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Sunday 26 March 2017

Little Corn Island, Nicaragua

I am sitting on the balcony at Hotel Los Delfines on Little Corn Island, sipping on a glass of the local Nicaraguan Flor de Caña 7 year old rum. It is nearly bedtime and the night is about to put its carpet of calmness over this little island. The sound of running feet and men shouting, disturbs my tranquility and I look down at the concrete path below me and see a police officer and another guy running southwards. The police officer holds his AK-47 rifle in his hands and they disappear into the dark. There has been a crocodile rumor on the island for over a month now; it apparently came to the island during the hurricane "Otto" late November last year. They didn’t catch it this time either so it is probably still out there, most likely hiding inside the swamplands.


A salamander joined me on my on the balcony, walking on the roof,
trying to catch some insects flying around the light bulb. 

I am on Little Corn Island (Isla Pequeña del Maíz). I read about this island in a Norwegian newspaper last fall and I decided to go there. The title of the article was “How long will Caribbean’s best kept secret remain a secret?” 
The last 10 days of my vacation will be on this remote place, situated about 70 km (43 miles) off the coast of Nicaragua. I arrived at Big Corn Island from the mainland with a small plane at January the 3rd. A bunch of schoolchildren arrived at the same time; leaving me waiting for a taxi since they had booked all the transport available for the moment. The boat to Little Corn wouldn’t leave for another hour, so I was in no hurry. 

La Costeña Airline, the local Nicaraguan air-shuttle which fly 3 times a day to Corn Island.
This is the big plane that they use during the high season. 
Some taxis outside the airport. This building are both the departure and arrival hall. 

When a vacant taxi finally arrived, it took three tours with other passengers when he was driving me to the boat. I got a little mini sightseeing on the Island, all for the price of 1 (one) dollar. The taxis are cheap and act more like free driving busses, often taken different passengers at the same time if they are heading in the same(ish) direction. 

Big Corn Island is not big; it is just bigger than Little Corn Island. The airport's runway stretches 2/3 of the total distance from north to south, and only smaller propeller engine planes can land here. If they want to have jet planes here, the runway has to be built out into the ocean. 

I found this map on the wall in a dive shop on Big Corn Island. The southern peninsula is a
mountain, so no runway can be built there.  

12-13 km of ocean separates Big Corn from Little Corn. This water is trafficked by a small open boat called Panga. The Panga transport leaves twice a day from Big Corn and it takes about 30 minutes in calm weather. In rougher sea it takes up to one hour and in really bad weather it don’t go at all these days due to an accident that happened early in 2016 where 13 Costa Rican tourists drowned after the panga capsized.

"Caribbean Express", the Panga boat that are trafficking the sea between Big Corn and Little Corn.  

Finding my seat and waiting for the boat to leave, the sky opened its floodgates and the rain poured down. A plastic cover was pulled out over the passengers, but it was too small to cover everything and soon I was drenched. Just before we started, it cleared up and the journey went smooth.
On the jetty on Little Corn, a boy from the hotel waited for me with a sign with my name on. 


The boy from the hotel is waiting for me (white t-shirt to the right) with a sign with my name on. 

I traveled light, leaving most of the baggage on the mainland. A restriction of 15 kilo including the cabin luggage on the plane, limited my carryon to a small suitcase. I checked in at Hotel Los Delfines, only a 5 minutes’ walk from the jetty on the east side. The sun had already gone down when I reached the hotel so it was not much to see. I was tired, grabbed a late dinner and went for bed.

The island is, as I’ve already explained, very small, only about 2.9 square kilometres (1.1 square miles). All transportation of goods on the island are on wooden pushcarts. The only option for personal transport is on your own feet as there are no motorized vehicles here at all. There are actually no roads at all, and only a paved sidewalk stretches for some kilometers on the east side of the island.You can walk from the most northern point to the southern point in one hour. Here is a drone video I found on YouTube that gives you a little impression of the size. 



And here is a map:

Map of Little Corn Island. The video above was taken above the lighthouse. 

The Nicaraguan government annexed the islands in 1894. Before that, it had been a safe haven for pirates for a while. The main industry was coconut farming up to 1960-70. Then fishing, and most important, lobster fishing became the main income for the islands. Here. as in the rest of the world, no regulation leads to overfishing. The first years they could pick the lobsters straight out of the sea, wading on the seashore, but after some years, the local fishermen had to go further and further out to earn their living. Now, the commercial lobster fishing is very limited, and the number of fishermen who participate are very low. 
Still lobster is a sort of symbol for the islands and the lobster adorns t-shirts and other local souvenirs. Europeans will maybe not call it lobster at all because it don’t have claws. We will call it langouste, rock lobster, spiny lobster or sea crayfish.

I found this on the northern side of Big Corn Island. It has to mean something significant
 to the locals to decorate a bus shed like this. 

Lobster traps no longer in use. Piles of these are seen several places and the fishermen's boats are also on shore, no longer seaworthy and scarred been stored for years in their wrong element. 

Today the 1000+ inhabitants on Little Corn are mainly depended on tourism. Of the total Corn Islands tourists, about 75% of them visit Little Corn. Rumours has it that of the 25% rest, most of them don’t know the difference between the islands and stay on Big Corn because they think it’s the same. When they come to Little Corn, they are angry of their selves, wasting time on Big Corn instead of traveling directly to Little Corn.


A view from my room. The western side of the island is sheltered from the wind
and appear calm most of the time, even in strong winds. 

Another view from my room. Big Corn Island in the distance and a fishing boat near by. 

The best breakfast view on the western side of the island. This is the restaurant in my hotel Los Delfines. Beautiful spot, but terrible food and service. It is just amazing that bad reviews on TripAdvisor that is three years old is still valid today. How can a restaurant not read reviews and do something about it? Fascinating...

I read somewhere that there is only three things to do on Little Corn Island and that is:

  1. Nothing at all
  2. Scuba dive and snorkeling
  3. Fishing

I could easily have participated in the world championship in no. 1 and I love doing both no. 2 and 3, so I came up with a waterproof plan for may stay: The first 3-4 days I would relax, working on my tan, snorkeling and just walk around and have look at the island. The rest of the days would devote myself  to scuba diving and ocean fishing. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The first 4 days my plan worked perfect! The weather was beautiful, the island was beautiful, the sea was beautiful and the food was beautiful. I even started to believe I was beautiful myself. Some scattered rain showers disturbed the beauty frequently, but all in all, I just loved it. 


No rain means no clouds. No clouds means no sunset like this. No filter used and only a mobile phone camera. 

The rain made it a little more challenging going to the beach or just sightseeing the area, and I always needed to think of how to keep my camera dry. The ground never dried completely and the muddy paths around the island was very slippery. Walking up a hill was like walking on ice here in Norway, you have to grip on something to help you to drag yourself up or else you will just slide back down. 

I just crossed the island the few hundred meters from east to west. 
The first day I stayed around the center of the Island, meaning the place where the jetty and my hotel is. The jetty is where the lifebuoy is on the map, and my hotel is the next building to Dolphin Dive that probably have made the map according to the huge sign. On that stretch I found my waterhole and my favorite restaurants.

The second day I walked south and ended up on a small remote beach on the southeast end of the island. 

The most southern beach on the east side with another beach just behind the nearest cape. 

I was totally alone and I was swimming in the rough sea among corrals that nearly ripped my skin several times. I found a calmer channel in shelter of the biggest waves and huge colonies of colourful fishes emerged around me. A moray eel with more beautiful colours than I have ever seen, curiously watched me from behind his rock when I swam by. It was dark blue with red and yellow stripes and spots, and I slapped myself for leaving my GoPro camera behind that day. 
I came back the next day armed with my GoPro, but I was never able to find my friend again and all the other schools of fishes had also vanished. I could only see some single small fishes, but I hoped that I would capture more colourful fishes later during my scuba diving trips. 
Here are the catch of the day: 




That was not very impressive...
I lost one of my flip-flops wading over a stretch of razor sharp corals, falling forward when it jammed in-between two of them. I cut myself on my forearm and leg, but I was more concerned about my shoe. I searched the area for 10-15 minutes, but I could never retrieve it. It just vanished from the face of the earth and it will probably wash up on some beach together with thousands of other flip-flops that has lost their owner. 
Luckily, there was a souvenir shop close by my hotel that sold flip-flops. 

The Corn Islands are volcanic and are remains of one or several volcanoes. Not much reveals this fact, but here and there you can see volcanic rocks erupt from the soil. 


Volcanic rock
One of the biggest problem the island has to deal with is coastline erosion. Even without a raising sea level, the sea usually claims back what it once had. It is worse on the east coast where the rough waves takes a little bite of the land every second, minute and hour of the day. An effort has been taken to slow down the erosion and big steel wire cages are filled with rocks and placed as a sheltering reef outside the beaches. I rediscovered my students from the airport the third day when I was walking along the eastern shore. They were part of a program to repair the old and make new cages, trying to stop the sea from chewing on the island.  


Hopefully, their effort will be rewarded and Little Corn Island will remain Little and not Tiny in the future. 


Even on the west coast the erosion is evident, but probably in a slower pace,
but if you plan to build a house here, don't build it too close to the edge. 
Another problem is plastic. Huge amount of plastic! It is the destiny for islands like this to be the garbage dump for the rest of the world. Wherever in the world you throw a plastic bottle in the ocean, it is a good chance it will wash up on a beach somewhere. The amount of plastic are tremendous and only stretches of land owned by someone, are maintained and kept clean. There is probably too much plastic and too few people to clean it, but I can't escape the feeling that it probably also has something to do with the local's indifference. The island is not that big! Come together and clean the coastline and make party after for the participants. It could be a yearly happening!


Plastic. 

On some of the west coast and into the village, there are a concrete path/sidewalk.
On the rest of the island you have to walk the muddy path on rainy days. 

Whenever you look up at the sky you will probably see the distinct silhouette of a Frigate bird, hovering over you. 

Not everything is possible to buy on the island. All goods has to be brought in by boat and unloaded to the jetty. From there it has to be transported around the island on the pushcarts. Alternatively, rolled if it is a barrel of diesel.


Today it is busy. Two cargo boats arriving at the same time. 


Waiting for the boats to discharge. 


Discharging the cargo from the ship. The pushcarts are handy for local transportation. 

Barrels of diesel going to the generator which produces the electricity on the island. 

Everything from building material, food, paint, kitchen supply, stoves, fridges etc. have only one option to be moved: on a pushcart.  I saw a woman who had bruised her ankle, been transported on one of them to the nurse. Supply of fresh food was occasional, and food like salads and fruits was not available at all time. It didn’t matter. If your favourite is not available, pick the second one.
I just loved this blackboard in my favourite restaurant Desideri Cafe, where you can see what fruit drink you can order according to availability:



Desideri became my favorite restaurant and their "Lobster Thermidor" I could die for and it is probably the best singel order you can have from a menu on the island. My new friend DC served me the food and drinks, gave me good advices and always had time for a chat and a laugh in between his work.

Lobster Thermidor with two lobster tails. USD 20,- with rice and vegetables. To die for!
My new friend DC Bollard. He was also the owner of a shop selling his own
designed t-shirts nearby. I bought one of them with, of course, a lobster on it.
The t-shirt he is wearing on the picture, with a cat and slices of pizza in
space, is not one of his own design. I hope. 

Desideri Cafe/Restaurant

On the beachfront outside you can be served drinks laying in a hammock or sitting on a deck chair. Table are brought out if you want to enjoy your meal outside, but that was rarely an option during my stay due to the risk of rain.
You can spot the jetty in the background with people on, probably waiting for deliveries. 
I brought my laptop to the restaurant and the restaurant's cat fell in love with its black neoprene padding.
I think my laptop was the most photographed object that night. 
Only 50 meters from Desideri was another restaurant, the Tranquilo Cafe. These two restaurants made you forget the lousy weather, providing you with hospitality, lunch, dinner, coffee, beer, drinks, (slow) WiFi, entertainment and an opportunity to meet other people. They alternated having live music, game nights and others like bonfire night on the beach outside.

 I participated on Tranquilo's pub quiz night (every Tuesday) and got as drunk as a man can be. DC and is friends won the quiz and I was the only single player that night, instantly named "The party of one". A couple of french tourists not participating in the quiz, tried to help me when the topic was about France. They failed to have a correct answer to every question in that round, leaving me to be the overall looser. I didn't realize that before the day after, drinking a huge cup of coffee trying to recover from the previous night. I noticed a lot of coffee drinking people around me, staring into the table that late morning. It was tremendously fun!

The Tranquilo Cafe. 

Ready for music night at Desideri. 
The little souvenir shop where I bought new flip-flops, just beside Desideri. This is also the place where DC sells his
t-shirts. I wonder if they ever have a Big Bikini Blow-off sale also. 100% off. Would have been so much more fun. 
The third day I was visiting the dive shops, ready to arrange dive trips throughout the rest of my stay. There are about 20 dive sites only a short boat trip from the island as seen on the map below provided by "Dive Little Corn".



That means that you in theory can dive 3 times a day for a week and never visit the same spot twice. 
At the evening of my fourth day, the wind picked up. The calmness of the sea as you can see on the drone video above, had not been the normal as long as I had been there. The waves were breaking over the barrier of coral reefs that surrounds most of the island, hammering into the beaches from the east. The wind is normally steady from east to west, leaving the west side where my hotel is, in shelter for the wind behind a wall of trees. 
But now the wind increased, and the sun disappeared most of the day. I already then understood that the scuba dive next day would be cancelled. It was. And so it was for nearly all of my remaining days accept for the 9th of January. They conducted two dives that day on the west side, trying to avoid the roughest sea. I participated on the first dive at 9 am, but it was a total disaster. The waves were high, really high, and some of the divers were seasick already on the way out to the dive spot Long Rock (see the map above). One of them never entered the water at all, emptying his stomach sitting and waiting for us to be finished diving. I had too little lead on me to weigh me down, so I had to constantly swim with my head down and my feet straight up, just preventing myself from floating to the surface. If the sea had been calmer I probably would have returned to the boat to pick up some more weigh to put in my west.
The support on the dive housing for my GoPro had snapped of falling from my bed onto the floor the previous day, so I couldn't mount it on a rod to film any fish closer up. And the waves reached far down to the bottom where we swam, moving us from side to side and we had to swim away from the rocks to avoid been thrown into them.
Here are some of the images that were usable from the dive. Most of the picture were blur and out of focus because I moved the camera during capture, trying to stay still in the water in the rough sea. 


The parrot fish, guilty of producing the sand for the wonderful white sand beaches we all love. It eats coral and
shitting it out again. The crushed coral will later be washed up on the shore to form beaches.
One parrot fish can eat several tons of corals every year. 




The boat went out again at 11 am, but several of the divers like me, had had enough from the first dive and stayed onshore. 



The diving boat prepares to go out for the second dive that day.

I woke up in the middle of the following night by the howling wind and the rain hammering on the corrugated iron roof. It was like sitting inside a metal tube when somebody was throwing gravel on it. I went outside just to find that I was in the middle of a Caribbean storm. It should have been the wrong time of the year for this shit, but the weather didn't care and it had decided to chase after me for the last 3 weeks. 



The bad weather and winds continued for the following days and the island was isolated. The panga transport between the islands stopped for three days and no tourist could leave or arrive. 

It continued to rain for several days. 

There are some locals that take tourist like me out for fishing. The two most known are Elvis and Alphonso. I talked to Alphonso, but it turned out that going alone would be too expensive and he wanted two or three person to go together- The price would than be USD 50 to 75 each. I asked DC if he could be aware of others talking about going out fishing and connecting them with me, but nobody talked about fishing the rest of my stay. No small boats left the island at all. 

The day before I should leave, they were able to transport tourists again, but only on a cargo boat. The trip took 1.5 hours and the passengers was stowed on the deck and if you were lucky you got a spot under the tarpaulin that sheltered you from the rain. I was told to go to the jetty early because there was only one boat a day that left 7 am in the morning. The ticket office opened 6 am and I had read that they sell tickets to everybody in the line without thinking of the capacity on the boat. So, buy your ticket and go immediately to the boat and pray that it is not full before you get on board. I think everybody that morning was able to get on board, but there were none available space left on deck. 

My ride back to Big Corn: "Sea Prince IV".
Some lucky got a place under the tarpaulin. It was absolutely crowded before departure. This picture is taken early. 

The crossing went smooth, but the powerful rolling of the boat in the waves made a lot of the passengers seasick and they vomited over the rails. 
I checked in at my hotel on Big Corn, had a little sightseeing walk for three hours when the rain stayed away and ate dinner at the hotel at night because of heavy thunderstorms and pouring rain. I thought I never would dry up again. The next morning I flew back to Managua on the mainland, and the day after the journey back to Norway started. My vacation was over for this time. 

Little Corn Island crept under my skin during the 9 days I was fortunate to visit this pearl in the Caribbean Ocean. I had the most terrible weather, but I enjoyed it every minute. I just love this little island! I want to come back. I want to see more of the life beneath the waves. I want to see turtles, rays, sharks and other sea life. 
I want to go out fishing with Alphonso. Or Elvis. I want to fight the fish and then bring it to my favorite restaurant and make them prepare me a meal. I want another Lobster Thermodor and I want to join a team on the pub quiz Tuesday night. I want to chat with my new friend DC again and have a laugh when he mixes me a drink or just brings me another Victoria beer. 
I want to see the rest of the island - to climb to the top and take in the view from the lighthouse. I want to visit the northern beaches and eat at the "Turned Turtle restaurant" on the east side. It is number 1 on TripAdvisor, but I refused to walk in the rain through the pitch black jungle at night during my stay just to visit it. The east side was just a very inhospitable place during the 5-6 last days of my stay. 
I have been several places in the Caribbean, on islands and on mainlands, but few or none places has captured my heart before I came to Little Corn. I hope to see you again!



Saturday 11 March 2017

Costa Rica summary

Costa Rican Trial/Costa Rica Motorcycle Tours

I approached Costa Rican Trial (CRT) last fall with some requests after had googled "Motorcycle trip Costa Rica". It is a big tourist agency that I think are the owner of  the company Costa Rica Motorcycle Tours. Lorena Amador became my contact person and I did all my reservations trough her regarding the motorcycle ride. I sent her some general questions as well that she answered willingly. She is Costa Rican (I hope) and I trusted her knowlage about her own country.

I  arrived in CR 17th of December and I wanted to relax some days and get rid of the jet-lag before heading along on a motorcycle tour. Because of the Holiday season I decided to start the trip 27th of December and celebrate Christmas on my first stop. I had to find a place to stay for these 10 days with a nice beach where I could relax, do some snorkeling and scuba diving.
I looked at Google map and found Limon on the Caribbean side and asked Lorena the following question:
"My initial plan is to go to the Caribbean coast first for about 10 days to relax and scuba dive and celebrate Christmas. I think the area around Limon can be good – do you agree?"
She replayed promptly:
"Definitely Limon will be a good option for you to relax, check hotels in Puerto Viejo or Cahuita nicest places to stay."
The beaches in Puerto Viejo was NOT for scuba diving, snorkeling, swimming or anything else you like to do in the sea, except for surfing. I don't surf. The waves were hammering the beaches 24/7 and even wading in the seashore was for strong people only. If anybody had brought small children to the beach they would have lost them forever after 5 seconds. The nearest beach for swimming is nearly one hour away by car. How is it that a local Travel Agency don't know that?
I had two (2!) days with sun during these ten days. The rest of the time it poured down. Not some light drizzle, but serious cloudbursts that made you wet to the skin within 10 seconds. I thought I was just unlucky with the weather until I met an European girl who happened to be half Costa Rican and had been to Costa Rica several times. She told me that the dry season only applies to the Pacific west side - not the Caribbean east side. On the east coast the wet season last for 12 month a year. Could Lorena have mentioned this? Since I asked for her advice? I think so.
This winter it turned out to be more wet than usual all over CR, but normally you will find most of the days to be sunny during Christmas on the Pacific coast. There you also have the possibility to swim, snorkeling and scuba dive. If you bring small children you will also be able to see them again if they approach the sea.
Puerto Viejo is... how shall I describe it... a dump. In an extremely expensive country, Puerto Viejo beats them all. I have never payed more for less anywhere, including in one of the most expensive countries in the world: my home country Norway. The average standard of the hotels, bars and restaurants varied from low minus to terrible. The town consists mainly of sheds with roofs. As in the rest of the country, the service was poor. I think I have mentioned in earlier blog posts that CR is not a particularly friendly country...
You can read my blog-spot about Puerto Viejo here:

Below is a map of Costa Rica where my motorcycle tour for 6 days (blue) and my car trip to Puerto Viejo (green) is included. 



It could have been a nice motorcycle trip if Lorena had been wise enough to find a hotel near Uvita the second day (red ring on the east coast on the map) instead of sending me on a pointless trip to Esquinas Rainforest Lodge. That decision completely ruined 2 of my 6 days (here is a link to my previous blog about that). The lack of an USB charger as promised and her failure to correct it when I told her, also led to a reduced experience due to alternative routing and navigation error. The routing was poor, points of interests along the route was nonexistent and the service the same. But the most shocking was the total price when I was able to sit down after and have a thorough cost analysis. Costa Rica is extremely expensive and I could never figure out why. The price level is nearly twice as high as in their neighboring countries Panama and Nicaragua, but even for Costa Rican standard the rental price for motorcycles (self guided tour) are over the top. When I returned the bike they gave me a receipt for the rental that I shouldn't have had because I had payed to CRT and had a voucher for the rental. Then I realized I had been screwed - hard! 
Comparing Costa Rican Trails (CRT) with the benchmark within motorcycle rental, Bike Round Oz (BRO) in Australia, they seems to be from two different planets. 

Let's look at two comparing alternatives from these two countries; one country is developed with high standards that is expected to have high costs, and one country is not (it just thinks it is):
6 days/5 nights from San Jose in CR or Sydney in Australia with pickup and return of the bike at the same place. BMW R1200 is the preferred bike both places. Included are unlimited mileage, insurance, accommodation with breakfast and routing. 

Price in Costa Rica: USD 2625,-
Price in Australia: USD 1700,-

Let's break down the cost and look at the details. If you want to rent only a bike the cost are:

Australia: USD 1150,-
Costa Rica: USD 300,-

Already here you can tell that something is seriously wrong. That leaves USD 550,- in Australia for accommodation, insurance, routing and profit. I don't know the exact prise for accommodation in Australia, but I did the Sydney/Sydney tour 5 years ago and the hotel standard was great. 
In Costa Rica there is, in comparison, USD 2325,- for the same. Searching booking.com and hotels.com for the hotels I used I get a total of USD 929,-. CRT probably have a discount on these prices, but let's keep it. The transport to/from the airport was included and I know the hotel has a pickup charge of USD 70,- both ways so let us say USD 100,- including the ride to the rental shop the first day. So the profit for CRT is USD 1296,- and probably more. That represents a margin close to 100%! 

So maybe the total tour package was so much better in CR that one could defend the high margin? Nope..I have rented motorbikes in Australia, Burma, Laos and South Africa and all these places I've also rented riding gears like helmet, jacket and gloves. The helmet just take up too much space in the baggage and my northern jacket is too thick and warm for tropical countries. I asked Lorena if it was possible to rent riding gear in Costa Rica. Nope...
When I asked for the gear rental, Lorena came back and told me that is was mandatory to use a reflective vest in CR. It is of cause a huge fee if you don't use it. In bright daylight... The first week in Puerto Viejo I noticed that nobody used vests, only a reflective band, worn bandolier style like the guy on the picture on the left. I would guesstimate the value of this band to be about 5 dollars. I think it would be a natural thing for CRT to support their motorcycle riding customers with a band like this, especially since this is something riders from other countries don't have. After 3 weeks in CR it is still a mystery to me where these bands can be bought.

Other things? Yes...
Could I rent a GPS? No. In Australia? Yes.
Could I rent a transparent map-holder to attach to the tank for the map and reading instructions? No. In Australia? Yes. 

Was the bike equipped with an USB charger? No. In Australia? Yes. 

And then we come to the riding instructions. As I wrote in this blog, it led me into trouble. And in good Costa Rican tradition Lorena blamed me for the fault without any self-criticism. Just to recap:
The instruction was in short: "Drive to Cot and than find the way to Turrialba". I didn't know where Cot was and probably neither do 99% of the other tourists in the country. So what I did was to look for a sign with the name Cot on it. The sign told me to take to the left at the next crossroad, so I did. I shouldn't have done that... Cot are situated along the mainroad so Lorena ment I should NOT turn to Cot, but pass it and then found the road to Turrialba at the next crossroad. But I didn't know that Cot was along the road so I turned where the sign told me to go. And when I told her so in an email, I got the following response: "I check the itinerary with driving directions and it doesn’t mention you need to go thru Cot." Charming... Yes, Lorena, it tells me to go to Cot and the only way further is thru the town since I can't fly above it. 
In the same email she attached pictures of the two parts I needed to get an USB charger on the motorbike and told me to buy it somewhere. The USB charger that she already had confirmed to be on the bike. Charming... 

In Australia 5 years ago I received in good time before I left Norway, a detailed description of the route for every day. I also got a link to where I could print every days itinerary marked on a file from Google map. A detailed point to point guidance with distance to every crossroad where to turn, was attached. I could print that in list-form and put it in the transparent map holder on the tank top that I was able to rent together with the map, and I could easily follow it without stopping the bike. Or, use my navigation app on my phone and charge it with the USB charger on the bike just like I had planned to do in Costa Rica. And because all the distances was from point to point I knew when I could relax and just enjoy the ride because I could follow the distances on the trip counter on the dashboard. In addition I received a detailed "what to see-list" with every point of interest highlighted, including pictures. Here (link) is an example of such a list from BRO in Australia. 

And what did I get in Costa Rica? 
I received an email when I booked the tour with information about every days route. Here is an example of one of the days:

Jan. 01  Monteverde (B)
The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is one of the most diverse and rich tropical cloud forests in the New World and home to the resplendent Quetzal and the rare bell bird.  Monteverde is not only interesting for the Cloud Forest Reserve’s inhabitants, but also for its founders, the Quakers.  After check-in, feel free to explore your new surroundings. 
Overnight at the Monteverde country Lodge, classic room.  Breakfast included.


Not much driving instructions here...
When I arrived in Costa Rica I received driving instructions on paper. Written instructions that was in a style like this (the example are the trip from Poas Volcano to Arenal Volcano (link here) and my comments are in red):

From the Poas Volcano Loge drive back to the center of Alajuela. How far is that in km? There follow the signs to the international airport. Once you get to the airport, do not enter the airport, but take the exit on your right hand side to San Ramon, Palmeres and Naranjo. Do the sign state all these places or just the first, San Ramon? Like this you will get to the Panamerican Highway #1. 

Continue driving straight on the highway until you reach the sign to San Ramon to your right. Will it take me 5 minutes before I see the sign or one hour? How far is it? Take the exit and continue driving through downtown San Ramon, until you reach a dead end. 

Turn left and drive 2 blocks towards the San Ramon Hospital, then turn right onto the road to La Fortuna. You will see tow signs for La Fortuna: La Tigra and some resort (Tabacon, Villablanca), Follow the signs to La Fortuna and Arenal. It will take you through a number of small towns including Los Angeles, Balsa and Bajo Rodriguez, where there is voluntary toll. 

At the tollbooth, you will see a 45 km sign to Tabacaon and La Fortuna. A hint of distance!! Keep driving through the town of La Tigra, San Isidro and Chachagua until you finally reach La Fortuna. 

When you reach La Fortuna , follow the signs to Arenal Volcano (7 km) until you see the hotel on the right hand side. 

Here is a lot of names. And for the first time there are some hints of distances. My brain don't remember names very well and especially not Spanish names. They are unfamiliar to me and 10 seconds after I looked at the instruction, I had forgotten the name of the next sign to look for. If there had been some hint of distances I would at least have known how far to drive before I had to look for some sign or exit in a crossroad. I am good at remembering numbers and if I hadn't been, it would have been easy to reset the trip-counter every time. This type of driving instructions actually just works in a car with two persons; one driving and one reading the instructions. Especially when the rain is pouring down. This is bad! It is worse; it is useless for a single motorcycle rider. It is even bad driving a car due to the lack of information about distances. 

As my blog post about this days trip shows, I didn't drive this route at all. I used the Waze App guidance from Poas to Arenal that took me a total different rout and direction. Checking out Google Map it did not find Lorenas route either. It is a longer route and more difficult to follow. So why did she want me to drive that way? I don't know. It could have been because of the scenery or other things to do or see along the route, but none such things are mentioned. Points of interests along the route are totally absent. The contrast to the Australian BRO's detailed description of what to see when driving, couldn't have been any bigger. 
On the first day of driving, there was some information in the email I had received: Following this visit (Irazu Volcano) you can tour around the Orosi Valley, where creation overflows in unparalleled beauty. You will be able to visit one of the few remaining colonial churches and can stop for lunch in one of the local restaurants. 
Where? When? This is a two hour trip. Is all the driving in the Orosi valley? If not, when do I reach Orosi? Where is the colonial church? Somewhere between Irazu and Turrialba I suppose. Stop at one of the local restaurants where? In Cot maybe? Or in Turrialba? Or somewhere in between? 

Maybe there just ain't anything to see or do at all in Costa Rica, except for the places I stopped for the night, but I don't think so. I got more information about where to stop and what to see when driving from Cape Town to Cape of Good Hope in South Africa (one day trip) then I got from CRT for my whole six days trip. And COT only charged me USD 1296,- for the itinerary. What a bargain!

The rest of Costa Rica. 

Except for Costa Rican Trial and Costa Rica Motorcycle Tours, is Costa Rica a good country to visit? Yes and no. When visiting a country I evaluate the country's scenery, beaches, food and drinks, things to do, service and their people. With so many counties in the world worth visiting, both the country itself and the people have to be nice if I want to visit it again. Or, if one of these things are so extremely good that it rules out the impact of the other. In Costa Rica the people failed dramatically. All what people do for you like serving you, cooking food, building hotels and other buildings, driving along with you on the roads or giving you information and advice, failed. There are some exceptions like Poas Volcano Lodge where the staff was just beautiful and friendly, and all of Monteverde (link to blog post) that just is an amazing place. 
Some examples: If you visit a shop and ask if they have a product and they don't, they just say no. In other parts of the world, people are helpful and maybe suggest where you can go to find what you are looking for. The driving is, as mentioned before, extremely aggressive. 
On the last leg from Monteverde to San Jose I wish I had a camera on my helmet, pointing backwards. In my rear-view mirror I could follow an unbelievable behavior from two drivers. A Toyota from further back in the queue, drove past and when traffic in the other line came closer he wanted to come back into the line, just behind me. The Landrover behind me closed the gap so the Toyota couldn't come in. He was nearly hitting me and with half the car in the other lane he nearly crashed. I speeded up a little to make room for him. Next time there was a gap in the traffic in the opposite lane, the Landrover drove past the Toyota and tried to squeeze himself in between me and the Toyota. The Toyota closed the gap off cause and I found out that my health probably would stay better if I started to speed away from the situation.
Just a couple of minutes later I only had 3-4 cars in front of me, and when the road was clear for 3-400 meters I drove past them all and returned into my lane. The car in the opposite lane probably disliked my driving, so he changed lanes and started to drive straight towards me in my lane! What he disliked, I don't know because it was more then 200 meter left when I was finishing passing cars and there was never any dangerous situation that could occur to that other car.
When he came closer, he startet to honk the horn and flash his headlights towards me, and just when I considered to drive off the road, he drove back into his own lane. 
I had been in Costa Rica for 3 weeks and I wasn't that surprised anymore. I started to get fed up of the whole country with all it's inhabitants. 

It is probably a region problem, not a particular Costa Rican problem. As written in an earlier blog post, I told Lorena at CRT about an error in the routing, but she came back and told me it was fine and nothing wrong was done by CRT. When the USB charger, promised to be on my bike was missing, no attempt was made to correct it.
When I came to Nicaragua after Costa Rica I returned to the airport in Managua after a week on the Nicaraguan Little Corn Island in the Caribbean. I had booked a room at Hotel Camina Real near the airport because I would just stay over one night and fly back home the next day. I had written an email to the hotel a couple of days earlier because they claimed to have free airport shuttle. The answer came back as follows:

Mr. Christensen,
We confirm the free shuttle service. Our driver would be by the domestic flights terminal waiting for you with a sign with the name of the hotel. 

I waited half an hour before I took a taxi to the hotel. I told the receptionist what had happened and showed her the email. She told me that it was not like that. The shuttle bus would stay outside the international terminal every half an hour and I had to look for it. There would be no shuttle bus just for me. I tried to argue that I couldn't have known that because what the hotel had written to me, but they hadn't done anything wrong off cause. I just gave up. It's probably just the mentality in the region. 

What was nice then? The scenery was beautiful. The weather was terrible and Lorena's guide to what cloth to bring was a disaster, but the country is just fantastic diverse. From the coast on both the Pacific and the Caribbean side, to the mountains and volcanoes and to the rain and cloud forests. A lot of wildlife to see and winding, twisty roads to drive. 
Do not take to long stretches for the traffic will slow you down and you will use more time than expected. If you take a long stretch one day to reach a place, take an extra day to experience the surroundings the day after.
And vist Monteverde. If you like adventure will just love this place! 

If you plan to ride a motorcycle, go directly to the rental shop. It is cheap. USD 300 for six days is very nice for a 1200 cc BMW. Use Google and Lonely Planet to plan your trip and Booking.com and Hotels.com for your accommodation. You will save at least USD 1000,- compared to use Costa Rican Trial for the same. Visit only half the country for one week; you need at least two weeks to visit it all. 
Remember that everything is very expensive. If you don't have a lot of money to spend, go and visit Panama and Nicaragua instead. I can't promise good service and nice people there either, but you definitely don't find them in Costa Rica. 

As I told you further up, I left Costa Rica for 10 days on the Little Corn Island in Nicaragua. That was a magical place! I will come back with details from that trip. And a lot of pictures!



Wednesday 22 February 2017

Canopy Tour, Monteverde, Costa Rica

January 2, 2017

It is early morning. I woke up with a bad feeling after a dream last night. I normally never remember a dream, but tonight I woke up dreaming I was dead. I was existing in some sort of limbo between life and death like Bruce Willies did in The Sixth Sense. I had no idea how I died, but as a build-up to my zip-line adventure in the forest canopy, it was not ideal. 
In that state of mind, I had a breakfast and waited for my pickup truck. I was not sure what to expect, but I felt a little down. The constant bad weather had started to take its toll on me and the clouds wrapped the mountain in its carpet this day too. There was a drizzle in the air and the visibility was poor. I hoped that it was clearer higher up.
I checked in at the reception at the Aventura Canopy Tour, emptied my pockets for everything lose and signed the paper claiming that I was sane and that I knew what I was doing. I actually didn’t have a clue. They strapped me in a harness and a group of 10 people was gathered together to have a rapid training. I got a helmet, luckily with a GoPro support and a pair of leather gloves with an extra thick leather padding sewn across the fingers for the wire control. Then there was no turning back and we headed for the first wire. It was a labyrinth of wires stretched from one tree to another and with platforms built in the trees to change from one line to another. One time we had to cross a walking bridge to get to the next and after the sixth line there was a rappel. This is a map of the route:

The first line was for training only and it was not more than 20 meters long. Then we continued zigzagging through the jungle on five new lines before we reached the seventh and a sign telling us that from now on it would get serious and that this was the last chance to turn around. Here is a long video of the first six first lines:



As the video shows, all the previous lines were in-between the canopy with a relative closeness to mother earth. The rain kept the wires wet and that ment a higher speed so we were told to use the glove to control the speed by dragging us up to create a little friction. If somebody got afraid and braked too much so they stopped before the platform, it was still possible to drag them the last meters. The seventh line was not close to earth. We were zipping more than 100 meters above the ground at the most and I could only hope that Aventura Canopy Tour have regularly checks of the wires. The line was 600 meters long and thick as my pinkie finger. We were told not to use the glove to slow down; we were actually not allowed to hold onto the wire at all. They were probably afraid that somebody would stop halfway and it would not be easy to get hold of them to haul them into solid ground again. The problem for the riders was that the hand on the wire was not only for controlling the speed, but also for controlling the direction of the body. Without this control, the body was swirling in all directions during the ride and that was not very pleasant. Here is line no. 7:




Waiting for the transport up to the next line, I heard someone above me shouted and I looked up. More than 200 meters above me somebody screamed out in fear, shooting along the next wire. It was incredibly high up and the dream from last night came back, and I started to look for a way out. There were none.
An ATV with six seats picked us up and started to climb the path up to the next line. It was a scaffolding platform in-between the trees and from this point on, I was no longer in control. We changed from one wheel on the wire sitting in the harness, to two wheels and hanging flat out below the line. "Fly like Superman" they called it. The next line should be 2000 meter long according to the map above, but I realized later that it was “only” 1600 meters long and I had already seen how incredibly high up it was. I was afraid - very afraid. 
A couple from Canada was in front of me and the girl started to get ready. When she was on her way to be hooked onto the wire she collapsed. They had to unhook her and she fell down in a corner, crying and shaking. Her boyfriend of cause, had to take care of her so I suddenly found myself to be first in line. I hadn’t seen anybody do the next zip-line so I didn’t know what to do. I gripped frantically onto the wire with both hands and the guy repeatedly told me to hold my hands up. I am holding my hands up!, I answered, desperately clinging to the wire. After a while I understood that he didn’t tell me to keep my hands up, but off. I let go of the wire and he pushed me on my way...
The video below is from the eighth and ninth line. About 56 seconds into the video, I have slowed it down for some seconds. If you look closely, you can see a little spot coming into the frame from the top and passing below me. That is a person riding the seventh line. It gives a little impression of how high up I actually am. 1600 meters hanging under a suspiciously thin wire was a scary, but actually a fantastic fun ride. 64 seconds gives an average speed of 90 km/hour, but the maximum speed was probably faster than 100 km/hour. The ninth line is “only” 700 meters long and at this point I felt confident.





Then there was only one thing left: The Mega Tarzan Swing. Because of the trees, it was not possible to see the persons in front of me and what they experienced. Only one person at the time was allowed to cross the bridge to the platform. I have done one bungee jump before in my life and it didn’t like it. I hated the free fall and I hoped that the free fall in the swing would not be very noticeable. It was…
Here is a video from Aventura Canopy Tour’s homepage that shows the swing from a distance (it looks like there hves been sun in Costa Rica once):





If I had seen that video before I did it, I would probably just have walked away. However, after the free fall, when the rope stretched out and I started to swing, it was just pure fun. Here is my experience from close by…




I was transported back to the hotel where I checked out, ready for my last leg to San Jose and the motorcycle rental shop. Monteverde was for me, the most uplifting place in all of Costa Rica. It is a tourist industry, but it is well oiled and functional. I felt they were professional in all what they were doing, and that the safety was taken care of at all time. If you seek adventure, Monteverde is the place to visit. 
I jumped onto the bike and started to decline on the opposite side of the mountain from where I arrived. The road was loose gravel and the speed low. Only a couple of hundred meters below the town the sun approached, but looking back at Monteverde, it was still hidden in the cloud carpet. 

Somewhere inside this cloud you can find Monteverde. 

Riding down the hills I had a beautiful view over Gulf of Nicoya coming in from the Pacific Ocean with the Nicoya Peninsula in the background.


Nicoya Golf

The ride back to San Jose passed without any special events except for the usual extremely aggressive driving from nearly every driver in this country. Their eager to always be first, constantly blocked the traffic in a way I don't think I have ever seen anywhere else. If two lanes went into one, nobody showed any flexibility and the traffic jammed. It was just plain stupid, but understandable looking back on my experiences the last 3 weeks. This is a genuinely unfriendly country. Nobody cares about you or wants to help you at all. Maybe they just don't like tourist, but that normally fixes itself. Just maintain the negative attitude and tourist will no longer want to visit you. Problem solved!

I took the highway back and had to stop at every tollbooth and pay the same amount as the cars did. It is so fun to stop, turn off the engine, take off the gloves and then dig into the pocket to see if I had enough change, find out I hadn't, open the jacket to pull out the wallet, find a note and get the change back, put the wallet in the inner pocket and the change in the trousers, on with the gloves again, start the bike and then ride for another ten minutes to the next tollbooth and repeat. If I had been in a car behind me I would have been aggressive too.
Tomorrow I will leave Costa Rica and head for Nicaragua and Little Corn Island. On the map below you can see the route from Monteverde to San Jose. You can also see the Corn Islands on the top right corner of the map and Managua, the capital of Nicaragua in the top left corner where I have to fly by. 


I will come back shortly with a review of the Costa Rican Travel Agency and Costa Rica.