Just as the road began to climb into the mountains it also turned into a beautifully, newly repaved, ribbon of asphalt. It snaked and twisted upwards and through the mountains. The mountainsides were devoted largely to grazing and agriculture, and numerous homes and ranches could be seen. This was definitely my favorite road in Central America so far, and the only thing which dampened (literally and figuratively) an otherwise stellar ride was the heavy fog which enveloped the highest portion of the route.
As I continued south, dropping down out of the mountains, I passed through the town of Zarcero with it's famous church. The large lawn in front of the church is decorated with fantastically manicured shrubs in the shapes of animals, fairy-tale characters, baskets, a helicopter and airplane, and other designs. The walkway leading up to the entrance to the church goes through an arbor of shrubs, forming a canopy overhead.
Back at the Pan-American Highway, I turned right, heading north about 30 miles to where I would turn off north to Monteverde. The road was under construction for much of this stretch, alternating between potholed pavement, and gravel. Entering a gravel section, I encountered another police checkppoint, and they waved me over. They simply checked my papers and waved me on.
The Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve, a private preserve located near the neighboring towns of Santa Elena and Monteverde, lies at an elevation of between 1500 and 1800 meters. A 24 mile dirt/gravel road heads north from the Pan American Highway to Santa Elena. The road had a few rocky uphill stretches, but was not particularly difficult, certainly much less so than the road around Lake Atitlan. Which probably explains me getting a bit lax and experiencing my first drop of the trip while riding. I picked the wrong line on an uphill rocky stretch and the bike ended up in the small ditch at the side of the road. I actually got the bike stopped, upright, with me still on it, but was just off-balance enough that I couldn't quite keep it upright and it slowly leaned over onto it's right side. Between the cylinder head and the Jessie bag, and the side of the ditch, it really wasn't leaning over too far, and I quickly had it back upright and easily rode it out of the ditch and was on my way again. Those kind of drops really annoy me because they should never have happened in the first place.
As the road climbed, I enjoyed sunny, blue skies, and great views south over the Nicoya Penninsula to the Pacific Ocean beyond. It was only near the end of the climb that a few wispy clouds moved in over the higher peaks.
I got a room at Pension Manakin for C1100 (US$5). An older couple from Palo Alto was staying there. He had worked at SRI briefly over 20 years ago. Small world.
While I was eating a young guy came in and asked if I was from Mountain View; he had seen the Cal BMW plate frame on my bike out front. His name was Justin and he knew both Eli and Kari at the shop as he had an old R60/5 back in California.
It was a beautiful sunny morning and I took a 3.5 hour hike along several trails which ran through the preserve. I took several of the steeper trails over the mountain, and consequently saw hardly any other people. Didn't see much animal life either, but that was not unexpected. Heard lots of birds and saw a lot of smaller birds, including several types of hummingbirds. The cloud forest vegetation, including huge ferns, bamboo, strangler figs, oak trees, and others which I forget, was simply stunning. Everything was lush, green, and moist. Unfortunately, the route I took, got me to the Mirador (lookout) with views of both the Pacific and Atlantic, just after the clouds moved in, obscurring the view. While disapointing, it was more typical of the weather in the Preserve.
After lunch at Stella's, I rode back to the PanAmerican Highway by the same route I came, and headed south to San Jose, the Capital of Costa Rica. After hearing about Jeff Coult's (mis)adventure in San Jose I had planned to skip San Jose, but several factors caused me to change my mind. The weather had caused me to skip the Nicoya Penninsula, until my return north, giving me more time now. I had talked to several other travellers in the mean time and also really wanted to see the Jade and Gold Museums. And I also wanted to check into what options there were from San Jose for getting to Colombia, if in fact the ferry from Colon was no longer in business.
I arrived in San Jose at rush hour at 4pm, and headed to the Hotel Astoria. I check my guide books for cheap hotels or pensions which mention courtyards or backyards, or parking. The Astoria was the only cheap hotel in San Jose which mentioned anything like that, referring to a small backyard. The entrance was up two steps off the sidewalk through a single door and back a long 30 foot hallway to the lobby. I hoped there was another rear access to the backyard. There wasn't and I also could see there was no way the bike would make it through the back hallway from the lobby to the backyard, although the girl working at the reception desk insisted otherwise, without having seen my bike! I knew she was thinking in terms of the smaller bikes one typically finds here in Central America. I thought I could probably get the bike up the front steps and through the front hallway to the lobby, though even the front door would be tight. I figured once I got it to the lobby, and they saw it wouldn't fit through the back hallway, we'd just leave it in the lobby. So back to the bike out front. Of course it was rush hour, it was a one way street and it was full of traffic.
Between the street and the sidewalk was a deep gutter, then the sidewalk, then two stone steps up to the main doorway. A quick measurement showed that with the mirrors folded in, the handlebars would just fit through the doorway, with the handguards scraping, since they were slightly wider than the bars. If the handlebars fit, so would the rest of the bike. So during a short break in the traffic, I headed across the street from where I was parked, and rode up onto the sidewalk. There, things stalled. The sidewalk was just wide enough that when the front wheel was up against the first step, the rear wheel was in the deep gutter between the sidewalk and street. Everything conspired to keep the bike from going forward; the rear wheel just spun, but couldn't get the bike up the steps. We were going to need some ramps. Robert, the friendly manager who spoke good English, ran back to find some old boards, while I sat there blocking the sidewalk and part of the narrow lane in the street. Because of the deep ditch I couldn't back the bike up myself, and Robert had to pull from behind to back the bike up so we could put the boards over the gulley between the street and the sidewalk. That was enough to let the bike climb the steps. It took a bit of work to get the bike all the way up the steps and through the doorway as the bashplate on the bottom hung up on the lip of the stairs, but unloading the suspension a bit got it over. I noticed later, after coming and going several times, I had taken a few chips out of the stone steps, but noone seemed to notice. In the lobby they quickly saw that there was no way the bike was going to make it through the back hallway, so they simply moved one of the couches along one wall and I parked the bike there. The room was C1600 (US$7.5) with a shared bath.
While unloading the bike, I met Mike whose doorway I partially blocked with my bike. He was a surfer from Florida and had been in Costa Rica for several weeks with several of his boards. Tomorrow he was returning to the States. He was a waiter which gave him a lot of flexibility to travel and he split his time between working, surfing, and skiing in Colorado. We went out for dinner and then had a few drinks at the bar at the nearby gringo-populated hotel which had the Monday Night Football game on. The hotel and bar was very upscale and the clientele appeared to be predominately foreigners and beautiful, high-priced (I presume) callgirls who would disappear with their clients before returning in a half hour or so. That's what you call quickies I guess.
The Jade Museum was only a block and a half from my hotel and had spectacular displays of jade carvings, pottery, sculpture, and other displays of the ancient cultures of the area. The "fertility room" was devoted to artifacts to ancient fertility gods and included four-foot phalluses and statues of copulating couples.
The Museo de Oro (Gold Museum) occupied several below ground-level floors under the Plaza de la Cultura. The primary displays of gold artifacts were contained in vaulted rooms 3 levels down, and included intricate castings and jewelry, and ornamental garments of gold such a breastplates, head-dresses, and headbands. Spectacular and awe-inspiring. Definitely a must see, along with the Museo de Jade, for anyone visiting San Jose.
Feeling a need for a small dose of Americana, I caught a 4pm movie, the new Bruce Willis flick about a 1930s-era gangster in a Texas border town. I already forget the name, something like The Last Man I think, which I guess says something about the movie; I didn't think it was that good. Movie prices are cheap, about US$2 for admission, and the coke and popcorn prices were similarly cheap.
Almost all new-release American flicks are in English with Spanish subtitles. However, American flicks which appear on television generally have been dubbed in Spanish.
In the afternoon I went to the Panamanian embassy to get a visa. Officially, as a US citizen, I wasn't supposed to need one, but since I was planning to cross the border into Panama at an obscure post along the Carribean coast, the guidebook recommended getting one. Plus there was no charge to US citizens and supposedly you could get one the same day. I took a taxi, rather than try to find the address in the guidebook myself. My first mistake was not to call first to confirm the address, for when we got there, in the suburbs south of downtown, we found that it was no longer located there and no one knew it's new address. We stopped at a police station on the way back downtown to get the new address - across town in the suburbs north of downtown. When I finally got there, it was in fact an easy process, requiring a copy of my passport (which the neighboring Hertz RentaCar made for free), and in a half hour I had my visa. It was less than 30 blocks back to downtown so I walked back to my hotel.
In the evening I walked over to Hotel Tika Linda, where Ishay said he was staying. He hadn't returned yet from travelling with his girlfriend sans-motorcycle, but one of the other Israelies he was riding with, Eyal, was there and I talked with him awhile and gave him my room # at the Hotel Astoria and told him to have Ishay contact me there and that I'd leave a note on the board when I checked out. He gave me the names of some cheap, recommended, hotels in some cities in Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador.
It took several attempts to get the right combination of pauses in the dialing string. But then, after getting through to bayarea.net and getting the CONNECT message, the connection would be dropped with a bunch of garbage scrolling by on the screen. This happened several times and then I remembered these symptoms were similar to those I experienced at Janets when her answering machine interfered with the modem. I tried disconnecting the phone completely, but then couldn't even get the call to go through. Then I reconnected the phone, dialed the number, and as soon as the call went through, disconnected the line to the phone. Voila! It worked, the connection was made, and my email, 30 messages or so, successfully transferred.
I walked over to my favorite cheap restaurant, La Soda Central, to read my email over breakfast. That was my first mistake. The second was to take a table in the center of the room, rather than one near the wall - difficult to watch your back. My third mistake probably was to be reading my computer in a public place - it is unusual enough that it attracts attention. My fourth mistake was to set my fanny/shoulder pack down on the bench beside me to the left, and my fifth mistake was to be too lax about my surroundings and what was going on around me. When I sat down there were 2 men at the table behind me to the left, talking with another man at the table across the aisle.
I ordered breakfast and got engrossed in reading and composing the replies to my email. I received a message from Bob Higdon previewing an upcoming column of his to appear in a future issue of the BMW Riders Association International magazine On The Level. The column talked about the situation Noemi and I faced (and still face) when I left on this trip, and the choices which must be made. I was completely engrossed in it and parts of it brought tears to my eyes.
While reading this message someone tapped me on the right shoulder, and looking around a man was standing in the aisle behind me to the right and he pointed to the floor and asked if I had dropped my money. On the floor was about C150 and US$2. Looking back it seems so transparent, but at the time you're just pleased that you understood what was being said to you, and analyzing the situation (e.g., Is it my money?; Was I carrying money in a manner that it would fall out? - no; Why is this guy telling me rather than just pocketing it himself?) is not the first thing that comes to your mind.
At any rate, I lean over, pick up the money, thank the guy, and return to reading my email. I remember pausing briefly, wondering why he hadn't just taken the money, and how I had dropped it, but didn't waste much time on such thoughts since I was engrossed in my email. The next message was from my Sweetie, Noemi, and that held my attention further. I don't even remember how much time passed (my best guess is 10-20 minutes) but at some time I glanced down at the bench beside me and my pack was gone.
I can't begin to describe the thoughts that flew through my mind at that moment. My heart seemed to plummet to the pit of my stomach. I jumped up and looked all around me. Then my thoughts are whether I in fact had had my pack with me. Maybe I hadn't been carrying it that day. No, backtracking in my memory, with a sickening feeling, I knew that I had been carrying it and had set it down on the bench and now it wasn't there. Then I remembered the money on the floor, and the 2 men sitting at the table behind me who were no longer there, and my heart sunk further into the pit of my stomach with a feeling that I can't describe. Happy Thanksgiving!
By now I was standing up, I don't really remember doing what, I guess looking around in hopes the men or pack were still around which of course they were not, and still trying to comprehend the magnitude of what had just happened. At some point in the mental process, thoughts of self-chastisement began as well; How could I have been so stupid to have fallen for something like that? What an idiot I am. What in the hell is the first step in recovering from a disaster like this? I remember asking several people sitting nearby if they had seen anything, the 2 men, or my bag. Of course noone had. By now the waitress and several waiters clued in that something had happened and I explained what had happened. While I know I was infinitely more upset than they were they seemed genuinely upset that this had happened in their establishment. They first checked in the restrooms, located behind me, on the slim chance the remnants had been dumped there. No such luck.
The waiter then told me I needed to go to the OIJ, the police department investigative branch, about 10 blocs away, and gave me directions there. At the police office I gave a statement to an officer, describing what had happened and where, and wringing my memory to remember everything that had been the pack.
The main things of importance were my "real" wallet with my drivers license, American Express, Visa, and ATM cards, the pouch with all the originals of my documents including my passport, motorcycle title and Costa Rican documents for the bike, my checkbook, and US$530 of AmEx travellers checks. Normally I carry my large Olympus IS-3 TeleZoom camera in the pack, but because I had finished it's roll of film and didn't have another roll, I had left it in my room and brought my small Yashica camera instead. Since I had just come from receiving my email, the pack had my small bag with all my gear for connecting my palmtop to the phone lines. This included the AC power adapter for the palmtop, and the cable to connect the modem to the phone line, as well as various plugs and adaptors for the phone connectors, and serial cables and gender-benders for the palmtop. fortunately I had been reading my email on the palmtop, so the palmtop was not taken. On the other hand, if I had not been reading my email in the first place, my pack probably would not have been stolen. I had also been wearing my glasses while reading my email so only lost their case. There was also about US$80 in cash in Colones.
Unfortunately I couldn't provide any description of either the men at the table behind me or the man in the aisle. The officer entered the information into the computer, gave me a printout and told me to return to the robbery office on the 2nd floor between 2:30 and 5pm, and gave me a name to ask for.
With the police report in hand I returned to the AmEx office where I had been 2 days earlier. I had just bought most of the travellers checks 2 days ago, and stupidly hadn't gotten around to seperating the checks from the record of their numbers. Fortunately I had bought them here and they still had the records of the purchase, and I received a full refund of US$530 in just over an hour. I also was able to report both my VISA and AmEx cards as being stolen, though for various practical reasons the new cards could not be easily sent directly to me here in San Jose, but instead to my mailing address in Pennsylvania, and my Mom would then have to arrange sending them to me somewhere in Central America.
Then it was back to the police station where a detective began to interview me until it became clear that the language barrier wss going to prevent any real exchange of information, so he called in a colleague who spoke some English. They asked if I could identify the men from photos and showed me some photos in a large book. I couldn't say one way or the other. They said the money-on-the-floor technique was a favorite of some Colombians that were known to the police. They were almost apologetic over the whole thing, as if they expected me to hold it against them, or think that all Costa Ricans were thieves, when in reality I was blaming myself for my stupidity and gullibility. They said there was little they could do without a positive ID and that they'd contact me at the hotel if there were any developments.
I called the US Embassy regarding a new passport, but it was closed for Thanksgiving and the man said to come by tomorrow morning after 8am. That was about all I could do for the day, except start to think about how I was going to replace my documents, get my new credit cards, recover my ability to send/receive email, and a bunch of other little things.
I also had more time for self-flaggelation. I was really annoyed at myself; I'd gone and created a lot of work and hassle for myself. I would almost rather it had been taken at gunpoint. At least then, I couldn't have done anything about it. As it was, I could think of a half a dozen things which if I had done differently, probably would have prevented the theft.
You'd think as a service to it's citizens the embassy would as least have a couple of payphones available. No. There was a single payphone outside in the courtyard but it was not working. I walked across the street to some payphones, only one of which was working, and had a line of 6 people waiting, most of which I had seen over at the embassy. Another block up the street I found another payphone and called the number and asked for Dennis Chacon. I had difficulty communicating with the lady, but was able to confirm that he worked there but was not there now. I tried to get the address of the store, but was unable to understand it. Addresses are typically given relative to some landmark or large building which you are presumed to know the location of. E.g., 500m east and 150 north of Radiographica. 1 block equals 100m. The lady finally said to wait and in a couple of minutes a man came on the line who spoke a bit of English. He said Dennis was a driver and was out on a run, but that if I gave him the phone number at my hotel, he would have Dennis call me there at 2pm that afternoon.
I took a taxi back to the hotel and waited and at 1pm Dennis called. He said he could bring my documents by the hotel in about 15 minutes. He arrived with a plastic bag containing a jumble of my documents, many of them a bit dirty and rumpled. A quick search through them confirmed that my passport was not among them, nor were my credit cards, not surprisingly. He said he was driving by an area near the bus station, about 20 blocks from where the theft occured, when he noticed the documents scattered in the gutter. He gathered up the ones he saw and then called the embassy. He said there was a lot of trash in the gutters in the vicinity and that there might be some documents he missed. He drew me a map showing the corner where he found them. I tried to offer him a reward for finding them or for his trouble in bringing them by the hotel but he refused it.
After he left I did a further inventory of the recovered documents, comparing them with the copies I carried in my Aerostich. Amazingly, almost every other document appeared to be there, including the remainder of the contents of my wallet, including my ATM card and business and membership cards, and all the documents in my document pouch. My motorcycle title had been ripped in half and only half of it was there, but it was the half with the frame and engine numbers on it. My checkbook was there with all the checks except for the first one. I had no way of knowing if it had been removed on purpose for illicit reasons or had simply been ripped off in the process of going through the documents. I suspected the former and made a note to put a stop payment on it. My travellers checks had been stashed in the folder containing my health insurance documents. The documents were there but the thief had found the checks. Two of the four photos I carried were among the items recovered, but my favorite of Noemi on my R100GS-PD was missing. Fortunately the Costa Rican documents I received at the border for the bike wer among the documents recovered.
The US Embassy, only processes requests for lost/new passports between 8 and 10:30am, confirming my suspicions that my tax dollars do not go toward providing service for US citizens at foreign embassies. Basically I'd have to wait until Monday to initiate the process for a new passport. Additionally, since this was Thanksgiving weekend, the Credit Union was closed till Monday, so I couldn't do anything about the missing personal check either. But having recovered the documents I did, greatly reduced the hassles I faced.
I also called home to Mom to ask her help in calling the credit union on Monday regarding the missing check, and to confirm that my VISA card had been reported stolen and that a new one was being sent. Also to arrange how we'd get the new credit cards to me here in Central America since they were being sent to my address in Pennsylvania.
That evening I went to see the Claude Van Damm flick, Maximum Risk, in an attempt to temporarily forget the hassles I still faced. It certainly wasn't an Acadamy Award winner but it accomplished it's purpose for me for the night.
I did my laundry and shopped for some of the items lost in the theft: another wallet, glasses case, batteries and fuses.
In the evening Ishay stopped by the hotel and we decided to ride up to Volcan Poas tomorrow. I needed to get back on the bike and temporarily forget my current headaches.