Costa Rica - Caribbean Coast and Exit

I packed the bike and headed out of San Jose. The brakes worked ok for a while but soon faded not far out of the city and I rode the rest of the way to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast with residual brakes again. What was worse, sometimes the power booster worked and gave me good brakes, sometimes it didn’t, giving me the equivalent to the old drum brakes. Even when the booster was working, if I braked hard, the brakes would ‘pop’ and I would end up without the booster and the brakes would release a bit. The brakes were completely unpredictable. I rode very cautiously for the 250kms.

 The Caribbean coast has been beautiful all the way through and the coast of Costa Rica is no exception. It is a series of small villages along the coast with a lot of arts and crafts, alternative lifestylers, markets, and a beautiful coast with a backdrop of lush tropical mountains. It had been wet so there were waterfalls, streams and of course puddles along the roads.

I rode to the end of the road to a town called Manzanillo where I stopped for a coffee and dropped into a couple of rustic looking accommodations. They started at $40 a night and I could haggle to $30 but I wasn’t in the mood for paying those prices and continued back along the road until I found a hostel called Rocking J’s that let me hang my hammock and give me secure parking undercover for $5 a night. 

The up side was the price, proximity to the beach and the camping section; the downside being that it was a young party hostel and the partying went on until all hours.

 Then it rained. For almost two days it rained. I was grateful to be under a metal roof and to have Ziggy out of the weather but there wasn’t a lot to do except watch the rain. There were breaks in the weather so I went for walks into the township and discovered Outback Jacks.

All in all it was good and a nice break from the city of San Jose. I can’t spend too much time in cities and need the beaches and some remote nature to recharge my batteries. Unfortunately it didn’t make the problem go away with Ziggy so on the final morning I made preparations to cross the border into Panama via Sixaola.

It was not exactly raining, not exactly dry, just showers, some heavier than others. I made my way to the border and found the immigration building on the right and my passport was stamped out. It was another 100 metres to customs (aduana), a small single-roomed building on the right. They asked me to pay an exit fee, just a couple of dollars, but I had to use my credit card in a machine and it didn’t work. 
I was directed to a small shop down some stairs at the side of the road and across a lower road where I paid the fee, obtained the receipt, then returned to the customs office. 
Ten minutes later I was walking toward the bike in the now consistent and becoming heavier rain, resigned to the fact this was one of those days where you and the gear just get wet. I hadn’t had many on this journey so I saddled up and rode towards a bridge past a line of people walking across the border. It wasn’t clear which side to cross on, the bridge with pedestrians to the right didn’t look vehicle friendly so I took the left side and came to a boom gate. A reluctant guard asked for my paperwork but soon became reasonable about the rain and directed me to a building for immigration, 50 metres down a small hill on the left.

 The process was quick and easy and afterwards I rode back up the hill to a nearby portable building on the same side of the road to get my temporary permit. 
I needed insurance first so was directed to another building 100m past the immigration building but it was closed. A local shop owner phoned the number to get the person there and in the meantime I tried to find some change as I had no US dollars. I crossed the road and walked up some stairs to where the pedestrians came after crossing the bridge. There were a couple of rustic rooms at the end of the pedestrian bridge and I was ushered inside a room. I changed some money but was told I had to pay a $10 tax and another $3 admin fee.

‘Let me change the money first so I can buy insurance and after I go through aduana I’ll come back.’

‘Ok’.

Well that was easy! I was expecting an argument but maybe a dripping wet, bearded guy on a bike was enough for them not to push the point. I never returned. 
At last the insurance lady appeared so I paid for a months insurance at $25 (later to discover it can be obtained for $15 in the city) and I trudged back up the puddly road to the makeshift aduana office where I was given a seat inside for the half an hour it took to complete the paperwork. 
Now finished I headed into Panama on Ziggy. There was a turnoff but the right hand road turned to dirt with pedestrians and no cars. There was a bridge further on according to my map but it didn’t tell me whether it was just pedestrian so I back-tracked to the turnoff, went the other way and had my second attempt at entering Panama.