- Published:
Welcome to Costa Rica and the pearl of Central America. Rainforests, jungles, volcanoes, beautiful beaches, sloths, snakes and one wild motorcycle ride! Here’s our story…
This travel blog recounts our motorcycle adventure through Costa Rica as part of our round the world trip. To read more stories from our travels check out Our Adventures
Costa Rica Motorcycle Travel Blog
By Andy Davidson
Mad or Nomad: Round the World Motorcycle Traveller
Into the clouds
We can’t see through the wall of thick grey cloud ahead. Like a monster, it creeps forward laughing at our trembling headlights before swallowing the gravel track and then us… With sheer drops on this mountain road, it’s too risky to ride so we switch off and wait. Thunder rumbles in the distance and the clouds quickly part leaving a momentary escape tunnel in the road. We fire the bikes back up and plough through.
We crest the top of the pass as darkness takes over and the most intense lightning storm we’ve ever seen sends bolts of electric blue and white shocks across the sky.
We’re exhausted from the painfully slow Nicaraguan border crossing 100 miles ago, but determined to reach Monteverde and its mystical cloud forests without getting fried by lightning on our first night in Costa Rica.
Monteverde is famous for its magical cloud forests and stunning hiking trails through them. They’re rare ecosystems which are exactly as they sound – forests blanketed in clouds and mist. But they’re also home to thousands of plant species, birds, mammals and reptiles and walking through these national parks is a must if you’re in this neck of the woods.
You can also see the Continental Divide from the forest, although it’s covered in cloud – so we’re not quite sure why they put it there if you can’t actually see it.
Recommended hotel for Monteverde: Twin Palms Hostel
Flying to Fortuna
We’re eager to sink our teeth into Costa Rica – and keen to put distance between us and the Monteverde lightning storms, so we plot a squiggly off-road route to La Fortuna around a volcanic lake. The road pulls us up into wind turbine country. Rolling green hills stretch for miles and we ride stony country paths past farms and meadows. We stop at streams to let locals on horses pass (but really it’s so we can gauge how deep they are).
The hills soon flatten out as we reach the lake and the pretty paths turn into long stretches of fast flowing gravel. Over our right shoulder sits the Arenal volcano floating between a blue sky above and blue lake below. We pick up speed on our Honda CRFs and with every over the shoulder glance it feels like we’re flying.
We eventually roll past a sleepy little town tucked into the corner of the lake and spot a fiery glow. We slam on the brakes and spin around as you should never pass a wood fired pizza oven.
La Fortuna is a fantastic place to visit in Costa Rica. It has everything from wildlife to volcanoes and it feels like you’re in the heart of Costa Rica here.
We recommend staying at this hotel (linked below) as they also run sloth tours and night tours. In their restaurant (which is seriously good), hundreds of birds including toucans constantly fly in and out to eat.
+ Recommended accommodation: Hotel Arenal Xilopalo
+ Recommended tour in La Fortuna: Fortuna tours
La Fortuna
We make it to La Fortuna and treat ourselves to a swanky hotel, which is a waste of money as we ride out every day to go in search of wild sloths and photograph toucans. At night we wander through forests on wildlife tours searching for orange frogs while trying to avoid hairy spiders hiding on leaves.
There’s just too much to see and do here. Costa Rica is bursting with life and we need to catch our breath, so we decide to head towards San Jose to meet up with a friend who runs a motorcycle rental and tour company.
Here’s some fun things we learned about sloths:
- See how in a couple of the pics their fur is green? That’s moss, algae and insects. But sloths don’t smell (apparently) and don’t sweat so they can avoid detection.
- Sloths live in the trees and do everything up there – even giving birth in the trees (while upside down). The only time they go down to the forest floor is to use the bathroom once a week, and when they do, they expel a third of their bodyweight. That’s when they’re in most danger from predators.
- They’re seriously slow, but are three times faster in water (they swim using backstroke).
- You can see from our photos that there are two different types of sloth: two toed and three toed. Two toed have a more pig-like snout. And there are six species in total.
- They’ve been around for 65.5 million years, and their ancestors were gigantic 7ft tall monsters. Currently, their average lifespan is 20 years, but the oldest living sloth made it to 43.
Coffee break
Luis runs Go Ride Moto in Costa Rica, taking customers on tours and renting out his fleet of bikes. He kindly gets his mechanic to take a look at our CRFs and gives us the keys to his truck until the work is done. We swap two wheels for a heavy four and once the work is finished, Luis invites us to stay at his home in the mountains.
Luis’s family own and live on a working coffee plantation called Finca Las Mercedes. And our jaws drop when we turn up and are given a new set of keys to the ‘guest house’, which is one of the coolest places we’ve ever stayed. It was once the main family home, but Luis’s family now AirBnB it and live in another building on the farm. We light the fire, make dinner and sip coffee as clouds roll in and over the lush greenery surrounding us. In the morning we’re treated to an incredible breakfast and a tour of the coffee plantation.
We recommend visiting Luis’s place. You can Airbnb the guest house, or camp on his land which is perfectly set up for motorcycle travellers and only 10USD a night. There’s a bunkhouse too, which is included in the price and you can use the facilities in there: bathroom, sofas, tv, kitchen). And there’s beds you can stay in for an extra 5USD if the weather is bad.
Here’s the website: Finca Las Mercedes
Mist, mud and mountains
As hard as it is to leave, we load up our bikes with coffee and head back into the mountains for an off-road ride to the coast. We hit the start of the dirt trail an hour in at the exact time the heavens open. We almost forget to throw our waterproofs on because it’s hard to care about the weather when it’s this beautiful. Tropical rain beats down onto the forest floor and cakes our trail in mud. But the rain is warm, the tracks are now filled with addictive puddles, mist cakes the mountains and hot steam pours out of the canopies below us.
The CRFs are like kids begging to jump in every puddle and we can’t say no. Our wrists roll on the gas climbing up muddy hills against a flowing slurry of mud and we lock the rears as we slide down the other side. We lift our visors and laugh as we splash through. It’s not often rain puts a smile on your face – this country is special.
We chase the trail as it snakes downwards from the highlands. As we near the coast the rain clears, the forests turn into pretty palms and sea salt fills the air.
Manuel Antonio
Our Hondas take a break while we take a couple of kayaks into the wild mangroves. Sloths hang from trees scratching their bums as boa constrictors splay out over branches above our heads. We can’t get enough of this Costa Rican drug so we trek through Manuel Antonio’s incredible national park in search of more lizards, snakes, sloths and monkeys. Almost delirious from all the trekking and wildlife, we take some time out on Costa Rica’s beautiful beaches and cool off in the sea…
Manuel Antonio is our favourite because of the mangrove kayak tour and the national park which is absolutely superb. The amount of wildlife here and things to do makes this a really special place to visit and we highly recommend it.
+ Where to stay: Manuel Antonio hotels
+ Recommended tour: National Park
+ Recommended tour: Mangroves kayak
Drake Bay
We’re nearing Panama, but can’t resist one more detour. The rugged Osa Peninsula lies in the southwest of Costa Rica and its crown jewel is Corcovado – one of the most biologically intense places on earth. But to get there we need to take a long off-road ride to Drake Bay and then jump on a boat to the national park – perfect! We roll over miles of steep inclines and declines, the weather changes as often as the hills, but the route is empty and wild and we take our time exploring the region.
Covered in mud and dirt, we park the bikes again and climb aboard an early morning boat, spotting whales and dolphins as we approach the park. We spend our days photographing poisonous snakes, wild pigs, bats, tapirs, anteaters, pretty birds and endemic monkeys. We’re hooked.
Corcovado is an incredible place to visit in Costa Rica for its wildlife. But as mentioned above, it is a long off-road ride to get there. You’ll need to stay at Drake Bay and get a boat to the National Park. It’s not possible to visit the park without a guide. You can book this all from your hotel. We recommend staying at the below hotel as they can arrange the tour for you and the rooms have air con.
Recommended hotel: Hotel Casa Gitana
Coming back for more
Costa Rica easily makes it into our list of favourites. It’s seriously hard to pull ourselves away as there’s so much to see and do here. The wildlife, nature, routes and people make it an incredible place to ride a motorcycle and we could spend years exploring it. We’ll come back for more one day, but for now we need to move onto Panama to fly our bikes to Colombia to keep within the riding seasons for South America. We’ll miss you, Costa Rica. Pura vida…
Read more on motorcycle travel in Costa Rica
Thanks for checking out our Motorcycle Travel Blog Costa Rica. We hope you enjoyed it! Here’s a few more related articles on riding in Costa Rica and North America that we recommend you read next. You’ll find all the information you need to ride in Costa Rica as well as our favourite routes in the guides below.
Try these next…
If you enjoyed this Costa Rica motorcycle travel blog or have any questions, please post your comments below. We’d love to hear from you.
Every time I read one of your updates I get more and more jealous 😔. But don’t stop! It’s heroes like you guys that keep mere mortals like me dreaming. I’m too old for RTW but, once again, you’ve inspired me to plan a new European tour. All the best, Paddy.
Haha! Thanks Paddy! That’s kind of you to say! I’m glad you enjoyed the read.
And that’s brilliant to hear you’re planning a new European tour. What bike have you got, where are you thinking of heading to and for how long?
Cheers!
Andy
Hi Andy, I traded my 2018 Yamaha Tracer 900 GT for a new Tracer 9 GT+. It’s a true all rounder with the incredible CP3 engine and has everything I need from a bike. My plan is to see the Picos de Europa. I’ve ridden the Pyrenees from Bilbao to the Med a couple of times but now I fancy heading West. It’s a bit tame compared to S. America but I’ve heard the roads are sublime. I was thinking 3 weeks should cover it.
Cheers
Paddy
Hi Paddy, yeah, good shout, the Tracers are very nice bikes – very easy going, comfy and with enough poke to put a smile on your face.
Brilliant! Sounds like you’ve done quite a bit already over there already! The Picos will be an awesome trip though.
Haha not at all, we’d love a ride in Europe and we’re knackered over here haha!
3 weeks? Fantastic! Have a great time mate and please do report back on here how you got on 🙂
Cheers,
Andy
As a U S military brat, I was raised in Asia and the Middle East, and in 1966 after a couple of years in academia decided to join the Peace Corps. My assignment was Puerto Limón, Costa Rica where I taught at the Colegio de Limón 1966-1968. Living in a shack on the beach without electricity and under a mosquito net were not problems, My teacher’s salary of about $50.00 USD/month, only permitted buying absolute necessities. I quickly learned Limón English and Spanish, formed friendships with my colleagues, students and many locals.
There was no road to Puerto LImón, only a narrow gauge train taking seven hours to get to San Jose. I borrowed a horse for transportation, I cooked for myself in a fire pit or on a kerosene stove, ate with a family or at the Chinese restaurant and I fell in love with a beautiful woman from Limón.
After Peace Corp, I purchased a Honda motorcycle and rode the partially unpaved Pan-American Highway to Mexico City just in time for the Tlatelolco Massacre and the 1968 Olympic Games.
After Mexico City I rode on to Los Angeles and immediately wanted to return to Costa Rica. I gained much more from my Peace Corps service than I provided and today I am a permanent foreign resident of a beach town in Argentina. My advice to those considering a move to Costa Rica is that most of the problems experienced by expats in Costa Rica are problems they brought with them.
“No matter where you go, there you are.” Buckaroo Bonzai
Hi Ed, thanks for your comment, fascinating story and what a life!
y suggestion of avoiding people from the country you left, does not exclude foreigners visiting the country where you now live as an expat. My extensive participatory observation of various tour groups, including overland motorcycle tours, have indicated when a group of people from the same country together visit a foreign country, the amount of quality time with locals or foreigners from other countries diminishes exponentially. The idea of maintaining a support group populated by those of the country you left is generally less effective than having a support group populated by locals.
So what about friends and lovers. Having friends culturally different from you is perhaps the greatest benefit of the expat life. Even spending half your time with those from your own country inhibits language learning and cultural assimilation. Cross cultural mate to mate relationships, like all relationships, are extremely rewarding or a disaster depending on each mate’s ability to adapt and the surrounding environment.
My Costa Rican wife and I were the very first bi-racial couple on Chuck Barris’s Newlywed Game, broadcast nationally by CBS July 1969. We had the third bi-racial kiss on U S national TV behind Sammy Davis Jr and Brit Elkland and Capt Kirk and Lt O’hura of Star Trek, so I know a little about cross cultural relationships. Our relationship worked until we moved to a southern U S State and then it fell apart quickly. Just thought I would mention this. Today, I live in Argentina and I am happily married to a beautiful woman from Spain with a PhD who had her academic career in the United States. These are observations I wanted to share, your own judgments are more important than any rambling description of my past