tonight to post tomorrow.

We had a beer and then found a hotel a few 100m away, but not the greatest hotel, but it has off street parking.

Milsy had not moved his flights yet as his original ticket was to fly out last night, on the original dates we had set down for this trip. But Tex was going to join us but had the Charity Fund Raiser, so we accommodated him and moved our dates and flights with 3 days. So Milsy hopefully got his flight moved to tomorrow morning and has decided to sleep at the airport tonight so that he can be on his flight early tomorrow morning. We will put his bike into storage for him and probably take it to the car-was to have it properly cleaned before it goes into the store.

This rotisserie uses electricity to rotate the chickens but for flavour it still uses real fire with coals rather than gas or electricity.

We rode from the Blue spot to the red Pin today. The dark grey line above Liberia is the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Our adventure started at  Houston in Texas and ends in San Jose:

The smaller countries like El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua are so small it only shows on the map when you zoom in.

We have kicked a huge dent into Central America on this leg 18, the big blue dot is where we are now.

 

When we return in September the going will be a lot easier as we only have to cross into Panama, then the bikes will fly to Bogota in Colombia with us, then we head to Ecuador and then probably Peru where we will store the bikes again, but the planning will still be done over the next few months.

Just before we said good-bye to Millsy. From the photo it is clear that Pie is wanting to switch from KTM to BMW and has started dressing like them as well now.

Some photos that Doc took:

And on that note I am going to hit the shower.

Fleisch