La Ruta Diary Day 1

The conversation I had with the friendly Canadians at the San Jose Airport Terminal cost me the official taxicab ride to the Best Western Irazu. There was already too little room in their minivan for their four bike boxes and luggage for me to even consider tagging along, so I decided to rent a car myself. The man at the well-known rental car agency’s desk put down his soft-core porn magazine to assist me, eventually telling me I would have to return the cab to the airport. So, I decided to look for a cab outside.

“Alex” flagged me down in front of a large taxi cab and happily grabbed my bag, but quickly side-stepped the cab and popped the trunk of his unmarked Hyundai Accent. At that moment in time my last words on Earth may have been “fuck it” – I was tired of traveling and Alex was friendly and enthusiastic and didn’t look at all like a psychopathic serial killer. After many hours in airports during the course of the day, I happily risked my life in the unmarked car of a stranger in a foreign country. We stuffed my bike box in his back seat and I hopped in the front as Alex pulled a receipt book from underneath the Virgin Mary and asked me to sign for a $30 fare. Many years ago I and several of my drunken Marine buddies were taken for far worse in cab fare… unless the hotel was across the street from the airport (and Alex wasn’t a serial killer) $30 worked for me.

The accommodating Alex switched on some Bob Marley and later some salsa music as he drove down a street that could have been any Central American city street. Off and on the rain brought out an occasional smell of the street that reminded me of Tijuana. You’d have to have been there to know. Yet to my left and right were beautiful sharp and steep mountains surrounded by clouds and was where I assumed… they grew coffee.

Alex got me safely to the hotel and even carried my oversized luggage. For his help, I tipped Alex another 1,000 colones for which he was very thankful – I think we both knew the fare wasn’t worth $30.

After settling into my room I walked across the street to La Gallera and violated my first travel advisory as told by prior La Ruta participants on message boards – I ate seafood. The restaurant seemed very nice to be located next to a Best Western and the servers were better than most I’ve had at most U.S. restaurants, so I had no reservations about the Veracruz Snapper with mashed potatoes and local stir fried vegetables. I’m not a food critic, but it was good enough to make we want dessert. For that, I had chocolate and banana crepes, which made me think of my wife and the crepes we ate in a little shopping district in Normandy while on our honeymoon in France. Again, the crepes were excellent.

Back at my room, I had my bike together in only a few minutes… except the tires. The spacer put between the calipers for the front and back slipped out and the pads were pressed together making it impossible for me to slide the disc and consequently the tires back in place. After unsuccessfully scouring the internet for a solution, I went back and worked the spacers back in to the calipers which afforded enough room to get the tires back on. I pumped the brakes a few times and slowly, the calipers released more to normal. The tires are just about spinning freely, but not enough for me to ride. Another local mountain biker is arriving tonight with a mechanic, so I’ll try to bum some service from them, before I panic.

After returning to my room, I violated my second travel and most universally known warning – I drank the water… I was very dehydrated from traveling and not drinking what I normally do and it was late and I was thirsty and again, I said those potentially fatal words to myself – “fuck it”. I’m proud to tell you, that nothing happened and my stomach is fine, but I have committed myself to not looking like such an American target for taxicab drivers and paying more attention to the warnings that if violated enough, will surely bite me on the ass.

I will not however, give up the coffee. Even the hotel-room coffee is excellent. It’s very odd to be drinking Starbucks-like coffee from a Dixie-size paper cup in a Best Western that sits in the heart of an old Central American industrial-type district that looks and sometimes smells like Tijuana. But truly, wherever I go, the coffee is excellent. They obviously keep the best for themselves and send us the Maxwell House and Folgers with Juan Valdez grinning happily to the bank.