#12 Another Country - 1/20 (Costa Rica)

Not many organized bike tours include riding over a 1000 miles, flying 250 cyclists and their bikes to another country, and riding some more. We were greeted in Costa Rica with a 6:30am 2-second earthquake. The country is much lusher than Baja ... Iowa is lusher than Baja. The downtown area is filled with small shops in quaint old buildings on narrow streets with lined by narrower sidewalks. Most shops have a security guard. The camera store, which had five Canon EOS cameras and only two lenses (28-85 & 25), had two guards. The guard outside the bank carried a shotgun. Apparently there's a high crime rate. The official line is that it's the Santanitas - the unofficial line is that it's the people feeding their cocaine habits.

Six of us got a couple of Toyota Maxima cabs to go in search of banana splits and to bike shops. When we got to the mall about which we were told, the first people we saw inside were Odyssey riders. We saw fellow riders all over the mall and throughout the downtown area. When we stopped for lunch, our party kept growing as other riders wandered by & joined us.

The mountains rise up around San Jose, Costa Rica, much like the mountains behind Honolulu. They are lush and the tops get covered with afternoon clouds. In a few days, we'll be climbing over the second highest bump south of San Jose on the relief map in the hotel lobby. A few days after that we cross a lower range before crossing into a fourth country. It's a strange feeling flying between stages and we've got 17 flights to go. I doubt whether anyone but Tim Kneeland could have put this together. Right now, because of the charter airline's foul up, he's arranged for a Russian airship to deliver the bikes the charter airline was supposed to be able to bring with the riders. In the meantime, I'm off with a tour of a volcano, a float down a river in a tropical rainforest, and a horseback ride. The high - 76F, the sky - blue, and, as much as I miss everybody, I wouldn't be in any other situation.

Happy Trails,
Bruce