Thursday, Feb 5 2004 -- Lake Arenal to Quepos

Previous Day Table of Contents

Back to Main Table of Contents

Next Day Table of Contents

Thursday, we got up and packed up for the ride to Manuel Antonio.

At the lunch stop, I asked Glenn and Janet to backtrack a few miles and then ride the section again, but two up and with Janet taking little movies with my camera. As Glenn was about to take off, we discovered that the sidestand switch on the KTM had failed, and the bike wouldn't run in gear. We traced the wiring from the switch and jumpered the switch out of circuit and got the KTM running again. Then G & J took the "camera on bike video" ride.

After another fine lunch, we continued on our way to Manuel Antonio. This was a long, slow ride up and down a mountain, with lots of slow moving traffic, and as we neared the Pacific coast, it got hotter and hotter.

At one point we came to a roadside shop at one end of a bridge over a river. A dozen or so crocodiles were basking in the river, under the bridge, because every so often, somebody from the shop would lob a (dead) chicken into the river to give the tourists a show. We stopped for a break here (not knowing about the crododiles in advance) and I discoverd that the plastic bodywork that covered the exhause pipe had collapsed and it and my right saddlebag had melted onto the exhaust pipe. I cobbled up a heat shield out of an empty soda can and duct tape, gave the crocs a quick look, and off we headed towards Manuel Antonio.

We got into downtown Quepos, just a few miles from the journey's end, and my Pegaso stalled at a stop sign, as it had been doing all trip. This time, it wouldn't restart. After fiddling with it a bit, the others decided to go on, and I'd follow along as best I could after the bike cooled down and (we hoped) restarted. It took a few minutes, but it did restart after it cooled a little, but it wouldn't idle, and I had a semi-harrowing ride up a twisty mountain road (in traffic) with a bike that would crap out below 3000 RPM, until I made it to the Hotel Casitas Eclipse.

We checked into the hotel, called the tour operator and told him that the Pegaso had died, and they promised to bring out another bike before we needed to leave on Saturday morning. We unpacked, had a quick swim in the pool, and then had dinner at the hotel restaurant.

We retired early.

Views