One day you're sweating in the tropics and the next you're freezing your butt off in the great white north. Isn't airline travel magical? August 1, 2010, was the day that we formally left Canada to begin our cruising adventure. Seven and a half years later we returned to our home country and it's almost as if nothing has changed. Canada still has colorful money, there are still Tim Hortons coffee shops on every corner, and the winters are still…
I'll admit it, we had a dark couple of days surrounding the time of my last post. It's been a very long time since we haven't known at least the general direction that we should be heading, so having no plan or course was painful. Much can change in a couple of days though. Since my last post, there has been a shocking (to us) show of support from our friends and family. We have received numerous financial donations that…
Promises of secluded camping spots and scenic beach riding are what led us from the inland city of Liberia to the Nicoya Peninsula, a 121 kilometer long stretch of land jutting out from the Pacific Ocean side of Costa Rica. The route we intended to ride is well traveled, having been published on Bikepacking.com some time ago and followed by many cyclists since that time. We had a GPS track from Bikepacking.com as well as one from our friends Mark…
Thirty-five kilometers. That's all that separated Rivas, our final Nicaraguan stopping point, from the border of Costa Rica. Because we had returned to the mainland from Ometepe Island the day before, removing any uncertainty involved with a ferry transit, we were pretty confident that we could bang off that distance easily and make our way to our first Costa Rican campsite, a secluded little spot that our friends had previously scoped out. When we set off riding, pre-breakfast and even…
There are some who, when planning a bicycle trip of the Americas, strive to follow the most direct route possible. There are others though who, perhaps less constrained by time limitations, follow a more circuitous route, endeavoring to take in as many hot spots as possible along the way. While still definitely drawn towards our objective, I believe that we more closely fall into the latter category, and our recent side trip to Ometepe Island is a perfect example of…
While unquestionably a beautiful city, our stay in Granada ended up being a bit longer than we had hoped. The tire delivery that we had organized from Costa Rica took an additional two days simply due to the lazy and incompetent driver who held on to our package instead of bringing it to us as he was paid to. He even lied to the bike shop that shipped the tires, saying that he dropped off the package on Monday when…