Costa Rica's rainy season must not be over yet.
The word from the promoter is that this may be the toughest Ruta in the race's 12 year history. The competition is also going to world class. The National Champion of Spain is here Alejandro de la Pena and of course the living legend Thomas Frichnect. Walker Ferguson is also here and will be really fast if anyone can get him off of his surf board.
We had a good ride today and got to do a little recon of stage two. A friend of Hunters named Thom and the New Zealander dude who writes for a few British mags came along. We climbed for 1 1/2 hrs strait and got into our shuttle bus because it was driving cold rain at 9000+ft.
We stopped 1/2 way down the 6,0000 ft climb for lunch. I was freezing cold in bike cloths and soaked. I got lucky when the restaurant owner offered me a green table cloth that I promptly fashioned into a hoola type skirt. Ahh much better..
They had some great hot coco and black bean soup in the mountain side building. The fries tasted strange and fluff, like a fried something else, and the catsup was different as well as the chicken, tasty though.
We wrapped up the day's errands by stopping by host hotel settling our complicated lodging arrangements and returned to Hotel/modern art gallery Milvia. It looks like all but 2 nights will be here in San Jose.
Time for some re-charging before things get rolling tomorrow to the start on the west coast.
Stay tuned.
Jeremiah
