‘if you care about the rainforests, don’t go there!’
I arrived at the border at 7.45am and it was empty! I headed to the insurance window and paid £36 for 3 months motorbike insurance (or was it 1 month 🤔). It was already too hot, so as I waited I leaned towards the small slot in the window where we exchanged documents and money, the freezing cold air rushed through the gap and gave me some relief.
At 8.10 I headed to the newly built immigration hall, super modern with air-con blasting freezing cold air out. And then I saw the first of many eco-tourists, wearing the usual tribal regalia: hiking sandles (Salomon I think) and designer clothing and rucksacks which looked like they were made from manmade textiles (not the best for the environment).
The few people queuing before me were taking ages to get processed, then I walked over and the Immigration Official stamped my British passport in a micro-second. That’s odd I thought, I’m normally the one holding everyone up. At 9am I was on my way into Costa Rica.
I rode into the nearest town and after getting cash & petrol I needed a coffee so asked a local where I could get one, he said “there’s a Starbucks around the corner” I really didn’t want to hear that and headed off to Tamarindo my destination for a few days. It was my birthday a couple of days later so I checked into a luxury hotel (well, luxury for me). 3 days of western luxury costing 8 times more than the basic room I had at the surf-beach in El Salvador.
Walking on the beach, luxury buffet breakfast and the abundance of wildlife was a welcome change. However, I enjoyed myself more slumming it in El Salvador 🤦♂️
After 3 days of rest and beach life I set off south again. Less than a mile after leaving I heard an unusual noise coming from the rear wheel. I immediately stopped and after some investigation I found the problem, the sprocket had come loose from the wheel hub, not such a problem if all I had to do was tighten the 6 bolts holding it in place, but the bolts were tight! I knew the problem was either worn bearings or something inside the wheel hub. As I was on the side of a dusty road I checked Google Maps and saw there was a Honda Dealer nearby. They couldn’t have been less helpful! My friend ‘Google Maps’ indicated a KTM dealer a few miles further on. Wow, what a difference an attitude makes. As soon as I arrived Brian (the Manager) smiled and told me they would have look at my bike in a few minutes. 2 1/2 hours later and whilst they couldn’t repair the bike, we knew exactly what the problem was and had a few different solutions to get it resolved.
As BMW Costa Rica said it would take 30 days to get me the parts (30 days – crazy) we decided to get the part manufactured by a ‘Precision Engineering Co’ nearby. They could do the work in 2 days time.
So, at 2.20pm we assembled the bike again and I headed back to the hotel I checked out of at 11am! As I pulled into the hotel carpark a 1 metre long Iguana decided to slowly walk across my path, I stopped and smiled.
TRAVEL MINDSET:
I’ve been traveling for a couple of months and I’ve arrived in ‘travel mode’. It usually takes me about 6 weeks as it did on this adventure. I’ve moved away from my ‘home mindset’ and I’m not in a ‘holiday mindset’, I rarely think about life back home, my town, my work or any of the things most of us think about every day. It’s not a holiday mindset either, which is ‘hedonistic’.
My mindset is ‘present & mindful’, and unlike my first 6 weeks where I was consumed with thinking about home life, I’m now focused on the moment, in a state of flow. Not only am I thinking less about home life I’m also thinking very little about my future and life post-travel.
One of the wonderful changes travel brings me is becoming mindful without thinking about it. It is an innate ability that can be lost in our sometimes hectic & stressful everyday lives. The change for me is travel; what changes could you make in your life to move towards mindfulness?
More wildlife…
I was up early on Friday morning, and headed back to see Brian at the KTM workshop. The first job was to get the rear hub off the bike and take it to the engineering company. As there was nothing else we could do until the afternoon Brian phoned Juan, his dad and asked him if he could take me back to Tamarindo. I spent a wonderful hour with Juan. He told me he has worked as a tour guide for 30 years. However, there is much less work now; he has seen the lucrative 1990’s & early noughties where he described Americans behaviour as ‘throwing their money around, they had so much’ which has declined year on year. He said they still come here on holiday, but they are very careful with their money and don’t book many tours. Interestingly, he said people from England used to visit a lot but that has dramatically reduced in recent years.
Juan loves Costa Rica but it’s not so easy to live now as Americans and Canadians are buying most of the beach/resort houses, sometimes to live in and sometimes to AirBnB. Interestingly, we went to a local supermarket which was 3 times cheaper than those In Tamarindo. Most of the Costa Ricans live 45 minutes away.
Whilst waiting to return to KTM an Iguana dropped 8 meters from a tree right in front of me. It landed with a splat, along with the rotten branch it put its trust in! After a few seconds to gather itself, he shook his head and ran back up the tree. Costa Rica is teeming with wildlife. I’ve seen more lizards & iguanas in the last week than the rest of my life.
At 3pm I arrived back at KTM. They were just finishing reassembling everything. The engineers did a great job fabricating parts and replacing the bearings. When assembled with a new chain it felt like a really professional job.
The time I spent with Brian and Juan was my most enjoyable of my time In Tamarindo. There were too many loud American tourists at the hotel.
I rode 50 miles south and checked into an isolated hotel, away from tourists in the middle of the rainforest; £22.50 – that’s better 🙂 By 5.30pm it was pitch black, which is strange as it feels like the middle of summer, however I am in the northern hemisphere so it’s just coming into winter; summer weather & winter daylight hours in Central America.
I’ve been waking up at 5.15 most mornings for weeks now, nobody stays up late so by 6am everyone is out and getting on with life.
I left at 7am and for an hour the perfect road was empty, just me and a few other cars. Riding through the tropical forest and agricultural landscape, I could see the mountains that dominate Central America in the distance, but this area was relatively flat, my morning couldn’t have been better. Then I arrived at The Pan American Highway 🤦♂️ 30 minutes of poor quality road, congestion, toxic fumes from the buses & Lorries and not a smile in sight! I pulled over, checked my map and took the next right turn to the Pacific Ocean, I would be riding down the coast road for the rest of the day 🙂 The Pacific to my right and jungle to my left.
I passed more medium sized industrial sites than at any other time on this journey, which are kept in perfect condition. No piles of old pallets and years of dried up old leaves in the carpark, they were immaculate, with neatly mown grass and not a pallet in sight! Costa Rica feels like it’s a wealthy country (although I have no idea how the wealth is distributed – more on this later).
And then I turned a corner and everything changed! Where had the jungle gone! Infront of me was a perfectly straight road and either side was a Palm oil plantation! Perfectly straight rows of palm trees, I had been here before I thought; the first time I saw a palm oil plantation I was riding in Malaysia, I was shocked that the rainforest had been replaced by palm trees. An environmental disaster! The plantation went on for miles & miles, and then for the first time on this trip I smelled something awful, I realised I was passing the palm nut oil processing plant!
Mid-afternoon I arrived Uvita a small town on the Pacific Coast. I found a lovey small hotel run by Tanya and her family. I asked where the beach was and she said “hurry they won’t let you in after 4pm” That confused me so I hurried off. And then I saw the sign Parque Nacional Marino Ballena. I paid $7 and walked through the jungle to the beach. More lizards en route. Wow…
Approaching the park there were pictures of ‘Whale Tail Beach’ so whilst I knew the phenomenon was there, the tide was high and covering it. However, the unique way the waves from each bay collide and create ‘sea-turmoil’ was great to see.
I think I was on the most beautiful and unspoilt beach in the world! Where the Jungle meets the sea.
It was dusk as I walked back to the hotel as parrots flocked above in beautiful song.
Back at the hotel I asked Tanya why there was a poster indicating ‘no sex’, she told me that sex tourism and harassment of women working in the tourism industry has got so frequent the government has made a law banning it (prostitution is legal). Apparently, serious implications if you’re caught! Good.
The following morning I headed back to the National Park, the gate opened at 8am. It was 7.50 when I left Tanya’s so I walked at pace as I wanted to be one of the first to see What Tail Beech at low tide. The sun was hidden by the clouds but minute by minute they were disappearing as the day got hotter and hotter.
I was one of the first to arrive but the passageway to the Whale Tail was still covered by the sea. A few people stopped and waited but I headed purposefully into the waves and crossed to what was at that moment an island. Another 20 minutes and the sea had receded and people were joining me. However, I had the place to myself for 20 minutes.
The sun had now burned off most of the clouds, but they were still clinging over the rainforest mountains behind the beach. What a sight.
I didn’t even know this beach exist yesterday when I pulled up in the town looking for a hotel. Sometimes I miss the wonders of the world and sometimes I am lucky. Although was it luck, or had my intention of riding through Central America meant it was inevitable I would find pockets of paradise 🤔
And then I saw an old man wearing a ‘Make America great again cap’. Oh dear…
A friend of a friend introduced me to an English guy who had built an amazing house way down south on the Pacific Coast. It was a few miles from ‘the end of the road’, where after, there is just jungle before Panama. I headed there but I was mindful that it was located at the very top of the rainforest canopy. I also saw on Google maps the remoteness and small road getting there. I assumed the ride there on a big ‘Adventure Motorbike’ would be a challenge.
About an hour before I arrived Mark suggested I take local roads to avoid the congestion heading to the Panama border. A small paved road eventually ended and I was riding through the rainforest on dirt and stone as it twisted and turned up and down the mountain through the ‘Piedras Blancas National Park’. I loved it and it was well within my riding ability. I stopped for a coffee in Golfito which is on the edge of ‘Golfo Dulce’ a beautiful gulf and part of iedras Blancas National Park.
Then paved road for a while before I turned onto dirt roads again. For the next 10 miles or more I loved being off the tarmac, but always in the back of my mind was the possibility of a more challenging road ahead!
Slowly as I neared my destination the road deteriorated, I had to slow down and avoid massive potholes and washed out parts of the road, I loved it, although always aware that every mile further the riding became more technical.
By the time I arrived at what was going to be the final uphill road (200 metres) to the house, I was already aware I wasn’t far off my riding capability. The road was narrow and I could see it was going to rapidly climb into the top of the rainforest. As I took the left turn into the final road it narrowed, was washed out in places with large stones and I knew once on it I wasn’t going to be able to stop or turn around!
It’s not that I’m new to riding a motorbike, or new to riding ‘off-road’ or new to riding a big Adventure Bike around the world loaded with luggage. However, I’m just an average rider who overestimates his ability at times and has a propensity for doing dangerous and challenging stuff!
The first half of the way up to the house was within my capability, but as I crossed a small stream and turned to my left, the road immediately climbed high and very steeply over rocks. Riding off-road like most things in life is about confidence. Confidence and ability are a winning combination in achievement!
In the fraction of a second it took me to realise, the road, track, whatever we call it, was on the edge or maybe beyond my ability, but also aware there was zero choice to be made, I was on the steep, uneven, rocky side of the rainforest and I just had to keep going… so instinctively (I had been standing on the motorbike pegs for miles now) my right hand twisted the throttle (it was so steep and rugged there is no way the bike could ascend without massive power) and the back wheel spun and gripped and then it spun not gipping and somehow I got up about 50 ft and on a corner I stalled the bike. I instantly grabbed the front brake and it stopped without sliding back (being my height has many advantages 🤔 but not having long legs which could easily drop down and secure a firm grip on the steep slope wasn’t helping at all). As I craned my head back to look up the slope, I could see another 50 ft of the same conditions before the track twisted right; what was beyond there 🤷♂️
As I slowly increased the power, released the clutch and eased off the brake and I started moving forwards again (the back tyre whilst an off-road tyre was nearing the end of its life so not as much grip as I would have liked) the back wheel gripping and then not gripping, the wheel moving side to side as it found surface to grip and then not. I got to the bend and looked up, another 80 ft and I could see the top. Mark was on a quad bike stationary at the top looking down at me. I sensed he was about to drive down and see if I could make it. Seeing the top gave me encouragement, so i powered on and got to the top of the road. I was on a flat surface and knew I had made it. I was safe, the rainforest’s wild, steep track hadn’t beaten me. I was exhausted, euphoric and instantly aware I had to go back down at some point!
I spent a couple of days in the jungle canopy. Over recent years Mark has built an amazing home and property which he rents out. I’m not exaggerating when I say I was staying in the canopy of the rainforest at the top of the mountain! A truly incredible location. Not only is it surrounded by jungle, there are monkeys, sloths, lizards, parrots, macaws and more – wow!
Mark was the perfect host showing me the sights and introducing me to his friends. A wonderful beach and excellent surf, good food and so much more!
A couple of days later I made it down the steep hill and after 15 miles of dirt roads I found tarmac again.
I arrived at the Costa Rica border and unlike many border crossings where there are barriers and border guards, I could have rode straight out of Costa Rica to the Panama border without stopping. However, as I want to return to Costa Rica in a week I want everything ‘done by the book’.
The border was possibly the quickest to get through, but one of the most challenging in terms of navigating the process and different offices.
Ecotourism is an oxymoron for sure! Maybe it should be called ‘ego-tourism’! Call me naive but surly eco-tourism is about travel with a ‘light-footprint’, sustainability, care about the environment. Ego-tourists are all about creating stories to talk about at dinner parties back home!
How about this as an idea – ‘if you care about the rainforests, don’t go there!’
If you think eco-tourism starts and ends with an aeroplane journey, air-conditioned hotels then you need to ‘give your head a wobble…’ You’re just going on holiday like the rest of us…’
So what have I learned about Costa Rica?
- A beautiful country.
- So much wildlife.
- Way more expensive than the other Central American countries I passed through.
- I wonder whether the American influence has been positive.