Rollin' on the River. . .

We'd realized a little earlier in the day that we'd left the little map of Puerto Jimenez and the directions to the house on Rio Sombrero back at the refugio, so once we arrived at Port Jim, as the gringos call it, I was winging it based on memory. We had no supplies at all with us but of course the fact that we also had no panniers made it a bit more challenging to fit all of our gear PLUS groceries on the bike. We found the recommended grocery store on the other side of town, and I left Jason outside with the bikes and gear and went in to shop. Cheese and crackers, chicken breasts and broccoli, sandwich fixings and a lot of beer comprised the basic list (after all, it was New Years Eve).

All was packed into the green duffel on the back of the bikes. It was about 85 degrees and we were both still wearing all of our gear from leaving the cloudforest in the mist at 8 that morning. Sitting still was nearly unbearable, so off we set.

The road from Puerto Jimenez was actually pretty decent for the first several kilometers. Not a lot of houses, but mostly agricultural land - cows everywhere. The directions (again, from memory) had said something about several stream crossings, the largest of which had bridges. Sure enough, we crossed several bridges of various construction materials (few of which had any guard rails), and then started to hit stream crossings where the road simply went right through the streambed. Most were shallow enough that I didn't get too nervous. The last one, though, got my feet wet for sure!