(March 24 – written by Dave)

Before I forget again, we had another earthquake overnight.  Actually, not last night, but the night before.  It woke me up enough to get me to check my watch and note the time.  Nancy didn’t wake up – now that’s a real switch.  Anyway, I’m bringing it up here because I heard a couple folks over the last two days talking about it so I looked it up and sure enough, just at the time I noted, we had a 4.8 magnitude quake.  In the photo below, we were in Jaco at the time of the quake, and of course in Dominical last night (the blue dot).  The quake was pretty close.  We’ve had a couple quakes on this trip – I think they are following us.

We had a little bit of sleep in today.  And I mean little.  We didn’t get up until 5:30.  We really enjoyed Om Suite Om.  Our room was great.  The shared kitchen area was nice and clean.  And the guy running the place really wanted us to have good time.  Plus there was the yoga – Nancy went, was the only student and really got a good session.  I heard a lot of “we should have stayed another day” comments today!

We had a short day riding today, the first 40k along the coast, the last 20k sort of more inland.  I kept trying to get a “great” shot of the ocean but didn’t really get a chance.  The Costa Rica that we were seeing in the first few days, dry grasslands and ranches, was replaced today with lush jungles.  Those jungles pretty much blocked all possible ocean views.  Lush jungles meant high humidity and a real sweaty ride.  It was fairly hilly as well.

Some kind of flower/vine out on the highway

The highway we’ve been following for a couple days

As luck would have it we found a French bakery/cafe at about the half-way point.  We happily pulled into Pancito Cafe in Ojochal – fresh croissants, iced tea and lemonade were a nice treat.  Thankfully from this point forward the hills sort of mellowed out.  We were still dripping sweat when we arrived in Palmar Norte.  As David commented yesterday, it’s a sleepy town – I might even go as far to call it “blue collar”.  It kind of funny that there are heaps of cabanas and hotels.  I can only guess that it is because all of the parks around here.

Fresh croissant and lemonade

Our hotel is a collection of small cabanas wrapped a pool and garden.  All of them are painted different colours.  They look nice/cute but are pretty small and not as nice as our place last night.  They sort of feel like mini motor-homes on the inside.  There is a padlock on the door which you move to the inside when you are inside and put on the outside when you leave – that’s a first for us.  At least the shower has hot water and there is a toilet seat.

Cute

That’s it – cozy

We wandered into town and the bus station.  We have to catch a 6:30AM bus in the morning to get to our tour.  That afternoon nap will be great tomorrow afternoon!  We didn’t get a lot of photos today from the ride so Nancy snapped a few of our pool garden area.  Dinner will be at the hotel restaurant – followed by an early mark so that we can make that bus.

At our pool – yeah, I don’t get it either

Garden palm with Zero colour enhancement 

Staghorn

Variegated something

Garden flowers

And another…