Saturday, October 29, 2011

Muddy day in Costa Rica

After an awesome break fast and gallon of great coffee I said good buy to my sis and the crew as they were going back home today, Thanks again for a great time.
I left very late today as I had some other (personal) stuff to do and talking to the front door boys for half an hour did not help either lol.
I want to do some zip lines in CR so I picked a spot at the coast line and off I went for it, For some weird reason I picked rt239 to get there and that was a nice and challenging adventure.
The road started nice and twisty going through little towns until it stopped. Literally the road ended in a pile of stones and decent drop down the mountain, but quick a steep run around got me back on track.
than the tarmac ended and it started to be mostly gravel with occasional mud. No problem here, I've done some off roading so I should be fine. 20 km the situation got worse as it started to rain and the road was more muddy at that point, Now it was all fun from that point.
Have you ever took a 5 MPH turn in deep mud in the rain over looking a 100 feet drop on over loaded bile on tires that already have 8000 miles on them? now we talking a fun ride.  Geez going up and down this huge hill on ripped out road for 60km or so was not something I want it to do today but o well. With luck I found a hotel and tomorrow I have 15km left of that crap before I get back on tarmac.

I know pictures wont do the justice but its all I got (I forgot to charge my GoPro) no shots of heavy sections as there was no place to stop.

The crew is leaving
End of the road
Easy start
Some view
The fun starts
OK off to bed, see ya
Cheers

Costa rica here I come

I left Granada very early and withing 50k I meet another traveler going opposite way, this guy was from El Salvador and had no clue about ADV rider but he seam to be interested so we might have a contact there. After few stops for pictures I made it to the border and as usual I got swarmed by helpers, and again I said no and continue on.
Nicaragua leave looks like this: Park near the AD office and go get your passport stamped first, than fin AD agent and have your bike checked over. He will sign your bike form and now you have to find a police officer for a stamp, than go back to AD office and get more signatures. On the way out they will take back the paper and you are done.
Off to Costa Rica border where I got lucky with helpers because the whole bus of tourist showed up so the were busy. This border is all mess up and takes a while to get through, about 2 plus hours in my case.
First you get your passport stamped than of to the small office for bike export, they will take your stuff to look it over and send you for a walk back to get copies and insurance. The ins. was around 630 something of Colones ( I will correct that if I'm wrong), next door is a copy place and for a 1 dollar you will get all copies you need. Than back to the office where you will get a simple form to fill up, Back to it again and this time he will stamp your stuff and now you have to go forward to another office to get all registered. This is where it might take a while as there is usually allot of truck drivers and one window open, but its a simple process and now you can leave to the exit. They will check your passport and bike paper work, than you hand a little ticket that you will get back at the office and off you go. (Except for insurance the border is free)
The border is muddy so watch out as I almost dropped my bike.
When I was there I meet an traveler from Italy and beautiful gs100 so we rode for a bit together but we got separated in bad traffic and weather, sorry dude I hope I'll get to see you again.
I got to San Jose just fine where I spent some time with my sister and her friends, and she got me a room in nice hotel so yay for me :) thanks sis I love you :)

Nicaragua

So we got up in the morning and after cold shower and awesome coffee we went for a walk, Leon is nice but we didn't had time for a long walk so after few pictures and breakfast we went back to pack.
Three of us were going to Granada and the rest were going to visit someone along the way so we all left at the same time, I have a gopro video but no time to post it now.
After some time we split and went our separate ways, the GPS was working great so I was leading through the city now.  Stopped for a nice walk on Masaya Volcano which was totally awesome and after a while we got into Granada where I finally caught up with Tim and Adrian YAY.
Long story short we had some great time with some cold beers and international conversation.

I had to leave very early in the morning so I could get to San Jose Costa Rica to see my sister.

Sorry for short update but I have to leave very soon lol
Leon
Getting ready to leave
French Banditos
Polish non bandito

Some overdue pictures from Honduras / Nicaragua day

Still in Honduras
Start in Nicaragua was not pretty :)
Still lots of water everywhere
The road got better and so did the views

This is where we stayed for the night with bunch of awesome people
I love this map

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Making my way to Nicaragua

Left the hotel early in the morning and good thing that I did that as the roads were terrible so the progress was very slow, I've recorded a few videos along the way so maybe when I have some time on my hands I will post them. The weather did a number on this country and on top of (pre-exisiting) bad conditions there was many spots where the pavement was totally gone, and some areas had some people pretending that they are trying to fix or at least fill the potholes with dirt. The trick was that they were asking for money as you trying to get by, at first I fell for it and gave the kid a dollar but later on got bad and you can tell that it was a pure scam. I got to the first check point before the border and along with official were the helpers. and o boy those guys are just pure fun. One of them was trying to jump on my bike to go with me and do everything! but I didn't allow it so the followed me on bicycle, I was trying to shake them but they caught up very quick yelling and pointing to their some king of badges. I was getting hopeless as I noticed a couple on GS1200 parked near by, so I pulled over by them as they were getting hustled as well so that way at least we could join forces.
Leaving Honduras is not bad at all and you can do it yourself so don't get scared by those guys, the only bad part was that we had to wait for to officials to finish they lunch. But we got everything we needed and said good bye to the helper as one of them never left our side and took of for Nicaragua border,  that was a total breeze to get through and in no time we were on our full of potholes way.
Staying in Leon tonight where we join up with big group of people traveling from allover the world and its cool as cool could get, I had them all sign my flag and after few beers my name memory bank just went dead so tomorrow I will post them as I'll ask again :)


Border crossing info.
Honduras: they will take the registration paper and stamp the passport, immigration just another stamp and all its free.
Nicaragua: Immigration first, 12 US dollars total to get the passport stamp and one form, than off to bike registration where you provide title, registration, DL, that form, and passport and that's it, I also bough insurance for another 12 US dollars (not sure if its needed) No copies were needed in any of the places

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Honduras day 2

It was very windy this morning as the hurricane was making his way down here or near by at least, So I packed early and took off into the land. I made a quick stop at the forth and it was nice, the museum is kind of small but still it is worth seeing. Today was mostly riding in many construction zones while keeping eye on crazy drivers everywhere. I can't say for all drivers in this country but what I've seen today was pure nuts, the drivers here are insane, fearless and reckless, wow that a interesting ride.
I got to capitol city as it was getting late so I grabbed of of the hotels and leaving to Nicaragua first thing tomorrow.

Honduras day 1

I took one of those cool three wheel taxis to Copan ruins and those guys are pure nuts lol, they driving those little things allover the place like its a little race car. I got to the ruins nice and early so I was walking all over that place all by my self for the first hour or so, with the air so still and quiet all around it was easy to imagine what could have been like in here long time ago.
I had a nice chat with one of the guides and he told me that most roads between here and Tegucigalpa are badly damaged and it would be best to make my way back to the connector of ca4 with ca5, if I got to go this far might as well get to the coast. So I rode up to Omoa to stay in this charming fisherman village and to check out the old Spanish forth, It seams that Canadians almost own the place. I stayed at bed and breakfast place own by lady from Canada and eat dinner in a restaurant own by..... guy from Canada lol.

Few pictures