Costa Rica, Bahia Drake - Into the Jungle

We woke up early to tackle the Panama - Costa Rica border in the morning to avoid the heat and large crowds. We crossed the border in a few hours with no problems.  Just the normal run around : immigration forms, find insurance, photocopies, wait, wait, wait, wait, aduana, wait, wait, wait, go eat, wait somemore, then sign the papers and you are free to go.  As soon as we crossed the border it seemed like the jungle rose up out of no where.  Panama felt so Americanized with its Mcdonalds every few blocks where as Costa Rica felt wild.  We stopped at a gas station to grab some oil and fill up.  This gas station had everything we needed!  We got ourselves a tire repair kit (finally found one), some new tools, valve stem remover, and some hose clamps.  After stocking up on some needed supplies we entered into the Corcovado National park to find Bahai Drake.  We rode into the park through some very potholed roads. It started to rain heavily, as it normally does in the tropics, and we decided to turn around to hide out in a restaurant we had passed by.

Canadian Oil!

Very large beatle.

Getting caught in a tropical thunderstorm just before lunch.
 
Almost




After our delicious lunch Eduardo asked some locals how the road was to Bahai Drake.  They told us if its raining the rivers tend to swell and can make the roads quiet difficult to travel over.  The rain subsided so we decided to try the route anyways.  We crossed a few streams and then the road tightened and traversed uphill.  It was about  25kms of offroading before we finally got to the river the locals were talking about.  When we got there the rain had completely stopped so it didnt look too intimidating to cross.  Colin and I picked our lines and made it across.  Eduardo decided to find his own line and ended up learning some essential offroading skills and he also got wet.  A few more stream crossings and sketchy bridges to navigate through we made it to a hostel in the jungle.












As the night came the jungle came alive.  The noises that came from the darkness was incredible....We crawled into our sheets, put the mosquito nets over our heads and called it for the night.

PS.  Go Canucks Go!!!!!!!!