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