Day 40 - Believe Surf & Yoga Hotel, Santa Teresa

The ferry from the Nicoya Peninsula over to Puntarenas left around 4 times a day and we were aiming for the noon ferry crossing, which had a crossing time of around about an hour and half. As such, there was no need to get on the road early as it was only about an hour’s ride from Santa Teresa. We had breakfast at El patio again, which was once again a very tasty breakfast. The girls were in great shape and the riding to the port promised to be along some spectacular roads. We were not disappointed, probably some of the best riding we had done the whole trip, possibly even better that the route between Mulege and Loreto in Baja, and certainly less challenging than the routes we had taken in Costa Rica between Tamarindo and Santa Teresa. Jorik’s charger had stopped working on his bike as the mounting of his phone causes the cable to pinch between his tank bag and the phone, so we stopped at a little supermarket just outside of Santa Teresa to pick up a new charger cable. Whilst there, a lady jumped out of her car and went running over to Jorik to say hi. I was parked up in some shade some way off, but still had my helmet on with the comms switched on. Whilst I didn’t actually meet this lady, I heard their conversation through the comms as she stopped right next to where Jorik had parked, and his helmet picked up the conversation. It turns out that she was a bridesmaid at a wedding that Jorik had taken pictures at the previous year, and they had met then. She had seen the “Keep Tahoe Blue” sticker on his bike and thought that she would have to stop and have a chat as they too live in South Lake Tahoe but have a guest house in Santa Teresa. Once again, the “Keep Tahoe Blue” connection had paid off and now we have another contact in Costa Rica that we can catch up with again in the future. We made it to the ferry terminal in good time, but it was still ridiculously hot and humid. I suppose the heat is better than the rain, but we had all our riding gear on and stupidly, should have put our shorts on underneath our trousers. As such, when we got onto the ferry, we could take our jackets and boots off, but still had to spend the crossing in our riding trousers, which looked a little ridiculous. A Dutch coupe travelling with their 2 young children, a little girl of 4 and a little boy of 2, sat at the table next to us. The little boy was fascinated by my boots, which were nearly as tall as him and with no fear, he came bounding over to me as I took them off and wanted to play with the buckles and straps, which I was happy to indulge him in. Of course, a couple of stickers were handed out to the kids, which was enough of an icebreaker for the parents to strike up a conversation with us. They have been on the road for a year, travelling through Mexico and Central America with their kids. They only have about another month to go but have purchased a Mercedes Truck to kit out for overland travel when they get back to Holland so that they can take on some much bigger trips with their family in the coming years. I told them about my experience in Africa and they are dead keen to go but want to wait until the little guy is at least 7 years old as malaria can be very dangerous for young children who haven’t built up enough strength to fight it. I told them of my rather close call with malaria whilst I was in Kenya, which I suppose just concreted the fact that they won’t be going to Africa with the kids for at least a few more years. A very nice family and the ferry crossing was much more entertaining with them and the kids than it would have been otherwise. We also met and American biker whilst waiting for the ferry to unload in Puntarenas who owns a few resort spots in Costa Rica and he rattled off a load of places that we should try to see whilst travelling towards Panama, although he mentioned that he was based mainly on the Caribbean coastline, which was a little out of our way. We were heading for Jorik’s mate, Aaron’s place near a town called Domincal, about 3 and half hours ride south of Puntarenas, so we didn’t think we would detour to that extent to pick up the Caribbean coast, but we graciously accepted his offer to pop in on him but explained that it might not happen. We exchanged numbers and he got a sticker! The ferry port in Puntarenas is located on a narrow spit of land that is separated from the mainland by a lagoon on one side, and the Pacific Ocean on the other side. It wasn’t a particularly attractive town and the traffic from the ferry was pretty heavy leaving the area. We were pretty much the last to leave the boat, so we had to make our way through a lot of traffic to get out of town. We put our route into the satnav, and I had a look at the map so that I had a general sense of where we were going. However, the road signs, the satnav and my map all seemed to have different ideas about where we should go to get onto Highway 34, which would take us along the coast to Domincal. At one point, the road signs definitely told us to take an exit, which the satnav did not agree with, and we ended up at the entrance to what appeared to be a military base. The guard was adamant that we were to head back the way we had come and to take an alternative route that made no sense at all as it was directing us to San Jose, the capital. San Jose was definitely not on our route and if we did end up there, we had done something completely wrong. After a pretty long day already, we finally got onto the correct road towards Dominical and bombed south. The riding wasn’t that great as Highway 34 is just a massive highway, but the scenery was pretty good. We passed quite a few other bikers on tour and even met some guys at a stop we made that had a regular Sunday ride. When we arrived at the town of Dominical, Jorik mentioned that the satnav said we still had a fair bit to go to make it Aaron’s place, which was actually in a little surf town called Dominicalito Bay, about 2 or 3 miles further south from Dominical. We had let Aaron know we would be there around 5pm and he told us that his man, Adrian, would be there to meet us. We pulled up at around 16:45, so pretty much spot on time, and sure enough, Adrian came over from his house, which is on the opposite side of the street to let us in via a security gate that allowed us to park the bikes off the street. The place is fantastic. Aaron and his wife Jackie purchased the property about a year ago and as Aaron is a builder, he is in the process of renovating Jorik and Melody’s cinema room to create a speakeasy vibe with a bar and new wine cellar for Melody’s substantial and impressive wine collection. They have 6 or 7 cabins on the property, all very nicely decked out for holiday lets and Dominicalito Bay is such a chilled-out spot, that any holiday there would be an absolute delight. It had been a pretty long day for us, great day, but a long day, so we asked Adrian where we might get some food. He advised us of a few places but said that the best place was called La Parcela, a very swanky restaurant overlooking the bay, which was only about 10 minutes away on the bikes. So, we unloaded the bikes, got settled into our separate rooms, a real treat for us not to share, and jumped on the bikes to head out for dinner. The sun hadn’t set by the time we left, but it was definitely twilight, and we knew we would have to travel back in the dark, but it wasn’t far. We had a fantastic dinner and didn’t even think about the price of the food as Aaron has very kindly offered for us to stay for free. We even had some cocktails, only 1 each mind you as we had to ride back in the dark. I was expecting a rather large check when it came as I had a ribeye steak and Jorik had a whole red snapper, but we were surprised that the bill came to less than what we had paid for a couple of beers and dinner at the very average place in Santa Teresa a few nights early, result! We then headed back to chill for the night. We have a few days off now, so we had a few beers and even splashed out on some 100% Agave Tequila as a treat.