We spent a relaxing few days staying with cousin Elsie and getting to know the history of Costa Rica from someone who has lived here for almost 50 years. She was a twenty-something Iowa farmer with two young children who flew in a DC-3 full of pigs and chickens to the south of Costa Rica to meet up with her husband Walter who had arrived ahead of her and the kids. They worked hard to build a coffee plantation but when the plans for the Pan-American highway changed and it took a sharp turn toward the Pacific coast instead of straight through the valley where their farm laid, they were left without a way to get their goods to the market and other investors in the coffee plantation backed out leaving them to fend for themselves. At that time there were only 350,000 people in Costa Rica and most of them were in the San Jose area so Elsie and Walter had a difficult time finding people to work on the farm. Everyone in the family had to pick coffee. After many years on the farm, they were entitled to it as homesteaders. They started the process to get title to it and unfortunately, they had an unsavory attorney. When the lengthy paperwork process was completed, it was titled in the name of the attorney and he sold the property out from under them. After that, they moved to San Jose and Walter worked in a gold mine on the Osa Pennisula. Sometimes the family would go down to the Osa and pan for gold. Now a large part of the Osa Pennisula is the Corcovado National Park. Of recent concern, it has been estimated that half the monkeys in the park have mysteriously died in the last two months. The park is closed and the scientists are trying to figure out what is happening. Elsie says the same thing happened in the mid-fiftys after a particularly heavy rainy season. Most of the monkeys died of yellow fever but over the years their populations grew back. She had so many great stories, we wish she would write a book so everyone could hear them.
Elsie let us leave our motorcycles at her place because we wanted to visit the islands off of the Caribbean coast of Panama and we weren't sure if we would find a place to keep them out there. We took the bus from San Jose to Sixaola on the border with Panama then a second bus and water taxi to Bocas del Toro on the island of Colon. The bus ride took us east out of San Jose over the mountain range known as Cordillera Central to the town of Limon, then along the coast past many banana plantations to the border of Panama.

Arriving at the border we found it much quicker crossing without the need to export then re-import our motorcycles. The fact that we had to walk across a railway bridge over the river separating Costa Rica from Panama convinced Deb that taking the bus was the way to make this trip. She was nervous walking across the bridge and said she would not have ridden across. While talking to Panamanian Immigration officer, he told us that the last boat to the island departed at 5:30, and suggested we get a taxi rather than a bus. As luck would have it a taxi was waiting. We had heard that it is common practice to help the taxi drivers by telling tourists that if you take the bus you would miss the last boat of the day - it turned out that in our case it was true. Our taxi driver was kind enough to call ahead and reserve two seats on the boat for us as it only held 15 passengers, and we were numbers 14 and 15.

Border Crossing to Panama

Bocas del Toro was a sleepy village inhabited by plantation workers until a disease affected the bananas on the island which are no longer commercially grown there. The village is quiet but growing quickly and surfing is the biggest draw here now. We found a new hotel and we were lucky to have left our bikes behind in San Jose as this hotel as well as almost all others on the island had no parking. In fact our hotel had one step on land, the rest was built on pylons over the water. The deck faced west across the water with a view of the marina on the neighboring island.

Scuba diving was on our agenda but as we talked to people in town we learned that if we wanted to go to the better dive sights we would need to charter a boat as the dive operators don't like to go to far from the dock and the better diving was out in the open sea and on the coral reef surrounding a pair of small islands about one hour from the dock at Bocas. We did find a boat and three other people to split the cost of the boat - Jasper, from Amsterdam and Lorna & Randy from Vancouver Island. The diving was not as good as we had hoped as the open sea was rough and the high waves had stirred up sediment reducing visibility. A break we had between dives took us to the tiny islands known as Cayos Zapatillas which is used by sea turtles to lay their eggs. Rumor has it that the English pirate, Henry Morgan, was supposed to have buried some of his loot here, but it hasn't been found yet. We did not spent time looking for it as the rest of the legend says that his curse is supposed to hang over anyone who does find it. Although the diving wasn't great, the boat ride was worth the trip because the islands were so beautiful with palm trees and vegetation growing almost to the water.

Beach in Bocas del Toro, Panama

After 4 nights on the island we headed back to Costa Rica, to the town of Puerto Viejo. We walked about 3 kilometers out of town to the best beach in the area and found La Costa de Papito, a hotel recommended by Lorna & Randy. We had our own bungalow, in the jungle with a table and hammock on the patio. The food was fantastic, penne pasta for supper and breakfast served on our patio. We walked across the road to the beach, but did not go in as the waves were high and the life guard told Deb, 'just look, nothing else'. The beach was nearly deserted and looked absolutely beautiful.

Beach at Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

We headed to Cahuita next, another beach town on the Caribbean. It was recommended to us by Richard from Panajachel, Guatemala, but he had not been there in many years. The town seemed a little run down though the national park had a beautiful long beach and was only steps from the hotel we stayed in for two nights. The Parque National Cahuita has a walking trail that runs through the jungle parallel to shore. We had not even left our room at the hotel when we could hear the howler monkeys, and it was only a short time before we saw them in the branches of the trees. After a 10 minute walk further down the trail we walked out to the beach and while enjoying the view, noticed that the trees above us started to sway. That is when we noticed the quieter, white faced monkeys watching us from the tree we were standing under.

Deb in Cahuita, Costa Rica

The day after our return from the coast we went to downtown San Jose to explore the city. We went inside the National Theater which is a fabulous building, unfortunately the museums were closed on Mondays, so we just soaked up the atmosphere.

National Theater in San Jose, Costa Rica

Deb has a cousin on her father's side that she hadn't since he was a toddler. We heard that he was in the town of Jaco, so Elsie called the son of one of her friends who happened to own a hotel in Jaco and asked if he knew Dennis. He said, 'yes, but he lives in Playa Hermosa, the next beach down the coast'. Dave did a Google search on Dennis and found a place that we thought might be his. We rode down there and pulled up to the Brisa del Mar. There was a nice looking 30-something young man talking on the telephone, 'I love you Dad, I'll pick you up tomorrow.' We asked if he was Dennis and if his dad was from Iowa and then Deb said she was his cousin. He seemed pleased to meet us. Deb was doubly excited because that meant she would get to see her uncle Dean that she hadn't seen in about 30+ years. Dennis was the kind of guy you like instantly, very friendly and down-to-earth. He came to Costa Rica when he was 18 years old for a surfing vacation and decided to buy a piece of property with an $800 down payment. Since then he has built a 12-unit resort just a stone's throw from Playa Hermosa, a beautiful black sand beach that stretches for miles and is a haven for surfers. Dennis took Dave out surfing one day, now Dave wants to quit his job and become a professional surfer! Wait, he's already quit his job so he is halfway there:)

Deb, Dave, Dean, Dina, Dennis

The letter 'D' was just coincidence

Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica

We stayed at Playa Hermosa for two nights then continued south along the Pacific Coast to a town called Dominical. There were a few scary bridges made up of the iron rails trains use, laid across the bridge with no guard rails and a rushing river below. About 25 miles of the road was dirt, it was good practice for Deb since she hates riding off-pavement. There was a bridge out so we had our first river crossing. The water wasn't very deep and with more experience, we probably could have ridden straight through, but we decided to walk the motorcycles across. We have a friend, Eric, from Indiana, who has a house near Dominical. He doesn't have a phone so he gave us the telephone number of a friend of his. We called Eric's friend Bob who gave us detailed instructions to Eric's house. It was up steep dirt roads that were muddy in places. On our way up, we ran into Eric and his family on the way down. He turned around and took us to his house. It is high in the hills with a beautiful view of the Pacific coast far below.