The Proclaimers

Back in 1998. a bespectacled Scottish duo thought it ok to write a song about walking 500 + 500 miles and jolly good it was too. I'm not going to write a song but I am going to proudly proclaim that we have now ridden 1000 miles. I'm also going to say that we have no intention of riding 1000 more, with or without wearing our glasses!

The moment came at around lunch time so it seemed a good opportunity for a bite to eat and a photo to mark this auspicious occasion. Now it happened to be the forth lunch in a row we'd eaten tuna and we were just outside the town of La Fortuna but as hard as I racked my brain, I couldn't quite manage to get a cheap gag out of it!

Now, riding 1000 miles isn't the only thing I want to proclaim today. I want to take this opportunity to say how wonderful my wife Kate is. Most of you probably know that in 2013 Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer. She spent the latter half of that year being chopped, chemo'd and radio'd. All of that naturally put her mind and body through a hell of a tough time. But since then, in her true 'just get on with it' style, she's cycled nearly 1000 miles across the length of France, 1500 miles through South East Asia and now 1000 miles through the mountains of Central America (including the bits she had to push!). I think we should all stop what were doing for a minute or 2 and have a little think about that and anyone else you know who's been through (or is going through) any kind of tough time. 

Now that I've interrupted your day, hang around a few minutes more so I can tell you what I was thinking today.

The scenery along lake Arenal was lovely. 48km of winding ups & downs through a mix of jungle and cleared land. Steep driveways led up and down from the road and the whole place really reminded us of our old Australian suburb of Austinmer.

Cool tree

And what one looks like when it's cut down

I stopped before a narrow bridge to let some cars coming though who were coming the other way. I was then going to get a happy snappy of the river but... The arrogant twat in the last car didn't wave 'thanks' or even acknowledge me (it's one of my pet hates this one). I was so busy being annoyed that I forgot to get the photo and rode on in a right old huff until the next big climb where thankfully the huff just turned into puff.

Why do I mention this? Well it just goes to show that despite the fact Kate and I have done all these great adventures that others say they dream about, we're still just who we always were. 

Now at the risk of sounding repetitive (well, let's face it the whole blog has been so far so I may as well continue in the same vein...) I just wanted to say to all those people who dream about "another life out there they don't have the chance to live" that it may not actually make that much difference even if you did get the chance to go off on your own great dream adventure. When you'd get back you'd still just be you. When you were out there, guess what? Same thing! 

I can't speak for anyone but myself but after doing a few of these big trips, I've got to say that the reality does in many ways under deliver compared to the dream. Maybe it's because we're coming to the end of our toughest trip to date, maybe I'm going soft??? Sure there are some great bits but they're certainly linked together by a load of pretty ordinary or hard or grotty or boring bits. What I'm trying to say is that the whole concept of Micro Adventures (which is just a fancy name for 'getting away for a few days doing what you enjoy') is a great one. These big trips are a bit of a blunt instrument to achieve fun or satisfaction.

Years ago I was talking to my big sister Sarah. I told her that I wanted to go off to Africa (or similar) to do some "fantastic volunteering doing something fantastic". She asked why I always seem to do these 'big things', why didn't I just stay at home and do some kind of local voluntary work? It was the 'giving' I wanted to do wasn't it? So why uproot my life for that, it wasn't necessary. I took her advice and every fortnight for the next 18 months I took 2 old ladies shopping and entertained them with my dubious charm & wit. D'you know what? I loved it. I got so much out of it. Would jetting off to some African village to do whatever have been better and how exactly do you judge 'better'? I can't answer either of those questions.

So.... What I'm getting at is the same old broken record (that I think I should actually start listening to myself a bit more often!) is to look around you at what you've got or could easily get and jolly well go and enjoy it.

Thank you. Oh, by the way, I I'd manage to get a photo of another river. I hope you like it!

Why do we do it?

We had a microwave in our room in Upala so treated ourselves to some hot porridge with sliced banana for brekkie. Yummo!

It was a lovely ride to San Rafael de Guatuso. Gentle hills, pleasant greenery and not too much traffic. Mind you when it came it was either very close, very big or both (this one is giving kate a very wide berth)

We dodged a few rain showers (that'll explain the greenery), one at a supermarket and the other in a bus stop (all class us). We'd covered our 43km easily and even had a little picnic on the way

Me having fun

We checked into a place and haggled some breakfast into the deal. She also let us use her little kitchen to make dinner. Mind you, boiling spaghetti in an electric frying pan was a first...

Why then, what with all this blissful ease would we decide to turn off this nice, rolling, easy road to La Fortuna and choose instead 21km of dirt road heading south over a mountain range followed by what looks to be a very wiggly (read steep up & down) Tarmac one? Why? Hmm, good question...

It started off ok, our all inclusive rice n beans, egg and fried plantain certainly was, if nothing else, good fuel for the road ahead.

The scenery was definitely getting better

Don't get excited, that's actually a picture on our hotel room wall added purely for hilarious comedy value

Here is the river for real

And the start of the road 

The scenery improved more as the climbing started. It really reminded me of parts of Australia where I'd ridden my motorbike. Did someone mention riding a motorbike? Oh that would just be so silly. Imagine it, an engine, a comfy seat, the open road....

The road surface at first was ok, just bumpy to ride on with our not particularly 'fit for purpose' bikes. When it got a bit much we just pushed

We had some cloud around to keep the temperature down to about mid eighties (27 for the youngsters reading) but it was really humid and we were sweating buckets. Luckily there was a little shop in one of the villages where we guzzled down some cold, sugary pop. 

More climbing, the surface was now beginning to break up making the riding much harder. Our rear wheels keep spinning and the skinny front tyres were digging in, pulling the handlebars all over the place. We tried pushing but with the big arse panniers in the way you end up pushing the bike with it tilted over a bit. The front wheel then just kept slipping sideways. I have to say, we're beginning to get a bit tired of all this caper....

At one point on a particularly steep, rough bit some young lads bombed down passed us on mountain bikes. They looked like they were having fun and I tried to remind myself that I was supposed to be as well!

Still, there was the view to keep us happy (?). Not really, we both had to concentrate on the riding too much to look up and when we stopped for a breather it was all about trying to see how much further until the bloody top. 

Still, these 2 little kids coming the other way on a horse perked us up but it was all wearing a bit thin. Looking back on it now I'd say we had a good day but at the time, I in particular, was getting a bit ratty.

We were getting hungry. We had lunch with us (same as yesterday, tin of spicy tuna, a tomato and some tortillas) but there was nowhere to sit to eat it. We'd both already had our arses bitten off by ants when we sat down in the verge for a drink.

Eventually, after 17km and about 4 hours we made it to the top. Now we had 4km of downhill to go. The view of the lake was nice but neither of us were particularly interested, we just wanted to get down to the town of Nuovo Arenal and get something more than a seriously bruised banana and half a melted Snickers to eat. 

Parts of the descent were bloody steep. The surface was now bumpy, loose cinder & gravel. It was a tricky balancing act to brake enough to keep the speed under control but not lock the front wheel up, skid and fall off. Chuck in a few over zealous, barking 'guard' dogs  that ran out of the driveways of the big posh houses and it was all getting a bit much.

But, as always we made it. We had our little picnic on the grass outside the church and then used their outside tap to wash our faces in (holy?) water.

We cruised a couple of hotels. One was cheap ($12) but pretty shabby so we opted for the $30 option up the road. We've got 2 beds, a snoozing Kate, a freezing cold shower and a bike parking facility! 

The view's nice as well (lake view, only the best for us), the pool's empty by the way...

Tomorrow we'll ride East along the northern edge of Lake Arenal to the touristy town of La Fortuna. Did you know that we're not Gringos? We thought that the word was used for all Whities. It seems that Gringos are American and we are Euros. The Gringo seems to be quite low on the respect pecking order as judged by the locals here. They are tourist wally's only good for one thing - handing out cash. The lady at our guesthouse last night looked at us and told us we definitely weren't Gringos. That made us happy but maybe she was just saying we were tight!

Getting away with it

The buzzing of my phone on the guesthouse tile floor woke me. 2 texts from my UK bank regarding potential fraudulent use of my bank card. I answered the texts. They called me. I answered the security questions, yes, my goldfish was called Goldie. Yes, my grandmothers favourite breakfast was kippers.... Then we got down to the nitty gritty. It seems that some enterprising person has skimmed/cloned my card and has been merrily withdrawing cash with it at random places around North America. They've certainly been getting around. 17 withdrawals totalling the best part of £4000!!! The Natwest fraud squad bloke asked if I was in the UK at the moment. "No, I'm in Nicaragua" "I'm sorry, where's that?" "It's in Central America" "oh so you're in America?" "Central America yes, not northern America". It seems the fraud dept isn't too hot on geography which isn't particularly useful seeing as I had bothered to list all the country's we planned to visit along with approximate dates for each....

He seemed very apologetic and apparently I'd get a full refund plus £30 compensation for the pleasure of the stupidly expensive phone call to this part of the world. We'll see how we go when we get home...

The early morning boat ride back to the mainland from Omotepe was much nicer than the one to the island. 

We sat on the roof deck and admired nature and science doing its 'weird shit' with a funky cloud sitting on the volcano

The 35km ride south to the border wasn't much fun. The crosswinds were at full force and we were again blown off the road a few times. At least they're putting some of this wind to good use though

We had a pleasant pee/drink rest under a big tree that had a load of Howler Monkeys in it, more than we'd seen in the nature reserve the day before.

At the border we were surprised to see quite a few Cuban 'refugees' camped out. I'm not really sure what was going on but seeing them and a huge queue of trucks waiting to cross was a bit similar to the mess going on at Calais...

We bumped into another cyclist heading north. Adam had finished a work contract in Panama and had some time on his hands so had bought a bike and set off. No plans, no training, no research, just a secondhand bike and the right attitude. Nice one!

Costa Rica is definitely a richer country than the others we've been to on this little sojourn. Roadworks are signposted and managed. The houses are bigger and more properer (just like what my English is). Cars are flasher and I've seen a couple of motorbikes that are fun toys rather than cheap transport.

We rolled into the town of La Cruz at around 3 and checked into a bit of a dive of a hotel. The prices are definitely higher here and we had to make a pretty hefty compromise on our mattress quality to nod the room in at $20. It was basically 2 layers of cotton, barely kept apart by 3 inches of lightweight foam.

After a cheeky beer with a view that the iPhone could never do justice we headed out to eat. 

I asked a couple of lads where a local cheapo cafe was. They offered to walk us down there, being all friendly and chatty on the way. After rejecting a few of their favourite hangouts they took us on a tour of the towns eateries. We opted for a place that did Chinese food. The blokes then asked for cash for their 'services'. They were quite demanding but strangely pitifully pleading at the same time. They wouldn't give up so we eventually gave them near to their asking price just to get rid of them.

The Chinese wasn't great. It was even less great at breakfast as we sat on our totally dead bed and made special fried rice and veggie chow mein tortillas with the left overs.

The wind had seriously howled all night and we were happy that the roof had stayed on. We still hadn't decided which way we were heading. None of it massively appealed so we thought we'd just go and see what happened. The road south would lead us to expensive beach resorts full of American retirees, the more interesting road east would lead us into the wind...

After just 3km of the Pan Am highway we'd made our minds up. The road was busy and horrible to ride on. We turned east, towards Upala. Flippin eck it was hard work. Thankfully the road wiggled around a bit and had a few ups and downs to break up the massive headwind. When we were straight into it we had to pedal on the downhills, reaching 10km/h if we were lucky. Uphills were down to more like 6. On the rare sheltered sections it felt so easy, like we were just gliding along, totally effortlessly. Eventually we made it to Santa Cecilia. 30km at an average of 10km/h had taken us nearly 4 hours inc breaks.

We ate some hearty soup (always better with plenty of tripe in it don't you agree?) in a little roadside cafe, listening to "The sweet" doing Rock n Roll, followed by "Play that funky music white boy" coming from a distant stereo. All a bit surreal....

We still had 50km to go and from here on and (according to someone's blog) the road turned to dirt for 30km or so. Apparently the bus wasn't due until 1pm but it cruised past at 11.50, just as we were picking out a few unidentifiable floating objects from the afore mentioned soup.... The next one (apparently?) wasn't for another 3 hours.  We had a go at hitching. Within 10 minutes we were bowling down the dusty road, sitting on our panniers, trying to fight the bikes off as they bounced around in the back of a pick up truck. The driver had said he wasn't going all the way to Upala but we didn't actually know where he was going. 10km later we found out. Not far! He offered to take us on for $100, I'm not sure if he was joking! So, here we sit, 50km west of Upala at a little junction with a small cafe. We've got a nice tree to sit under and I guess are relying on the bus as our back up plan. Here's our spot

We knew today would be a bit like this. It's called having an adventure isn't it? We've both still got our sense of humour (for now). Here's proof! Stuck for a Christmas pressie for the man who thinks he's got everything? Problem solved!

Well, 2 hours later the bus finally turned up. Costa Rica, being a flash country doesn't seem to think roof racks on buses are necessary. Oh dear. The ride to Upala would take at least 4 hours and we'd already wasted 2 of them by waiting. We had to get on. The driver didn't look particularly interested or best pleased with my request. I tried the 'look when I unclip these big bags it's just a normal size bike' trick but that didn't work..... Straight to my secret weapon - the sad puppy look! I went into my full on 'surely worthy of an Oscar' routine.  Mournful eyes looked towards him then to kate. I touched my heart. Reached out to him.... Yes I know, corny and pathetic. The emotion actually then started to feel pretty real as the bus pulled forward and started to drive away! 

Ooh, the elation. He stopped just as the rear doors lined up with us. A couple of passengers got the idea and started clearing the copious pile of luggage that was already occupying the wheelchair area. I have to say that I doubt on this route that this space has ever been used for its intended task but right now I wasn't going to bring the subject up. With a quick heave ho we and our trusty steeds were aboard and bouncing our merry way east. 

During the next hour and a half I attempted to look out the window at the ever increasingly verdant scenery whilst holding back the weight of 20 big bags and sacks with 2 bicycles. Oh it were fun. Kate spent the entire journey down on the footwell, barely being able to see out of the window. For all the progress in this country over its neighbours, I reckon that their buses have taken a real step backwards in style. Gone is the macho bravado of the ancient iconic American school bus,  this one would have looked more at home outside Asda in Norwich circa 1993 than the Costa Rican jungle in 2016

So, yet again we scraped through another day of challenges, frustration, highs and lows. We've got reasonable digs for the night, ok speed wifi and eaten a meal that will allow us to survive another day (yes, that is the best I can say about it). More of the same tomorrow I guess.

Buenas noches x

We're still here...

Hmm, we haven't done much in the last few days so I thought I'd give you an Attenboroughesque wildlife tour of the island of Omotepe. Don't worry, it won't take long.
Here is a cow on the beach at night

A Magpie Jay with a fancy long tail and a sticky up bit on its head

Some horses having their morning drink from the fresh water lake. They made a great interruption to our rather limp attempt at yoga. (cracking photo though eh?!)

A funny shaped turtle

A dead baby Coral snake. Apparently an adult one is capable of killing a human. It appears things don't always turn out that way though eh?

Some Howler Monkeys. These dudes make a weird howling, guttural barking sound that is way deeper and more powerful than their cute, fluffy appearance would have you think

Oh and 2 yellow birds

Last but certainly not least is the lesser spotted MAECI - Middle Aged English Cylist Idiot doing a typical pathetic display of macho behaviour whilst proving to his mate that he definitely was the right choice of all the other humans available on the planet (?) 

We also met some very nice people. A Norwegian cyclist who's ridden From Norway to Spain and then flew to the bottom of Argentina and rode from there.
Then there was the English dad & teenage daughter on a 10 day self guided tour on hire bikes (doesn't need to be epic to be fun).
A very nice Swiss couple (soon to be married?) who were doing basically the reverse of us.
Two Dutch ladies who were both SIXTY. They were doing a 3 month cycle tour of Panama and Nicaragua with lots of camping and dirt roads thrown in. They thought nothing of it as last year whilst cycling in Asia they met a couple in their SEVENTIES out on the road on their bikes. The cycling bug only bit them a few years prior! See, there's hope for us all (well not you mum, sorry....)

We've got just under 3 weeks of this trip left (you won't need to suffer too many more blog posts I promise). We cross into Costa Rica tomorrow. We're probably not going to get to Panama as we'll fly from San Jose in Costa Rica to Miami to pick up the flight home. 

We're sitting at the same bar in the town of Moyogalpa where we sat a few nights ago. Kate's recognised one of the scrawny local dogs who was hanging around the other day. We wonder how much he's eaten since we last saw him? We've eaten loads, we estimate that it's got to be at least a big buckets worth of spaghetti, banana pancakes, fish, rice etc. Please don't get me started on western decadence again but I do ask that if you've enjoyed reading this blog that you whack a couple of quid into whichever charity you feel needs it the most. We live in a lovely world but there are definitely lots of people and animals who might not whole heartedly agree with that statement. 
Love to all xx

Ps

Purely due to the lack of material, I don't feel that this post is up to my usual highly Witty standard (?) so here is a joke for free.

I've just learnt that the residents of Dubai don't ever watch the Flintstones but apparently the folks in Abu Dhabi do!!

Isla de Omotepe

It was hard to tear ourselves away from La Manchion hotel. We'd monopolised the waiter's time ordering food at dinner. Still, he needent of worried, we were the only diners in a place that would easily hold 100. We didn't fancy anything off the menu so once we'd established that we wanted to go 'off piste', we went in for the kill. "Omelette possible?" "Si". "Omelette with what?" "Eggs". Still, the view was nice....

The 40 odd km ride to Rivas was hot, blustery and a bit unpleasant on the main road with quite a bit of heavy traffic and a narrow shoulder. The Nicaraguan farmers have certainly done their best to destroy the local vegetation. Apparently it gets more lush once across the border into Costa Rica.....

We got blown off the road twice by the strong side winds, luckily both times we were near a grass verge rather than deep gutters that occurred quite often. Undeterred we powered up on a rather melted Snickers

And then fell for the lure of the aircon Burger King once we reached town.

Rumours were that the ferry out to the volcanic island of Omotepe weren't running due to the wind (see, told you it was blustery!). We rode out to the port to try our luck. Yes they were and there was one going in 10 minutes. Result.  We pedalled out onto the pier where we experienced our first bit of Central American negativity. The boat guy said we couldn't board as they were full. It was pretty chockers I'll give him that but c'mon, this is the land of 'no problemo'. 

We really didn't want to wait another 2 hours for the next boat so I unclipped a pannier to show him that our mighty machines were in fact just mere bicycles. There was a narrow gap just the right size and I pointed at it. Old Pedro's brain then kicked into gear and he went one better telling a truck driver to "drop your tailgate mate, they're coming aboard" and in one fell swoop both bikes were lifted into the back of the empty truck. Sorted.

We walked through into the rather bizarre passenger seating area. After the excitement and action of  the loading we were now in a stale smelling 'bus' full of backpackers wearing life jackets watching the latest Rocky movie on an old TV that was held to the wall with ratchet straps. Somehow we managed to bag a couple of seats right by the window and with a quick "toot toot", we were off!

The lake was pretty choppy but to be honest I can't see why the boats had been cancelled the day before, the rumour, for once, being true. I had a great view of the island about 17km away and couldn't resist a photo. As I got my very non waterproof iPhone out, I watched the water, wary of the spray that had been flying up as we crashed our way along. Ooh, here comes a good one, this'll impress the folks back home I thought...

We spent the next few minutes in a bit of a panic drying out my phone, the passports and my wallet. Still, no damage done and even if I say it myself, a bit of a cracking shot don't you think?

This is the view I was trying to get

Once safely on shore and installed in yet another shabby, slightly overpriced hostel (we can hardly be bothered to look around now) we wandered back to the pier for a classica (that's the local beer) and the obligatory sunset shot

"Bloody poxy lonely planet maps. Why can't they just put more detail on them for people with independent transport rather than  just the vague stuff that bloody backpackers need when getting a taxi or tuk tuk?"  It was about 11am, we'd been riding down a dirt road for about 10km and feeling a bit hot n bothered.  We were on our way to a nature reserve that promised nice walking tracks, some swimming and hopefully a chance to see some monkeys. We'd stopped at a little shop for a drink. 

Typically for the region, the shop sold no water, just coke and local fizzy, sugary filth. We asked if they had anything to eat, expecting a bit of half stale cake or another bag of chilli flavoured crisps. Yes, she had something, we didn't know what it was but we'll have 2 please. They rustled up a couple of plastic chairs and out came a very clean looking Christmas tablecloth. The food arrived. We recognised it as something we'd had in Granada. It's a base of yucca with shredded cabbage on top. Hidden in there somewhere is what the fancy TV chef would describe as "a robust serving of..."  where as I would say, "An effing massive bit...." of pork crackling.  The whole thing is then drizzled (another poncy chef's word) with chilli vinaigrette. The one we had in Granada was delicious but.... On the ride the day before, we'd witnessed some pretty brutal treatment of a pig who was being pulled against its will out of a field by a truck with a rope from the towbar. I couldn't bring myself to eat the pork so fed it to the shop owners dog. Old Rover gave me a "really, are you serious?" look before running off into the bushes with his easily won booty. 

To my great surprise, animal loving Kate chomped through hers with glee, saying that it was fantastic, second only to the generous portion served at the carvery at the Nothe Tavern in Weymouth!

It was only after we'd finished eating and Kate had shared her leftover Yucca with the local pig (oh the irony) that I noticed my mistake. 

The lonely planet (God bless their cotton socks) had in fact included all the necessary detail on their map to find the reserve, we (not just me) had read it wrong. We were now in fact pretty much on completely the wrong side of the island having taken completely the wrong road out of town. No wonder the backpackers on rented motorbikes had been a bit thin on the ground!

We rode on. It was rough but enjoyable.  

I've never seen this sign before

Eventually we made it round to a beach resort on the north side of the island (Playa Domingo for you map lovers) but not before getting another couple of comedy photos

We checked into the cheapest place in town (bit fancy here) and by chance, met another cyclist doing the whole 'bottom of Argentina to Alaska' thing. His serious bike & kit made our 'rigs' look like they came out of a Christmas cracker!

We then happily whiled away the afternoon at the beach. Despite Kate's guts not feeling great she managed to force down a banana/yoghurt smoothie and some chocolate kate, her spirits raised by the more than pleasant view.