We are coming up to the season when in past years at least we have grabbed the Bike Fridays and headed off to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. We would happily do it again, because Yucatan (except for its east coast) has very cyclable roads, reasonable prices, and nice people. But we have become curious about Costa Rica. We ran into a birder in Yucatan last year who put the idea of Costa Rica in our heads. And at the same time, our environmentally oriented daughters spent a fair amount of time in the country. And Laurie has dropped us a big pile of maps and guide books that she accumulated for her visits there.

Looking at Costa Rica on Cycleblaze, we find Ken Dyckman passing through in 2023 and Rachel and Patrick Hugens in 2017, as they travelled around the world. And Margaret Kavanagh  took a guided trail and gravel tour in 2022. Finally, David Chavez made it to San Jose in 2024. We have had a peek at these accounts. Sometimes we see some decent cycling roads, hotels, and restaurants pictured, but often we see comments about heavy traffic, roads with no bicycle provision, steep and/or long hills, gravel, and suchlike.

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So this time we decided to leave the bikes behind, and to go on a bus tour that will hit seven biological research stations or private reserves/gardens. It touches the centre of the country as well as brushing the Pacific and Caribbean sides. It comes close to Panama in the south, but does not venture much north, or up, I hope, any volcanoes. It should give us some reasonable idea of what the country and its roads are like.  Things could change once we actually see the place, but as of this morning we are talking ourselves out of returning by bike.

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Because the bikes will not be coming this time, we'll blog the trip but only on Blogspot. Without using some mysterious tricks, Blogspot is oriented toward publishing the latest update first and does not treat the story of the trip in story order. So if you follow our progress, it will be best to check in daily. We will leave November 26 and return December 11, making it a short but intense expedition. Click on this sentence to link you to the blog. It just has an introduction right now, but you could give it a try.

Once we return from Costa Rica, it won't be long before the time is right to return to Spain and collect our bikes in Valencia for the next expedition. Our idea right now is to take the ferry from Valencia to Mallorca and then to hop a bit further down the coast, to Denia. From there we'll cycle past Murcia, Granada, and Cordoba, to Sevilla. Sevilla is the starting point of the "Camino" known as the "Via Plata". We'll follow it, but this time our target with not be Santiago de Compostella. Rather we'll stop at Madrid, and use a train (we hope!) to get to, or close to, France. Let's call that Narbonne. From there we'll shamelessly retrace our Mediterranean tracks back to the Camargue and our beloved Arles. If we could hit Arles on a Wednesday or Saturday market day, wouldn't that be great!

But this time we'll avoid cycling back up the Rhone, even if that means missing out on the chocolate at Valence or the nougat at Montelimar. Rather, we try the train again, to somewhere like Geneva, Basel, or even Zurich. From there, we'll make our way past the Bodensee, hoping to still find our friends Manny, Matti, and Kristine in Lichtenstein, and then to Munich, looking for Suzanne and Janos. Then it will be close to Nuremberg - Franz and Eva! until finally drifting to near Leipzig, to hopefully leave the bikes with Jurgen, Birgit,and Anja. We'll tailor the train links to keep the cycling under 4000 km. , and we'll hang out in Spain until it seems like the weather has warmed up enough in France and Germany.

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When is all this going to be? Well, we left Europe this time November 4, so they don't want to see us back until about February 4. Brace yourselves, Europe, sometime in early February the Grampies will be at your door!

Until then read about us in the Costa Rican heat and humidity!