Monteverde Dirt - Guaciamal Down n' Out

A pretty strait forward ride. From our place the nearest paved road is over an hour by car - thought I'd ride my bike there to look at it.

Costa Rica Dirt - Libano to Quebrada Grande and back

Libano is a weird little town which is pretty close to our place. It's difficult to get to, as it's not really on the way to "anything" and there really isn't anything there but a pulperia (a tiny store), some cows and a river. A really cool place nonetheless. I'm guessing maybe 200 people live there. They are in process of paving the road into town, so when you show up wearing a bunch of white skin people start talking. They start talking about the new river-side condos going in or the new air conditioned casino with $5 minimum blackjack tables or the Wal-Mart Super Store and how it's gonna drive the pulperia out of business. However, when you unload $4,000 worth of mountain bikes out of the back of your piece of shit truck that is only worth $500, they start to scratch their heads and realize your up to something totally different - like something WAY off their radar screen.

The ride follows the Rio Canas and Quebrada (creek) Grande to the town of Quebrada Grande. It's an out and back, which is this case, might be good as there some brutal climbs and miles of mud and very naughty baby heads to deal with - so if you get sick of it and need to head back to the Pulp for a beer, you've got that in your back pocket. The lower portion of the ride, along the rio is very rolly and do-able by anybody- however, at the sharp left at the remote cabin (right before a second river crossing) the brutalness begins and it's a steep-ass bitch-of-a-climb to civilization and the turn around point. Speaking of civilization, there is not much of out there, so be careful because it may be a while before somebody finds your sorry ass.

Cross-valley views of two huge waterfalls make you forget about the climbs and the sections of hike-a-bike and the mud and your non-functioning clip-in pedals and the circling vultures - at least for a few seconds. Once you pull into Quebrada Grande you'll be greeted with "duro! duro!" (duro=strong) by folks walking along the road because they KNOW that it's one killer climb you've just come up. On the way back to Libano, there are some really great swimming holes to explore along the river but you might be wise to pick up a few cervezas in town and jump in the river there - Hey, ya gots to have priorities now!

The first river crossing - you will think "I can cross this bad-boy but I'm not really sure about carrying a bike across it and I'm not really sure about these slippery bike shoes". Really, it's pretty sketchy and it you fall into the water it would not be that bad for you - but retrieving your bike from 20 feet below the water surface in that tiny gorge just might suck - better to go back a few hundred yards and cross.......

Here! -It's still waist deep, but not bad

This is what to expect on the climb - long stretches of clay and grass and technical madness

Taco Review #16 - The Clown Taco - Hotel Mary Restaraunt, Tilaran Costa Rica

OK, I admit that I was going out on a limb by ordering a "taco" in a restaurant that does not even advertise or even give a hint at having "Mexican" food. But it was there - begging me to order it. Maybe I get taco goggles and get a bit too excited when I see taco on a menu - especially when I'm not expecting it.

So there we are in Tilaran, the next biggest town to the north of our place. On the plaza, there is Hotel Mary which has a sort of sports bar thing right on the street - we needed a beer and some food after a long day of getting caught is a major rain storm while biking (me) and shooting butterflies (Jen - she loves to hunt those little bastards!)

So Jen orders the Super Nachos without meat. The waitress quickly informed us that the reason the nachos were "super" was BECAUSE they had meat on them. She just wanted regular nachos and thought the waitress understood this apparently simple request. Turns out Jen got the Super anyway - loaded with shredded beef and dead animal nastiness. I had to eat it since, as you may know, she will not have anything to do with meat - even if it IS Super.

So when I'm lookng at the menu, I see three taco options: 1) the regular Super Taco, 2) "Tana's" Super Taco and 3) the Taco "Alambre" (I didn't know that word "Alambre" at the time, but later looked it up and it means barbed wire - shit, good thing I didn't get THAT one!). On the menu there was really no description of what distinguished the three taco choices and when I asked the waitress well, she didn't know either (bad sign right there!). So in order to not look like some sort of taco snob, I just ordered the medium-priced taco, Tana's (I figured that Tana was maybe the cook and was proud of her taco - I mean, what woman ISN'T proud of her taco? C'mon!).

So there we are with our delicious beers (with ice - beer is often served with a glass of ice here, which I have really grown to like) - ok, ya and then here comes the taco.......or uh "tacos"? I'm thinking tacos (plural) because it's a big pile of food! At first glance it looked like a plate of tacos, but really it was just a pile of lettuce, cabbage, sour cream and Chilero (this REALLY lame [not]hot sauce they eat here) covering one taco (Tana's Taco). Very colorful - I mean, I don't see shit for tacos but what I DO see is a plate of veggies and stringers of sauce squirted about. First thing I did was laugh but then thought I'd better try it up first before I judge.

You pretty much needed a machete to cut through all that vegetation covering that damn taco but finally after eating the equivalent of a head each of cabbage and lettuce I encountered something hard and crunchy. There it was.....Tana's Taco......................hey baby.

So this is not your typical hand held taco deal - it's a "smothered" taco. I guess you could pick it up but it would be a total mess with all that crap covering it.

So, the corn tort is rolled, kinda taquito style but fatter. So I do a crunchy cut with my fork and the inevitable tort shrapnel starts flying everywhere and then.........what the fuck?.........There's ham and cheese in this damn taco! It's a frikin' ham and cheese sandwich wrapped in tort and deep fried and covered with a rain forest. Dude, Tana..... this ain't no taco! - it's a frikin' joke - it's a frikin' clown taco. Oh god.

Taco Review: No review, does not qualify as a taco, sorry Tana

Las Juntas Costa Rica Dirt - La Sierra Volume One

Recently, we had some visitors from Colorado, Amber and Aaron who stayed with us for a few days of riding before heading down to the playa. We got the extra bikes geared up and then decided to try and push through the infamous (in my world, anyway) La Sierra route. It's a pretty technical double-track and single-track route that starts near Las Juntas (La Sierra actually) and ends someplace else to the east (nobody really knows). I looked on the topo map and it appeared to intersect a road near some town called Gorgonzola, or something like that. It's been on my exploration radar screen for a while so they agreed to trust me (big mistake) and give it a go.

The ride starts in the small town of La Sierra (nothing there but a bar, so it's really got everything you could possibly need). The route heads east from there, upstream along the jungly and steamy Rio Aguas Claras, which it crosses about a million times. On this day there seemed to be a hatch of big gnarly biting flies that we were hoping were not "Bot Flies".........since I have not seen any fly larvae living under my skin yet - they were probably not Bot - just annoying.

Amber and Aaron tearing it up

I now say this is Volume One since we ended up only making it a few km's up this trail before we turned back and obviously never found the end. I really did not want to force our guests to endure of this the slop-fest hike-a-bike "adventure" just to satisfy my curiosity since they may have taken back the bottle of Tequila they brought for us a gift. I think Volume 2 will show the remainder of this route and how ridiculous it is to even consider this a "mountain bike ride". I'll probably have to push it on my own - and I'm there there WILL be lots of pushing. Those kinds of "rides" are not fun if you're not used to the heat and the mud and shit conditions.

Lots of hike-a-bike

August Random 10

Pepe Deluxe - Beatitude

Junior Boys - The Equilizer

Art Brut - Emily Kane

Dan Bern - Pluto

Black Flag - Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie

Brian Eno - Backwater

Cliford Gilberto - The 10th Victim

Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Melt Your Heart

Jad Fair and Yo la Tengo - Principle Punishes Students with Bad Impressions and Tired Jokes

Rogue Wave - Are You on my Side?