June 18, 2016
A peloton of six left Granada this morning, but by the end of a long day only two tired cyclists remained; and they were in Costa Rica!
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Granada, Granada, Nicaragua
Destination: La Cruz, Guanacaste, Costa Rica
126 km trip, 7:44 time, 49 km/h maximum speed, 16.2 km/h average speed
Route Description:
This was a long day. You start the day with a gradual climb up to just shy of 300 meters. Then you slowly descend back to just under 100 meters. This takes you to Rivas which is about 65 kilometres. This is a good place to end your day. There are many hotels, restaurants and places to buy food. We pushed on and the road continues to be relatively flat with small undulating hills, however there are cross winds that slow you a bit. The winds must be consistent as there are many wind turbines. There are a few small places to eat along the way but nothing significant until La Cruz. The road is single lane in either direction with very little shoulder and the traffic is courteous.
Accommodations:
Just before the border for Costa Rica there is a hospedaje with a private room with fan for $20 US. We kept going. After the border crossing you do need to travel for about another 15K before another hotel. This one was $20 and had a restaurant. We pushed on to La Cruz which is a nice town with restaurants, hotels and places for food and has amazing views of the water. With it comes high hotel prices. We negotiated to $25 USD with a fan and most of the other hotels were between $30-50 USD.
What happened…
Andrew writes: It was a long, long train that left Granada this morning. I took the front most of the ride up the “big” hill, with everyone tucked behind me and my wind-breaking boogie board. Even Amanda, who thinks of herself as slow was able to use our miniature peloton to her advantage and we all made great time. The wind picked up a bit as the day wore on and I was able to take a break while either Ali or Sam took the lead; actually I think everyone took a turn. Then around lunchtime, maybe 1000hrs we all reached Rivas and the Brits went one way and we went another. They were headed to Isla Ometepe and we were headed to Burger King.
The nice thing about Burger King was the air-conditioning…and the comfort food. Sure, it broke the budget a little bit, but it was a nice treat. Thus refreshed and refuelled we decided to press on towards the border with Costa Rica. Our ride took us alongside the shore of Lake Nicaragua, past dozens of wind-turbines, and there were times when it was against us, and other times when the wind was at our backs. As we approached the border, we never really felt ready to call it a day, and that’s how we ended up just crossing into Costa Rica.
Immediately after crossing there was a refugee camp, for Congolese peoples who are trying to make their way further north. Nicaragua has closed their borders, so they have been waiting patiently for about 6-months in their ramshackle little tent town. The few refugees that I talked to seemed pretty upbeat / normal about the whole thing. I guess they have money coming from somewhere, so they don’t worry about food or whatever.
So it turns out that the first hotel/motel after crossing into Costa Rica is this nice little oasis about 10km from the border. Our problem was that we had no cash. We were having some trouble getting money out of the ATM at the border, and so we had to push on to La Cruz. By this point we were running on empty, and it was a real slog to get there. We found a working ATM and then a hotel, but man, everything here is so expensive!! At least compared to the rest of Central America. We’ll have to see how this plays out over the next few weeks while we travel. Somehow I don’t think our $20USD a day budget is going to work here.
Amanda writes: At the beginning of the day I knew we had a climb out of Granada. I was mentally prepared for it and was so determined to keep up with the crew. Maybe it was the determination combined with adrenaline that fuelled me with a topping of pride; but I rocked it! Another day of feeling great on the bike, at least at the beginning is incredible for my confidence. The brits all have lighter loads, two of them have bigger wheels (700C) and two of them are young enough to be my children! And I was still able to keep up. It was a wonderful feeling as we turned in the opposite direction as we now had to bust our butts to get to Ecuador in time for our house sit. While the day did end up being longer than we had planned, we still did incredibly well and I hope it doesn’t make us too tired in the days to come.