This is the first time we have blogged for a long time and apologies to those who were expecting a two-wheeled account.  A great deal has happened in the months since we last put fingers to keyboards and we are not sure how much cycling in far flung places we will be able to do again.  In summery, David (who is now 65) has been diagnosed with Ischemic Coronary Heart Disease and had a bypass in January 2024. Unfortunately we discovered in the summer of 2025 that 2 out of the 4 grafts had failed.  The brilliant cardiologists at Wolverhampton managed to stent one of the defective grafts (to improve the blood flow through that artery, but David has been left with only a partially functioning heart.  So he has to be a bit careful about where he goes and, for example, cycling in Laos with its limited hospital facilities maybe off limits now.

Having said that, we have focused on what we can do and not on what we have to rule out.  We are slowly working out things, and inching towards an understanding as to what we can do.  That “working out” process has taken us to Costa Rica for 4 weeks. 

The first thing we did – gently our limits testing so to speak – was grade 3 and 4 white water rafting along the Rio Pacuare.  Our guide said this river was one of the best rafting rivers in the world and who were we to question that.  Later Mrs Google, that font of all wisdom and seriel repeater of prejudices, more or less confirmed this, suggesting that the Zambezi is no 1 and that the river Futaleufu in Chile is number 2, with Rio Pacuare as the third best.  Good enough to start we felt.  It was great fun – not too frightening unless you were unfortunate enough to be in the front of the raft.  That was where David was sat – of course.  We got wet on the first of 30 miles of rapids and never got dry after that.  We also saw some great wildlife along the way.  Sorry but no photos yet (to be added later) as we bought a memory stick with the pictures of our boat but have no way of converting that into digital pictures for the blog until we get home.

In 2017 the Costa Rica government (which is astonishingly stable and environmentally responsible compared to its neighbours) designated a 280km long route from the Caribbean Coast to the Pacific Coast as “El Camino de Costa Rica”.  Urritrek are one of the companies that organise treks along the camino and we have joined the “8 days Essentials Hike”, which covers about half of the route.  It allows us to walk the best bits of the camino, and get a bus along the boring parts.

Although this is referred to as a “camino”, it is not a religious route.  No days off purgatory are on offer for those that complete the route, but it luxuriates in nature along its whole route and so is religious in that sense.  The word “camino” means “road” in Spanish and that is the origin – even though most of it is on tracks rather than roads.

We are a group led by an amusing, hugely knowledgeable 28 year old tico (the name for Costa Ricans) called Jairo (pronounced “Hairo” – sort of like “a hairy hero” which I suppose he is).  We have 2 couples from the United States, a couple from Switzerland and the wonderful Laura, and American living in Costa Rica, who we met trekking in New Zealand last year and who we stayed with when we arrived in the country.  Many thanks to Laura and Doug for their wonderful hospitality.  A mention must also go to our bus driver, Eddie, who is so skilful in avoiding pot holes that he could get a job driving in Shropshire.  I am sure autonomous self driving cars will never be as good as Eddie!

Anyway, we met up with the rest of the group yesterday in Siquirres, a friendly town half way between San Jose and the Caribbean coast.  The bus took us to a tiny place called Goschen where we loaded onto a small flat bottomed boat to drive through the mangrove swamps and jungle to the sea.  We saw all manner of birdlife on the way, as the photos confirm.  One of the great things about an organised tour is that someone else does the organising (of course).  And so we just turned up at this waterside house and lunch miraculously appeared.  There was a pretty large crocodile sunning himself in the garden of the house, which was a little disconcerting.  The owner said that he was their “mascot” and peaceful; happy playing with the house dogs.  The dogs did not seem to be missing limbs and were quite happy to go up to the croc, but we left them to it rather than seeing whether the croc was equally friendly with humans.  The owners said it disappeared from time to time for a few months but always came back.  When we revisited the house later the croc was nowhere to be seen, but it was a good incentive not to dangle hands over the side of the boat.

After lunch the boat took us to the mouth of the river, so we could see out to sea.  We docked and walked across the isthmus to the sea and symbolically paddled in the Caribbean.  This is the area turtles hatch in the sand.  We were not there in turtle season but could see the nest holes.  It must be an amazing site when the sand shivers and a tiny turtle chick emerges to struggle towards the beach, assuming that it has not been eaten by a racoon beforehand of course. 

Then we ambled around for a while along the beach chatting to our fellow trekkers and starting to get to know the people in the group.  We are not the oldest – despite out near geriatric status – but there is a small age range as everyone is retired or near (or a bit away from) retirement age.  They are a great group – with a few typical national characteristics coming through (without naming names of course).  Having said that we are probably seen by them as typical Brits – not the loudest, with a dry, verbal sense of humour and less than brilliant taste in clothing.

We got back to the boat and were driven back to the bus, and then taken to our overnight accommodation – huts in a development by the Urritrek owners (I think).  If you are doing the full “every f’ing inch” type walk, then this is about 30km – largely flat – from the coast and is the end of day 1.  The “every f’ing inch” reference is to the title of a book about walking the length of New Zealand where that was the aim of the authors – spoiler – they succeeded.

 We had only walked about 3km and then got a bus.  This felt a tad like cheating but we can put up with the humiliation. 

Then we had a pleasant dinner – with the group relaxing into each other’s company – learning to laugh together and telling travelling tales from previous trips.  A really encouraging start to this trip.