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We hopped on our bikes, opened up the throttles, and buzzed around Lake Arenal on our way to the peninsula of Nicoya in search of a pacific beach. Our Costa Rica host Dale and his family gave us some good tips on a few beaches on the peninsula as well as a German bakery along the way. The diversity of vegetation and amazing views in Costa Rica continues to do circles in my head. It's quite hard to pay attention to the roads as I am snapping my head from the left to the right trying to capture it all. The well paved roads and curvy mountain roads make for some fantastic riding.
There was quite a bit of cloud cover in the morning but as we got closer the clouds moved on to give us some great views of the lake. We stopped in for a coffee and a quick bite at the German bakery (amazing) and continued on around the lake. The west side of the lake is known for its amazing kite boarding, which means there were some pretty gusty wind conditions. This was actually my "closest call" for dumping the bike. The curvy and well built roads got me a bit excited to say the least. As I was heading downhill and banking hard on a right hand corner a gust of wind, coming down a draw in the hill, felt like it picked me and the bike up off of the ground and set us back down a foot or two to the left. Once I touched down I was able to stabilize and continue cornering. Melissa said at one point she had her helmet visor screen up but felt no wind going about 50mph with a tail wind, which meant the winds gust were somewhere near that. What a ride!
We looked around at a few beaches but the price for a room was over $75 per night so we headed a bit further south until finding Playa Grande. The room was $50 a night but included AC and was one of the nicest hotels we have stayed in during the trip. The bed and pillows were made of butter! Arriving a bit late we took a quick dip in the swimming pool before heading out to catch the sunset. Playa Grande is a mile long crescent shaped beach located in the National Park Las Baulas, so there was little development on the beach front. Stepping onto the beach was like leaving civilization, except for all the tanned surfistas. Tomorrow we head back to Atenas to hang out with Dale and his family... and maybe catch the Seahawks game.