Discovering La Ruta de los Conquistadores greatly enhanced my experience in Costa Rica. After the ride up Volcano Irazu and around Volcano Turrialba (more here), the final section from Siquirres to Limón follows an interesting route along a semi-used railway track for 60 or so kilometres. Part of it is dirt road that runs along…
My plan was to get to Cahuita that evening after finally arriving in the Caribbean. Unfortunately my puncture that took me an hour to fix (see last post) delayed me significantly and it was fully dark and I was still 10km from my destination. Locals warned me that it was dangerous to travel at night…
This post describes my first attempt to cycle la linea de tren from Siquirres to Limón on a fully loaded bike; crossing the bridges was an unnerving yet exhilarating experience. After arriving from Turrialba in Santa Cruz I didn’t feel like losing more altitude so I took an alternate route which climbed back up via…
Searching out decent back road routes can be exciting and adventurous but often the quality of the route can be unknown. While that can be part of the fun, when a route has been carefully mapped out and used for a race that proclaims itself as ‘one of the toughest mountain bike races in the…
It was good to leave the touristy La Fortuna and head on towards more volcanoes but I also had San José in my way. It’s never fun crossing Central American capital cities on a loaded (or unloaded) bicycle and this was no exception. I couldn’t find a nice route around San Jose unfortunately since I…
As I left Puntarenas and I headed left up the unpleasant Panamerican Highway, I chuckled that I was heading back towards Nicaragua where I’d come from. Would I ever manage to leave Costa Rica? I’d already clocked up 3 months and I hadn’t even traveled a third of this small yet beautiful country. [If you’re…
It´s not possible to cycle up to the top of Chirripó but it´s a magnificent hike. After leaving Montezuma and the Nicoya, I left my bicycle with couchsurfing.com friends in Puntarenas (thanks to Alex and Mel and their families). Although a long hike, one of the hardest parts of Chirripó was probably getting the passes to…
After long periods on the road, it’s always good to relax somewhere for a while. Cabuya proved to be a good place to do that. A relaxed and friendly town, I found a cheap but very nice place to stay with my new friends Tony (French) and Fiona (Scottish). They were friends with a number…
The Pensinsula de Osa sits on the Pacific side close to the Panamanian border and holds the largest park in Costa Rica: Corcovado National Park. Quoting Wiki, National Geographic describes it as “the most biologically intense place on Earth in terms of biodiversity”. Since it was a few hundred kms to get down there and time was…
As mentioned in the previous post, Costa Rica offers excellent back road alternatives that avoid the hell-ish Panamerican Highway. The Nicoya Peninsular is no exception. Although the altitude probably doesn´t exceed 250 metres (if you follow the coastal road), the steep short inclines in the 30+ C degree heat are enough to challenge the…