June 23, 2016
It was a green day today. Lots of green. Humid, beautiful, hot, green.
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Playa Matapalo, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Destination: Palmar Norte, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
77.2 km trip, 4:56 time, 54.6 km/h maximum speed, 15.7 km/h average speed
Route Description:
Single lane in either direction with a shoulder some of the time. Undulating hills of no more than 100 meters. Views of the ocean occasionally. Many restaurant and food and drink options along the way.
Accommodations:
Palmar Norte has over 5 hotels. Prices ranged from 13,250 colones to 25,000. We stayed at the Red Cross hotel (next to bomberos) for 15,000. Great room with AC, great wifi and two blocks from grocery store. They also said we could pitch our tent outside for free if we wanted to.
What happened…
Andrew writes: Another beautiful day to ride beside the ocean. We stopped for a second breakfast near Quepos, there was this wonderful little bakery and we munched on pizza and bagels. Man, I can’t remember the last time I had a bagel. After that a road cyclist, Wayner (pronounced weiner) caught up to us and he and I sped off, talking about this and that.
We arrived in Palmar Norte just in time for lunch, and had trouble deciding on either chinese food or fried chicken. Fried chicken won out ultimately because there were actually customers in the restaurant. There are a lot of hotels here in Palmar Norte and we could have even camped for free at the Red Cross, but instead took a room at their place for $30. We did some shopping, it started to rain, and then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening inside in air-conditioned splendour.
Amanda writes: Initially we had chosen a less expensive hotel with a nice old lady. Prior to check-in I confirmed twice that she had wi-fi because it was important on this day for a couple of reasons. First it was early and second we needed to do some more planning. She said yes and we headed to our room. Andrew pulled out his computer to check the connection and it didn’t work. She says to us immediately that the guy who fixes it will be coming in a half an hour. No way man! We’ve played this game too many times in Latin America to fall for this again. Andrew I decided on the spot we were not staying. After some frantic phone calling on her part to actually get it fixed and some aggressive insistence on my part we finally got our money back and headed across the street. I shouldn’t have paid until we checked the wifi but at least we got the money back. We find that so many times once the money has exchanged hands you really have to battle to get it back if required. No harm done and while it was too bad we couldn’t support a little old lady I was glad to support some bomberos that have helped us along the way. As Andrew said we could have camped for free, but I put my princess hat on and needed some air-conditioning.