Dec 3rd

Miles today: 0

Morning nature hike with Melissa our guide and several couples from Germany, Spain and France. Nice walk through the rain forest, checked out their farm potion of the property, saw some Howler monkeys.
Our hosts Nico and Kelly did a great job building a place for travelers. Slowly they are working towards a sustainable resort.


Howler monkey

Breakfast, beautiful views, the volcano, like Denali, may or may not show herself today.
Bike repair day for Max. Starter intermediate gear is striped in a couple of places. Good news Jim finds all the broken teeth and they are not in the crankcase. Yeah.


Max in research mode

About our lodging. This place is awesome. A variety of room options from wall tents to rooms with a private bath. A vegetarian restaurant with great food and awesome views. A fun part is every dinner the guest help prepare part of the meal. Tonight we had sushi. With all the ingredients laid out we gathered around the kitchen counter, then under the guidance of Christian, the chef, we built our own sushi rolls. It was really fun as we commented on each others abilities to lay out the vege's and rice. Once we finished our creations Christian cut them up and put them on a plate, we added ginger and wasabi. Once seated we were brought salads and afterwards desert. A fun night and my compliments to all the chefs.
Exchanged email addresses with various guest and employees.
Now off to talk to my lover.

Location:Essense Aernal, lay over day

Nov. 27th

Early start turned out to be 7:00
Nickel and dimmed out of the nightmare Honduras border town, tires sprayed with supposed disinfectant for a fee, of course, another and perhaps the first real local tax and we are into Honduras itself. yeah!



Quick roadside lunch stop.


Our experiences last night drained us all of any energy we had to experience the country. In retrospect it's unfair to the people of the country to judge them by the way their border operates, reflecting on some people's US border nightmares. The three of us know getting taken was our own fault we ignored every piece of advice about border crossing we had received. Lessons learned.
9:30 We arrive at the Honduras Nicaragua border and are immediately hit by handlers. We all say, no they robbed us at the other border. They looked confused. I tell them we have a friend from Nicaragua meeting us at the boarder and he's taking care of everything. Now the look hurt but leave us alone. Leaving Honduras as quickly as possible, papers checked twice and we we're down the road the Nicaragua border station.
Mean while Jim chats up a fellow biker to get the straight scoop. In less than three hours we are out of Honduras and in Nicaragua. A new record.
I know it's our attitude, as soon as we're rolling down the road in Nicaragua we're all smiles, it just feels different here, friendly and relaxed.
With only a little adventure which Jim survived we find a great hotel in Leon near the plaza with secure bike parking. As we park our bikes in the hotel court yard group of young, as in giggly young, girls want pictures with us particularly Max, however there was one one who really wanted her picture taken with me. I must remind her of her grandfather.........in a wind blown kinda way. F....er





Leon is a beautiful old colonial city, narrow streets, lots of churches, a couple of universities and nice cafes.



There appears to be a church going on in plaza, parades, lot's of people, vendors of all kinds and music. We asked some locals they said, no, it was a typical Sunday night. Pretty cool.
Dinner and bed. Layover day planned for tomorrow.

Location:Honduran Border to Leon Nicaragua

Nov. 28th

Easy day in Leon, Nicaragua. Breakfast at Cafe Desayunoz. Great place, international atmosphere. Laundry arranged.


Leon central plaza


Did a guided historical tour of the city. Heard about the early native histories, the Spanish invasion, the various dictators, the Contras, the Sandinistas and the US's various attempt to influence the government. We walked through the largest cathedral in Leon complete with a bell tower tour.



Dinner in town, home early. On the road tomorrow.


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Location:Leon layover day

Dec. 2nd

Mayela cooks us breakfast at the restaurant, bacon, eggs, and gallo pinto.Then back to pack up. While packing up Mayela shows up to feed us some fresh Papaya. Packed and ready to go we head back to the restaurant to say our good byes to our wonderful host and there is Mayela again with fresh squeezed lemon aid for energy she says.
On the road. Leaving the low hill country we start gaining elevation towards the Cloud Forest of Costa Rica, beautiful ride. Twisty road, a couple of wind farms which means wicked cross winds, yahoo.


The country side is mostly ranch and farm land. Brahma is still the dominate cattle with scattered horse farms. There seems to be at least one Appaloosa in every herd, very patient horse people I'd say.
Nice lunch break. Jim has picked out a hostile overlooking lake Aernal and with views of the local volcano. I'm looking forward to that.
Fun road to and around the Lake. Somewhat like the pacific northwest, very green occasional wet stretches of road (rain?) low clouds, cool weather with scattered banana and palm trees. The homes along the road are nice, lots of glass with views of the lake. My bike begins to pull hard to the left as I notice the sign for Volcano Microbrewery, still to many miles to ride so I pass.



We stop for a navigational adjustment, Max shuts down his bike, as he usually does and it refuses to start.
Now to vent. Ok, here's a bike that will run fine for days then due to planetary alinement or some possible psychiatric issues decides not to start. Then, for whatever reasons, after we have all vented various personal rants and for any of the above reasons it will start and run like a champ. WTF, still venting. Today after an hour or so we bump start it and it catches.
Back on the road, twisty with awesome views of the lake Arenal lot's of restaurants advertising in English, seems to be the common traveler language here.
We've heard the road to the hostel is rough, as in 4 wheel drive rough, so with some apprehension we leave the pavement and head off. More off road adventures? Actually a pretty good gravel road with stream crossings, one lane bridges and washed out sections, glad I'm on the KLR. As the road climbs, the views get better, definitely in the cloud forest. We arrive, our hostess Heather greets us, we sign in and she brings us a beer and says "heard you had a rough day". Yeah we did, but once here we forget it for a moment. This place is truly captivating. Now for that beer. MUF


Essense Arenal



Looking for the monkeys with Heather

The owner Nicko is from Germany and raised in Spain. He feel in love with the area and noticed there were no inexpensive traveler lodging so he built one. Clean rooms, central bathroom and shower, restaurant with a vegetarian fixed meal menu.
Guest are from all over the world generally in Costa Rica for the first time.
In the middle of the night I hear the first rain I've heard since leaving AK.
IMUFSM.




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Location:Frits and Mayela's to Essense Arenal, Costa Rica

Dec. 1st

Miles today 53
Jim and I call a beach day. Max seached out a welder for his panier frame and Bill Jones a friend of Frits and Mayela who had sailed around the world for over 12 years and rode a Norton motorcycle from Calif to Panama in 1972. Max really wants to met this guy.
Jim and I ride to Samara about 25 miles from Frits and Mayela's. Lunch on the beach then a swim.





Warm water, hot sand and a little Maytag ride in the surf. Love that salt water nasal enema.
Back to Frits and Marela's then dinner at Chuck and Marilyn's beautiful home.


Jim and Max make friends with a couple of armadillo's that frequent Chuck and Marilyn's house. Seems they really like hot dogs, a lot.
Dinner conversations touch on, the Yukon, mining boom and related issues, cruises ship tourism and life in Costa Rica.
Beer and wine flowed as did the stories. I do like Yukoners, fine people worth knowing. WIMUSM


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Location:Frits and Mayela's near Nacoya, CR

Nov. 30th

Miles today:21.3
Total miles: 5043



Mongo's
After breakfast at Mango's bar and restaurant we split up for various shopping task. Jim and Max are looking for motor oil and headlight bulbs I'm after sunglasses and wine. Costa Rica is fairly angloized. ATM's ask if you want local currency or us dollars shops will convert prices it's all pretty easy.
Short ride today to find Frits and Mayela's place. These are friends who now live around Carcross during the summer and have places here for the winter. Jim made the connection with them last summer in Skagway, I meet them at Bruce and Hanna Schindler's Skagway wedding party.
Frits is Dutch who immigrated to the Yukon 20 years ago first running his own canoe outfitting business then working as a carpenter, cook or whatever he could do to stay in the Yukon.


Frits and Mayela
His wife, Mayela is from Costa Rica. They met down here while Frits was exploring the area, a great love story.
Their place down here is pretty neat. They have also built a small restaurant and day resort, complete with a Tilapia farm and citrus groove.



After Jim and Max finished they're oil changes and maintenance we headed out to check out to the restaurant for a dinner.
Chuck and Marilyn, from Caribou Crossing in Carcross join us for dinner. Together with Frits and Mayela they have purchased some acreage, sub divided it up, built the restaurant and set themselves up to skip the Yukon winters.....



Jim, Frits, Max at the Tilapia pond
Great dinner of fried Tilapia, stories and conversation.
Off to bed. ILUF
Tomorrow is planned to be a beach day.

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Location:Liberria to Frits and Mayela's, Costa Rica

Nov. 29th

Decided I need to catch up so here is yesterday. I'll fill in the past weeks as I can.


Leaving Hostel Madrid in Leon.

Out of Leon after breakfast at Cafe Desayunoz. Seems like a local place well used by adventure travelers. Great coffee, variety of breakfasts in an old building sprinkled with a mix of overheard foreign languages.,
Todays roads were pretty straight and in good shape. Great views of the volcano's that surround Leon each with a steam cloud on top.
Ever since we got into Guatemala we've see people on horseback and lot's of horse drawn carts carrying everything from rebar to propane tanks, Nicaragua has been no different. It's neat to see horses out there working on a daily bases. The people on horse back are usually moving cows around or heading to town. Just the way it is, even today south of the boarder.
Road along Lake Nicaragua was really beautiful with two volcano's in the middle of it. Since the rainy season just ended the lake was really high. Past another wind farm. Every time I see one I'm still impressed with how big the blades on the turbines are, huge. As far as riding goes wind farms mean cross winds, lot's of strong crosswind.
Made it to the boarder around 2:00 hoping to get through quickly then onto Costa Rica. Ah the beat plans. Out of Nicaragua very quickly, 30 minutes. Now to enter Costa Rica and as a American woman living in Costa Rica said "now the shit show begins". The process itself isn't that hard.


Costa Rica boarder station.

The challenge is none of the buildings are well marked, they can be a quarter mile apart and you can wait in line for 20 minutes to find out your in the wrong building or you have to get your blank form completed and signed before you can get this form stamped.


Waiting in line with some riders from Costa Rica heading north. Pretty typical waiting line, very casual and long and slow.

Our time entering Costa Rica 4 hours. Never be in a hurry and near expect it to go smoothly has been said by many, so true. Our hotel owner here in Liberia said even if you speak the language and can read the signs it's still a mess. Patience.
It's getting dark, we confer. Nearest hotel is in Liberia 40 minutes away, we have no choice, we break the "never drive at night" rule and head out.
The ride is beautiful. Stars and a waxing moon. A long ridge to the west shadowed by the twilight blue sky. IMUF
Two police check points to check passports. Friendly, efficient. Biggest ride challenge was neither Jim or Max's tail lights work and only Max's brake light so I'm at the back of the parade watching various glows of reflective clothing move through the darkness ahead of me.
First hotel was Liberia. Grabbed dinner at Mongo's bar and called it good.



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Location:Leon, Nicaragua to Liberia Coast Rica

Nov. 19th

Yes, I know I'm way behind on this blog and am making a valiant effort to catch up. So.
The mighty KTM, I'm changing my attitude, started right up, yeah!
Out of Puerto Angel with a wave from the staff and manager. A quick run into the near by town to pay the first mechanic for his time and the cab ride down to Puerto Angel and back, then on the road.
The road followed the coast most of the way although because of the vegetation we didn't see much of the ocean.
Past a couple of angloized gated and guarded communities long the road. Seemed odd to me to live in Mexico and be surrounded by gringos. Their choice.
Nondescript night in Tonala, Mex other than I began to feel human again.


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Location:Puerto Angel, Mex to. Tonal, Mex