La Ruta Day #4

Well, this day is supposed to be roll-out-of-the-mountains & RAIN-to-the-sunny-coast day and everything will be golden. I knew that couldn't be true and of course it was not. This is what turned out to be what seemed at the time, a string of bad scenes. Even though the climbing total was less than any other day & all bunched in the first half, it was steep gravel that went on & on & on.....in the pouring RAIN. I took all this day's climbing a little too easy not realizing how much time it was taking, but feet were sore and I thought it would be ok since the end of the day was flatter. Once at the final top, it was fast gravel/road descending in blinding pouring RAIN. I didn't see many people here or get passed much, so I figured I am pretty close to the back. agh.
This continued until we got out of the mountains & went through a huge banana plantation (a jungle in itself!) and several small 'ghetto'-like countryish towns that were scary enough you did not want to go very slow. Hoofing it through these I saw lots of racers here and there so wasn't too worried, I just tried to keep others in sight since I figured I was near the back and didn't want to get stranded out here alone for some reason.
BRIDGES!! I hit the famous railroad bridges, one after another, 6 total, each scarier than the previous. Pictures don't do these any justice, they are much sketchier than I imagined. Although local kids are running on them barefoot and I come up on lots of racers boldly walking across, I slow to a snail pace as I recheck my footing continually for fear of slipping to my real death. There are no sides on the bridges, the ties are wet, not all straight, some are rotting & some are soooo far apart I doubt my legs can reach let alone take a step towards & make it, and multiple feet below are raging muddy rapids and we all know if you survive the fall by some odd chance, downstream are waiting 15 foot crocodiles(!) I use my bike for balance with each step. Just when you think you are the end of the pack since for the last 50 miles you've seen few racers, suddenly a million people come up behind me on these and....seriously.....they NEED TO PASS! This frustrates me to no end. In their rush to cross many take the optional 'bike taxi' device across when it's available. This device sits on the tracks and is pedaled across, not much safer but faster and you don't have to walk. So the taxi wants to pass me, but there is not actual room to pass! They hold on to my sleeve so I don't fall in, I rudely state 'if I go in, so are YOU!' I really want to cross all these by myself and just take my time, but on the two big ones with the taxis I could not tolerate the bike taxi continually passing me, so on these two after about half way across I ended up jumping on it to get done. That was disappointing to do, but I really thought it passing was going to cause me to fall! The other 4 bridges had no taxi but were not soooo long so at least I got to be scared and almost crap my pants on those ones! JP later tells me he attempted to ride across all the bridges and made a few.....he insists that a bike could not possibly fall through the ties, I completely disagree along with the other 1000 peeps that walk across! Needless to say, I need to check the safetiness of rides before he is allowed to go on another one!!
So, that finally being over, back to the ghetto beach towns, riding off and on the tracks suddenly I am riding & talking with 5 costa rican-like boys. I am happy to have some people for a bit. Other than them I don't see anyone else around now. I begin to check the mileage, there should be a checkpoint at mile 64, I am at 62, I ask them if they have the same mileage and if the checkpoint is near. They report 'oh, we don't know anything about the course, we are not racers, we live here and just riding this section'. I glance at their bikes.....NO RACE PLATES(!) OMG. We were very warned to not trust or listen to locals not related to the race. The next word out of their mouths is asking me all kind of personal questions, like who I am here with, what I know about where I am riding to, etc. I get a puke feeling and try to not make it obvious as I keep checking to see if any racers are coming up behind that I can get with. No such luck. Agh. They all just passed me on the bridges! So now the mileage gets past 64 & no checkpoint, I wonder if I missed a turn again. Inside I start freaking out figuring I am now lost in the caribbean coast jungle with strangers I do not know & there is nothing I can do to fix it. And if I miss the checkpoint, I am DNF. Why am I here??? The statement, 'This was crazy' crosses my mind again.
Suddenly, an arrow!! I AM on course, but the mileage/checkpoint issue is confusing me. I make the turn and ahead I see two racers making the next turn onto the last dreaded stretch of the tracks of death that are supposed to be super bumpy and lots of miles. I take off to keep them in sight and ditch the locals ASAP. I know the end is not far off now. Once on the bumpy tracks made with cement rails I keep going as fast as I can to catch the two racers, I am looking down and look up....they are gone! huh? I can see the tracks for miles, and I see nothing else. Geez, they must have speeded up so I speed up, a little bell going off already that something is not right. I am desparate to NOT get those locals by me again, this section is deserted jungle coast, with swamps everywhere, and I am still not quite sure why I never saw mile 64 checkpoint. Not where I want to be with a group of strange boys. Eventually, a track section is covered in sand....but NO bike tracks. Oh crap. Big bells are going off now. How I have done this again?? I hesitate on backtracking, afraid of seeing the locals, but in a few minutes I see them through the swamps and they yell that I missed a turn and they will help me. I tell them NO, keep going, I will find it. I trudge back looking frantically for YELLOW arrows, scared to death the locals are backtracking too and I will be stuck with them. For the second time on the trip my eyes well up, and something I don't do often I start hysterically bawling my eyes out as I walk along. There are no racers on the tracks anywhere, there are strange animal noises everywhere, there are huge salt water swamps on both sides of the tracks, & I see no marks!! More than anything, I am now at mile 70 and wonder if I am not going to get to the finish on time on the final flipping day?!?

As I look around, one thing is nice though, the tracks parallel the ocean here and are only like ~8th of mile from it, it's all black sand & the palm trees grow right out into the waves. It was one of the prettiest calming beach scenes I ever saw. I was so happy to be getting to ride through such a wild part of nature that I otherwise would never get to do.

Ok, back to reality, look for the arrows!! Back to bawling, I look up, there is a racer!!! I RUN towards him, hysterically telling my story of getting lost & have no idea where the turn is. Thank god he is a nice guy from Belgium and has great English!! He calms me down, and points to a telephone pole right beside me.....GREEN arrows!! Geez, they switched the colors here (?), and in my defense, I am a little color blind so the green barely stood out on the dark pole. He agrees I should not be in this section alone, he is riding slow with some mechanicals & he has done the course before. He is unsure of the checkpoint issue too, but he is sure we are on course. He escorts me down the stretch of black sandyness & through the deepest salt water bogs I ever thought existed! Several miles later, ~74 miles, we hit the check, somehow it was moved but we made the time cutoff with no worries!! whew, that was close.

So, now a few more miles to the road, and then a nice finish right out to the Caribbean Sea at Limon Beach. Did I mention that it is still RAINING! Yep, the one year I do the event, even the notoriously sunny finish seems to vanish.

So, JP knows right away something happened as I got in sooo late, so he is there with my damp duffle bag & helps me get all situated for cleaning up a little and eating. We opt for the late shuttle back to San Jose which ends up being very late! We arrive to the hotel beat and hit the hay. We have a few days to relax & pack our bikes up before our flights home.

In our last few days there we tried to do a few things, but driving directions are bad here in the city areas so we didn't get much done. On one RAINY afternoon, we did a touristy hike around Paos Volcanoe, which is 'transitional forest', it was ok but we would have like to do a lot more with the time we had. During our trip home, we repeatedly said:
'never again'
'too much aggrevation for a bike ride'
'too stressful'
'jp has to worry too much about my bike stuff that he can't spend time on himself'

Needless to say, now all recovered, we are already planning a next adventure to somewhere! hehe.