Off to the Osa!

The next day (officially day three of the trip) we left the refugio to head to our primary destination on the Osa Penninsula. This was to be one of the longest riding days of the trip and was also New Year's Eve, so we got an early start so that we'd improve our chances of arriving in Puerto Jimenez in time to shop for food.

The first part of the trip continued on the Cerra de la Muerto (road of death, AKA the Pan American Highway). Bikes turn out to be the best possible mode of transport on this road, since the word highway is a bit of a misnomer. It's a twisty, fairly narrow, potholed, two lane road. It's also one of the only North-South routes through the country, so all commerce that doesn't move by sea (there is no rail in the country anymore) moves along this road. Translation: huge, very sloooooow moving trucks create lines of traffic a dozen cars long moving at 20 kph. The bikes allow you to pass (reasonably) safely even on the very short straight stretches.

As you come down (and down, and down) into the plains around San Isidrio, the temperature goes from a chilly and damp 50 to an uncomfortably warm 80+. We turned off the Pan Am there and headed to the coast, up and over a smaller range. This road was actually better than the Pan Am, and far less truck traffic. Less than an hour later we were arriving at the coast in Domenical (where we'd stay a week later for a couple of days). It was HOT. We stopped briefly in town to get the location of the nearest gas station, but really needed to push on towards OSA, since we had quite a ways to go. The road down the coast to Palmar Norte (where we rejoined the Pan Am) was recently paved and beautiful, with glimpses of the Pacific around most of the curves.

We hit the Pan Am again for about 50km before turning off onto what was supposed to be a paved road toward Rincon and Puerto Jimenez. That's where it got interesting. Although sections of the road were paved, they were interspersed with multiple large patches of gravel, potholes (and I mean 12 inch deep potholes), one lane bridges, etc. It was 60k to Rincon on "pavement" and then the road turned to pure dirt. Strangely, pure dirt was easier than the unpredictability of the pavement/dirt mix. At about 3 in the afternoon, we rolled into the dusty town center of Puerto Jiminez.