But wait, there's more! One more ride that is, as I was having fun and wanted to get my monies worth on the rental...
On Monday I planned for a longer ride, as the rest of the family was planning to go for a drive and maybe a hike to see a little more of Costa Rica.
I decided to check out Diria National Park, a newly minted park about an hour from us. It had one road that cut through the park, marked as passable in the summer only, and a national route that skirted around the park, so I figured I had a backup in case the road through the park turned out to be a problem.
I'd ridden more than a few roads that were purported to be passable only in the summer and while that might have been the case for anything short of a beefy 4-wheeler, I'd had no problems. My family decided to drive to the same park to see if they could get far enough in to find some hiking.
I took off and kept the initial ride to Dirian easy, just following the paved main roads, no photos because, no shoulders, but it was a pleasant ride with plenty to see. At one point Google Maps thought it was being helpful by routing my on a road that bypassed the congested part of Santa Cruz. I did not fild it helpful.
Definitely not trying a river crossing like that without riding buddies to help me extract the moto should I inevitably fail and drown it.
I turned around and cruised through Santa Cruz, which was a cool town. I figured I might stop there for food on the way back if all went as planned. It's a populous area, I even saw a 600cc sport bike.
After making my way through town I got to the road that leads into Dirian so I stopped for a quick photo and to water some of the local fauna.
So far so good.
The road got a little rougher once I entered the actual park, it was really hot, but being in the trees helped with that.
Hardly a waterfall by Costa Rican standards, but it was neat to see.
A ways later, the road split and the route to left presented me with a fast moving river crossing of unknown depth.
That was a nope for me, so I tried the route to the right. It went a little ways further but also came upon the same river.
That's as far as we go I guess...
So that was it for my ride through the park. I took a break to drink some water and take in the sounds, and then turned around to head back to the national route and ride around the park to make a loop.
Noticed a few neat things I'm missed on my ride in, so that was cool.
Another tiny waterfall...
Probably monkeys around there somewhere. I definitely heard howler monkeys a few times.
At the turn off for the park, I ran into the rest of the fam, and advised them that the road was probably a no go in their vehicle.
We hung out there for a bit, managed to actually see, but not photograph a family of howler monkeys in the trees and I managed a rare photo of me on the bike as I headed out to continue my ride.
The road around Dirian was paved for a short distance and didn't waste any time climbing. I had noted that a viewpoint from the top near an old defunct radar station offered unobstructed views of the pacific, so, I expected a tall mountain. After maybe a mile I was already getting pretty high.
The road turned to dirt and I passed a sign that I suspect warned about no maintenance beyond this point and kept climbing. I'd eventually find myself among all the radio towers in the distance.
As I got further up, things cooled off nicely and I found myself in the clouds.
And then a forest of radio towers.
And then a church? Not sure for whom, it'd be a long drive.
While the road had dipped a bit past the church, it was not done climbing yet. And it eventually passed the old radar station, unfortunately, the clouds prevented any views from being had, but made for their own ambiance.
