Up, packed and checked out by 9 am. Breakfast, real English tea and warm tortillas with peanut butter. Got “ear” biscuits, size of a plate, and set for a tricky expedition across the mountain ranges to the north. 20 min down the road I realized that my Koga`s back wheel was completely wobbly with a loose spoke. Tried to cycle gently for the next twenty minutes until we found a bicycle repair shop. Bingo! The young mechanic from “Cyclo Mejia” fixed not only one my wheel but all four plus serviced our gears etc. THANK YOU FOR EXCELLENT WORK - Strongly recommended for anybody cycling that route). Half an hour later we were on the road again with happy bikes, climbing multiple hills. Cycled through Grecia (a town with a church fully dismantled and shipped from Belgium!); Sarchi (with a historical horse cart production theme) and Naranjo (well, we had oranges there). Then enough was enough. We could not take any more climbing. We tried the bus but it had just disappeared, hitchhiking worked better and after 2 minutes standing we were squashed into a 2-man pickup truck (four of us in to a 2 man cab). What a trip! Communication went easy and speeded up through the freezing parts of the Costa Rican central ridgeway. Arrived in Saint Carlos and checked into a lovely new hotel on the river bank (Teresa’s influence). Cloudy, so no volcano views as yet.
Cycled 39km (uphill), hitchhiked 47km.
Cycled 39km (uphill), hitchhiked 47km.