June 21, 2016
Hugging the coastline sends us up and down on a roller coaster, but we finish up at an all-inclusive hotel!
Cycling Stats
Start Point: El Roble, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Destination: Jaco, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
63.1 km trip, 4:43 time, 54.9 km/h maximum speed, 13.3 km/h average speed
Route Description:
This day was on a single lane in either direction road with more of a shoulder than yesterday. Again heavy traffic until you turn in the other direction from San Jose at the toll booth. No problems getting past the toll booth and the guy just waves you on. After this point there is a big shoulder. Undulating hills for the day again and especially within the last 15 kilometres. There is a big climb just before Jaco that takes you up to 252 meters. Then you drop down into the town. There are many super markets and again it’s a gringo community and expensive.
Accommodations:
We checked out a few hotels and the least expensive we could find was $50 with AC and $28 with a fan. Again we opted for the AC room and the hostel had good wifi. We stayed at Beds on Bohio.
What happened…
Andrew writes: Don’t let the little byline up above confuse you. We did end up at an all-inclusive hotel when we reached Jaco after cycling alongside the coast this morning (it was beautiful!) but there’s more to the story than that. I had arranged for a Warmshowers stay in what I thought was Jaco, but it turns out it was the town about 5km before Jaco. So since we never go backwards, always forward, the first hotel we came to in Jaco was this Best Western all-inclusive place. Hotels are already astronomically priced here compared to the rest of Central America, so we thought that it wouldn’t hurt to ask about rates at this fancy place. It was going to be $110 per person. Ack! Then I think we did the most asking around at hotels we have ever done before, walking up and down the main drag (and various side roads) and it seems like all of the hostels are the same price, which is about $50. We did get invited to the bar next door for free drinks starting at 2000hrs, but let’s be honest, we were in bed by then.
One side note, I found someone on the beach today who was willing to buy my boogie board and fins, and so that’ll be one less thing for us to carry as we continue to try and make tracks. I’m happy to have gotten my money back for them, and maybe I’ll carry something like this again the next time I’m in a land full of surf.
Amanda writes: Even though the road had a bit of traffic there was still a ton of butterflies! At one point I looked back and couldn’t see Andrew. That was because he had stopped to watch all the butterflies on a field of grass. I’m not sure if it’s just the season for them hatching or what, but it was fabulous. They were flying around everywhere and in so many different colours.
One part of the road was over a bridge that went over a river. There was quite a crowd of people lining the bridge sidewalks so we stopped to see what they were looking at. There must have been over 20 crocodiles just hanging about along the rivers edge. Apparently they live here and are undeterred by all the people. It was pretty cool to see them in their natural habitat. The only other time we’ve seen crocodiles is when they are in captivity in Mexico and Cuba.