October 14, 1997 Fortuna, Costa Rica {Fortuna Hotel} October 15, 1997 Santa Ana, Costa Rica - {Hotel La Llama del Bosque} R80G/S 30079 R100GS 20980 We planned to leave this morning for San Jose area. On the North side of volcano Arenal there are the Tabacon hot springs. Two commercial hot springs have been set up that trap and channel the warm water. 4km up the road there is another separate hot spring feed that usually only the local go to. I really wanted to visit the hot springs before we left, and so I got up early to do this. Sharon was at the peak of a cold that I gave her and wanted to sleep in. At 7:00am, I hopped on my motorcycle wearing my bathing suit, Teva sandals, T-shirt and a helmet. Riding a BMW with sandals is a different experience since one's feet fit under the motorcycle cylinder heads. The tops of my feet got a little toasty. I drove to the opposite side of the volcano to where the natural non-commercial spring ran. The spring river has been dammed up with some logs and rocks which traps the water into a pool, with a four foot water fall over the logs. Being there so early, I had the spring to myself. While the warm bath temperature water felt nice flowing by me as I sat submerged up to my neck, the really cool thing was the surroundings. I was sitting in a warm spring river at the base of a volcano in a rain forest. I was surrounded by massive greenary of tropical plants with great leaves, vines from tall trees, ferns, and along the water edge moss that had built up on the dark volcanic rocks that formed the boundaries of the narrow river. Geckos came down to drink from the water, and I could see some small fish swimming in the warm spring. Steam rose from the surface of the water into the cooler air. Over head tropical birds sang and flew by, some along the path of the river. I climbed over the natural log dam, and the hot spring water fall felt like a natural warm jaccuzzi (sp?). It was wonderful privately enjoying the hot spring this early in the morning. When I returned, I had intended to change the transmission oil since it had been showing signs of water contamination when I checked in San Ramon. In my haste to take off soon, I accidentally removed the engine oil drain plug instead. Fortunately, the gas station two blocks up the road sold engine oil. I bought some Castrol synthetic blend for just a little more than the plain oil, and changed the engine oil in addition to the transmission only 1,000 miles premature. When we left, we refilled the bikes with gas. Due to the mountain riding I think, we haven't been getting good mileage. The R100GS got about 25mpg, while the R80GS got about 40mpg. Driving around 55mph, typically we should get around 40-45mpg for the R100GS, and 45-50mpg for the R80GS. Again we drove from Fortuna through La Tigra to San Ramon which was a very pleasant drive through mountainous green land crossing several bridges over pretty rivers, and by waterfalls along the road side. Up to San Ramon, there is little traffic along the curvy well paved roads as they connect little villages along the way. After San Ramon, we hopped on the PanAm highway which becomes a major suburbia highway as it approaches San Jose. We had heard many theft stories about San Jose, and so had some anxieties about going there. Doug Ruth who drove down here on his motorcycle, had his fanny pack containing money, passport, title, and other stuff swiped while sitting in a restaurant. A stranger had asked if some money on the floor belonged to him, and while he looked down, his fanny pack disappeared off the table without him realizing it until 20 minutes later. Jeff Coult, another traveller who came down on a motorcycle had his tank bag swiped while he was standing 20 feet from his bike near a gas station. He saw it happen as the thief disappeared into the traffic in a van. It contained his camera, passport, money, and other things. That ended his trip for him. Harry, the 72 year old traveller who lives on a boat in the Caribbean was telling us one time in San Jose he felt a hand in his pocket. He reached in, and pulled a woman's hand out who was grasping the toilet paper he kept there, A traveller in Fortuna told us second hand, how a man and a woman tico were walking arm in arm, the opposite direction in a narrow passage and bumped into the traveller. Soon after he realized that his wallet was missing. I've heard in the news that car jackings are becoming a new thing around San Jose. Hopefully this doesn't translate to an increase in motorcycle jackings too.. Apparently this is all new in the last couple years. Because of this, and traffic of a big city, we thought we might stay out in the suburbs, and just take a bus in to see the city. We had reason to visit Santa Ana (sometimes called Santana) since we had a package waiting for us. My mother had visited here two months earlier, and left some stuff for us that we weren't able to get before we left. This included a thermostat for one of the electric jacket liners that we likely won't need until we drive up in the Andes and Patagonia. Also, I wasn't able to get a carburetor jet for high altitude cruising for the R80G/S since I had forgotten until the last minute. We had some for the R100GS. I was able to pick up one in Austin at the BMW dealer, however the bike needs a pair. Both of these things were waiting for us at Owen and Monaca's place in Santa Ana. Owen and Monica are two Americans who have been in the education business the past 25 years in the states. Three years ago, Owen moved back to his home country to set up a private school. Monica, his American wife joined him 6 months ago. Currently they have 50 students and have their hands full running the grade school. They gave us a tour telling us about their education philosophy. We talked into the early evening about Costa Rica, difficulties of relocating, etc. Since it was dark, we opted for staying in Santa Ana, 20km West of San Jose. Their just happened to be a beautiful bed and breakfast place 8 blocks South of their school. We drove our motorcycles down there into the parking lot. As we hopped off the bikes, another car pulled in. The passenger took a look at our bikes, and said "Hi, nice bikes... You better lock those up good tonight". A few minutes later, a skinny young guy came over asking about the bikes, however he spoke a mile a minute, with a smattering of English. His speech out ran his thoughts, and he hopped on one leg to the other as he spoke. This guy who seemed like he was on speed was very friendly and asked us if we wanted him to watch our bikes all night. I thanked him, and declined. A half hour earlier, Owen was telling us how just recently they've been having a drug problem in Costa Rica due to all the drug trafficking coming from Colombia. I was wondering if this kid was a consumer. A couple days later I found out that his name was appropriately Hermes, and that he always acts like he's on speed talking and moving like he's in a Federal Express commercial. He assists the night watchman which sounds like a good job for one so wired. Our hotel La Llama del Bosque is an interesting place. It has the appearance of a once old beautiful home turned into a hotel. The entire hotel is surrounded by a beautiful wide covered stained hard wood floor porch. In the back is a restaurant bar built with walls of glass. inset in wood molding with hard wood floors. It's a very pretty place. Surrounding the hotel is an enclosed garden that when not in the rainy season would be nice to hang out in. The hotel is owned and run by an interesting guy who has owned it for the past two months. His name is Juan Carlos Monge. Juan Carlos is Costa Rican by birth, but spent his life in Switzerland. He is definitely Franco Swiss in culture. He appears to be in his late 20's, early 30's. He has a shaven head with goatee and a small chinese style queue and is usually well dressed. Although unusual in appearance he is gentle, laid back and always has an air of sincerity in conversation. He seems to know and value what he enjoys. He speaks fluent French, Spanish, English and some German and takes time to talk with his guests every morning. He has owned several hotel and restaurants in Costa Rica, one at a time. He started to build the Hotel Ojo de Azul that we stayed at in Brosolito. He owned one of the restaurant we stopped in there, and another hotel we stopped at for lunch in Brosolito. He's been buying, running and selling for a while upgrading each time. His current place which has an adjoining restaurant bar in an attractive atmosphere has been doing very well at night. He says too well to enjoy, and now he would like to scale it back since he prefers a more quiet enjoyable place than a lucrative loud hot spot. The next couple of days were so loud that we didn't get much sleep at night until after midnight. Food there was excellent. The mornings were nice sitting out on the hardwood porch overlooking the garden listening to nice music drinking good Costa Rican coffee that's hard to find in Costa Rica. The first morning Juan Carlos played Gregorian chants, the second pleasant opera highlights followed by a fusion of Indian chant to new age music. All very nice, very tasteful, and refreshingly different. October 16-17, 1997 Santa Ana, Costa Rica - {Hotel La Llama del Bosque} Our fanny packs have small clip on chains that secure the straps from being slashed and run off with. These chains clip the zippers which also secure them from quickly being unzipped. Also, the fanny pack release buckle is secured by another chain making it a much slower process to remove. When we're worried, we arrange the contents such that a razor slash from the bottom will not easily drop anything of great value. The whole point is to deter a thief from running off with our fanny packs. I keep my passport, title, and other important documents in one of my buttoned front right pocket. I secure this button with a safety pin such that the safety pin becomes a slide through the button hole puzzle taking longer to open and certainly detectable to the wearer of the pants, me. Sharon doesn't have such a pocket, so she puts a safety pin on the mouth of her front deep cargo pocket to prevent pickpocket access. All secured against pickpockets, we were ready to hop on the bus and go to San Jose. In my fanny pack, I carried everything I needed to exchange a little e-mail should we find a suitable phone. This includes the computer, acoustic coupler, power adapter, modem card, and extension cord. Our destination was the Panamanian embassy to get a visa. For land entries visas are required, and they can not be issued at the border. They are free, and take approximately 1.5 hours to get. Walking from the bus station to the Panamanian embassy, we were lured into a French cafe/patisserie/boulongerie (sp?)... not knowing at the time that the Panamanian embassy closes at 2:00pm, and we would have to return tomorrow to try again for a visa. Everything looked so wonderful at this French bakery that of course we had to return the next day. We sampled several of their pastries, a real French baguette, and their lunch of fillet of fish with potatoes topped with a chestnut mouse. Obviously this place was established and run by a relocated French baker. The quality of the goods would do well in Paris. We pigged out until our insulin levels and arteries said enough. On the first day after attempting the embassy, we stopped in at a restaurant across from the centro colone building. We were in the mood for a little snack. The choices we could see were KFC, Pizza Hut, and a place called Piazateria. We decided to go to the Piazateria restaurant. The windows were obscured, so I peeked my head in, long enough to notice the waiters were wearing tuxes and the clientele were mostly wearing suits. I took off my yellow reflective PVC rain slicker jacket that still had traces of volcano ash stains. Wiped the drips of rain water off my nose and eyebrows, and told Sharon we're in for a treat. They had a wide selection of wonderful Italian food at prices we hadn't seen since Cancun. However the wine list was nuts, charging 5-8 times the cost of what we pay back home. However the house wine was a good deal. Fudging our budget a little we had a wonderful meal. I had a penne pasta with a very spicy red sauce that went so well with the nice house chianti. Sharon had a fettuccini pasta with a red meat sauce that also went well with the house wine. Afterward, we found a public phone next to an electrical outlet which is no easy task. This is the first we found in two weeks of looking. We had no problems dialing back home. In 15 minutes of connect time, we downloaded 46 messages, and sent off 225k of journals. At $1.25 per minute, this cost us $19. The next day we sent off 22 messages and received 2 during a 10 minute connection. After searching Guatemala city, and finding out how difficult it is to find a decent tire, we had decided to look for a good front tire in San Jose. While it didn't need changing yet , the R100GS front tire was showing a lot of wear, It had approximately 4,000 miles on it before we left. We decided it would be wise to carry a spare. Fortunately, the front tires of both the R80G/S and R100GS are interchangeable, so a spare doubles for both. While Sharon worked on writing e-mail, I went searching for tires. Dunlop and Pirelli are the only quality name brands that appear to be available. The third place I stopped at called Moto Boutique, 1000 Sala Garbo 150 MTS Oeste, San Jose, was well stocked with Pirelli's. I picked up an MT80 90/90-21 for US$126 which is a bit steep. The rear compliment, an MT80RS, which I didn't buy sold for US$192. Expensive. I heard that Costa Rica has a hefty import tax, and then I paid 13% for sales tax. October 18, 1997 We took the bus into San Jose again, and went to the gold museum down town next to the national theater. The gold museum is a modern below ground museum that houses several museums including a numismatic (history of Costa Rican money), architecture of San Jose, and pre-Colombian gold museum. The museum is like entering a bank vault, in that at no time there is one out of sight of an alert security guard. I was required to leave my fanny pack in a locker. I passed through a metal detector, and then a hand metal detector that would put most airports to shame. The guards needed to see all metal objects that the detector picked up. I was required to leave my swiss army knife in the locker with my fanny pack at the entrance. Sharon who typically carries little excess junk, unlike me, in her pockets was allowed to pass after leaving her fanny pack behind. In the numismatic museum, they had a sample of each Costa Rican bank note used over the past hundred and fifty years on display. One interesting point was that at the bottom of many of the bills was printed "American Bank Note Co, New York". Apparently they were printed for the Costa Rican government by this company in New York. They were similar in style to US dollars except with color. Also, there was more than one bank producing bank notes at the same time around the turn of the century. I've never seen a museum like the architecture museum here. It appears that some people went around San Jose photographing every building or house over a hundred years old, and many interesting ones there after. The pictures are on display here. Many of the buildings have been recreated in small scale models. We passed through the vault doors, and entered the gold museum on the lowest level of the underground museum. On display are 22,000(?) troy ounces of pre-Colombian gold artifacts all nicely presented. On display too is how the gold and copper is mined and fabricated. Gold and copper was mixed together bringing the melting point of both down from around 1050 degrees Celsius to around 800 degrees Celsius. They showed how this was then later purified, and or copper was washed away using an acidic bath made from a particular type of plant. Gold was pounded into sheets and made into arm and head bands. Bird, animal, and humanoid like figurines were made from bees wax/clay molds. The culture of those times is considered more Olemac in style with influences of Mayan and Inca. Even to a layman like me, it's obviously quite different from the Mayan that we had seen further North. Apparently there was only one known minor Mayan settlement that reached as far South as Costa Rica. We really enjoyed the museum. We sat out on the cultural plaza in front of the national theater at the Grand Hotel of Costa Rica's outdoor cafe. I had a strawberry milk shake while Sharon had a lemonade. The cafe is an excellent place to people watch, and is mostly full of foreigners doing the same. There are all sorts of vendors about. We saw one tico woman displaying about as much flesh as was legally possible sit down with two American guys at the cafe, and then quickly dart off as her services were obviously rejected. A Canadian guy wearing a cowboy hat in a wheel chair rolled up to us and handed us a brochure, and began to tell us how he use to be an international gun trader and an alcoholic before he was saved by Christ. He thanked me for interrupting his story before he really got into it, and rolled over to another table to tell a solitary European woman his story for at least the next half hour. We walked around the area looking for a good place to eat. We had brought the wrong guide book, and were wandering blindly. After about an hour with no luck finding anything more appetizing we succumbed to a Pizza Hut. October 19, 1995 San Isidro de El General, Costa Rica {Cafe Restaurant, Hotel Chirripo} Rather than drive through San Jose on the Pan Am highway, we took the highway 39 bypass around the South of the city. It was difficult finding the correct turn off back on to CA2 which continues onto Panama, since the turn off wasn't marked from our direction. After turning around, we did see a small sign pointing to one of towns along the way of our destination. About a 100km from San Jose, the Inter-American highway reaches it's highest point at 10,520 feet as it passes by the Cerro de la Muerte (Mountain of Death). Because clouds float through the passes covering the road it can sometimes be very dangerous reducing visibility to only a few feet. Driving up, we had beautiful views of the valleys below. Clouds enshrouded distant mountain tops occasionally passing through passes. Some of these cloud passes intersected our path and we had to slow down to about 15mph to drive within our visibility. At one point we stopped to put on our jacket liners since we were getting chilled due to the altitude. I have a very memorable image from the scenic view point where we stopped. From the cliff we stood on, I could see the lush green valley below with the horizon broken by jagged mountain tops. Above these mountain tops white billowy clouds floated along a plane just above the mountain at seemingly an accelerated pace morphing in shape as they sped across. There was no sound other than the wind. We descended the mountains about as slowly as we ascended, down to San Isidro de El General which is at the same altitude as San Jose at 2200 feet. The temperature warmed up due to the sunshine and lower altitude. We parked in town next to the town square. While Sharon went off looking for a hotel, three men who sold lottery tickets took great interest in the bikes and our travels. While in Central America this is usual when driving into a small town with a big motorcycle, I was surprised at the level of interest since in Costa Rica large motorcycles are more common. I take these moments as opportunities to practice my Spanish, and get a feel for the locals. Sharon found a nice room to hang out in and rest. After we unpacked our stuff into our room, we went downstairs to the covered outdoor cafe to have some lunch. It's a nice roomy cafe with lots of seats, that overlook the town plaza and church. We had the set menu of the day, which we've found is a pretty typical menu throughout Costa Rica. Often it's a steak with cooked onions, rice, beans, fried plantain, and today it also came with some unknown vegetable dish that was easy for me to forget. Good food and plenty of it, however nothing special. All for 800 colones ($3.35). We sat towards the back of the outdoor cafe away from sidewalk which has become a usual habit as a way not to attract as much attention. This we learned back in Veracruz primarily because street peddlers go straight to the gringos constantly pestering to buy various wares. While eating, we noticed a woman sitting at one end of the cafe such that she didn't have much of a view of the outdoor park, but rather an excellent view of all of the tourists eating at this hotel cafe, and of the ATM which was at the other end of the cafe. She sat by herself drinking a coke wearing sunglasses dark enough such that it was impossible to see her eyes. Sharon noticed covert hand signals passing between her and a teenage kid walking along the sidewalk. A little later, I noticed more covert hand signals passing between her and another man who appeared to be loitering around the cafe. I could feel a little more adrenaline flowing as I scanned the diners and ATM clients wondering who the victim will be and how it's going to happen. The more I thought about it, the more I realized they've chosen an excellent scoping ground. She had positioned herself to size up people in the restaurant, hotel and ATM, with views of where they keep their wallets when they pay or get paid, and can easily signal her cronies which targets to go after. Our waiter seemed to be aware of what was going on. He went over to her talking to her tapping on his watch and shaking his head. I assumed he was harassing her for loitering. She countered by ordering another coke. Nothing happened while we finished up our lunch. Other than possible run by targets, I didn't see any obvious lucrative chumps. I gave her and another guy she had been signalling an awkwardly long gaze making it clear to them that we were aware of their presence. The guy all of a sudden seemed tired of loitering, and took off. We paid our bill, and then got up to leave. As we walked by her, I looked into her sunglasses which appeared to be looking off in the distance, smiled, and slowly mouthed "buenos tardes". She smiled and returned the greeting. Sharon took a nap since we didn't get much sleep from all the noise of the hotel we stayed at last night. I worked on my journal, and then sat on our balcony and smoked my Cuban Cohiba cigar. I bought this cigar in San Ramon a couple days ago at a gas station. I couldn't believe it at the time that this gas station just happened to have the premier Cuban cigar for sale. It came out of a beautiful sealed wood box. However, for 400 colones ($1.67) each, it was obviously not the real thing, and is probably one of the fakes they sell right out front of the Cohiba factory in Havana.. I decided at that price I'd give it a try anyway. It had a delicious rich smooth taste that I really enjoyed, however, it had the hardest draw of any cigar I've smoked. The tight cigar held a 2 inch ash. It was so hard to draw that I'm not sure I'd buy it again. We went to the movie theater and saw 'The Fifth Element', a futuristic movie with Bruce Willis. This had come out May 9th back home, however was just making it's appearance around here. It had been available on video when we were in Antigua, Guatemala. Wearing our shorts and T-shirt, I felt a little under dressed. For the 8:30pm showing, The entire crowd was either in their teens or twenties, and dressed up in nice casual dress. The movie played in English with Spanish subtitles. The quality of the film wasn't very good nor was the sound. By the end of the movie some people were clapping. As soon as the movie was over, they turned off the projector and turned on the lights before any of the end credits could play. The crowd was out in no time. October 20, 1997 Boquete, Panama {Pension Marilos} R80G/S 30273 R100GS 21165 The first 100km of the 200km road from San Isidro to the Panamanian border was awful. Parts of the road were under construction. Other huge sections changed from paved to gravel. It alternated 50 meters paved, 60 meters gravel, 30 meters paved, 20 meters gravel, 150 meters paved, 120 meters gravel. Continuously we were breathing stirred up dirt from the gravel roads. Empty pickup trucks would often fly by stirring up huge dust clouds. I thought of how the motorcycle air filters were likely caking up with dirt. At Paso Real the road turns West for ~30km following the river Rio Grande de Terraba. The road along the river is hot, nice, scenic, flat and curvy... excellent on a motorcycle. Sharon came across a bright green thin snake that matched the green tropical forest foliage in color and happened to be sunning itself on the road when it was rudely awaken by a two wheeled 1000cc humming red object approaching at high velocity. It's reptilian brain hadn't evolved quick enough to know how to strike at a 55 mph moving motorcycle. After feinting a strike, it's flight mechanism engaged, and it took off. Sharon, wearing her bad ass black leather Harley Davidson combat boots was well protected, and would likely have broken a fang should the snake been lucky enough to find the right place within range to strike. Sharon was oblivious to the whole encounter. The Costa Rican-Panamanian crossing was the quickest and easiest of all Central American borders we passed. On the Costa Rica side, they exit stamped the passport, and took the vehicle transit papers. No charge. We were done in less than 10 minutes. I exchanged the rest of my Costa Rican colones to Panamanian currency, which is US dollars, at an exchange rate of 240. When we had entered, buying colones we got an exchange of 239 to the dollar.. These exchange rates are so good they must be government regulated. The Panamanian side was quick and easy. At immigration, we received our free entrance stamp into our passports. At customs, the vehicle papers were drawn up for the posted price of $4.20 each. There was a $1 fumigation fee which paid for the spraying of the vehicle. We have 30 days in Panama. We drove to the town of David, and then North to Boquete passing several waterfalls and rivers. The 37km road was new and nicely paved. We were told that this is because the new president bought a house up there. nice driveway... It's a beautiful little village inset in a valley at an altitude that keeps the temperature fairly constant year round. While I waited by the motorcycles, Sharon checked out the hotel. She said it was nice, and told me it was 15.40 per night. Instinctively, I started to convert this in my head however faulting as I didn't remember what the exchange rate was. Then, duh, that would be US$15.40 since Panama uses US currency. A specialty of this area are milk shakes. Especially strawberry since strawberries are grown in the area. Every restaurant in town sells strawberry milk shakes. I ordered one with dinner. I could see that in the blender they poured a lot of fresh strawberries frozen just for the shakes, sugar, milk. The result was a delicious strawberry shake similar to a virgin strawberry dacqueri except without ice and many more strawberries. The Panamanian beer Panama is good malty hoppy stuff, the likes of which we've only had in Honduras of all of Central America. However, they serve it in tiny 9oz bottles and small cans. Atlas is an other brand of which I prefer Panama to. October 21, 1997 Boquete, Panama {Pension Marilos} It was so wonderful waking up here. We're in a nice homey cozy room with comfortable clean beds, nice sheets, under three blankets. The weather is cool such that three blankets are perfect for a comfortable night sleep. Our windows are open, and the continuous cool breezy air keeps the curtains constantly aloft. I can only hear the leaves rustling outside and the wind blowing. It feels like fall here, except all the vegetation is green. Decades old warm memories come back... Boquete is a beautiful Panamanian get away town inset in a valley between the dormant volcano Baru, and Mount Chorcha. The town is at an altitude of 3300 feet which keeps it cool relative to the surrounding coasts. Along the hills are numerous coffee plantations which roast and sell locally as well as abroad. For breakfast we went to nice little private resort hotel with a stream running through the restaurant garden area. We were the only one's there for breakfast and sat over looking the stream in a covered outdoor garden atmosphere. We had real _local_ coffee which was wonderful with our pancakes and orange juice. Good coffee has been hard to get since all the good local stuff in Central America is exported. For the past month I've been eating the local typical breakfast which consists of eggs, gallo pinto (mixed rice & beans), fried plantain, coffee and orange juice. It's delicious, cheap and filling. I really enjoy the gallo pinto with coffee. The fried plantain goes nicely too. Today's breakfast was an exception. Every restaurant in Nicaragua, and Costa Rica serves this. The afternoon we spent resting. I worked on my journal, while Sharon slept and read her on-line book "Emma" by Jane Austin. October 22, 1997 Boquete, Panama {Pension Marilos} We visited the local Ruiz coffee plantation where the brew master (roast master?) gave us a tour of the small plant. We saw the locals bring in sacks of just picked red/green coffee beans. The plantations buys the beans from local farmers at a rate of $7.25 per 30lbs. However by the time this pealed, dried, pealed again and roasted it weighs about 1.5 lbs. The brew master showed us his Italian made coffee roasters, and explained how they work roasting the once already pealed green coffee. Apparently all of the coffee is roasted for about twenty minutes. The different roasts (Italian, Vienna, dark, light, etc.) are just roasted at different temperatures. Since they also sell flavored coffees, he showed us how they add flavors. The roasted coffee may be ground, and then funnelled into their electronic bagging machines. After the tour we sampled some coffee, and picked up some of their premier grade coffee. We don't have a coffee maker on the bike, however, in Costa Rica, we saw a common coffee maker is just a cotton bag suspended between a small wood frame. Coffee grounds are put in the bag, and hot water is poured over it. We may look into getting one of these since they pack small, and we sure do appreciate hard to find good coffee. We met a traveller at our hotel today named Joel. Joel left San Diego, California in early June on a bicycle. He road 4,500 miles through Central America to get to where he is now on his touring bike. He said if he were to do it again, he would do it on a mountain bike and because of all the rain, equipped with a fender. Several years ago, he rode his bike across the US. We spent the rest of the afternoon trading traveller stories with Joel. He said that over the past four months of travel he was able to get by on an average of about $12 per day seriously putting us to shame as budget travellers. However he described some real dumps he stayed in, and the toll these dumps may have played on moral. His partner quit in San Jose. Later we went out for a late lunch to a Mexican restaurant. Joel hadn't had any of the milk shakes so common in this town, so we took him to the best place in town. While he had the wonderful strawberry shakes that we had already sampled three times, we had a peach milk shake and a raspberry milk shake each loaded with a generous helpings of freshly blended fruit. I'm going to miss these. ---- Dave Thompson thompson@pdnt.com www - http://sdg.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~mag/Thompson Net-Tamer V 1.09 Palm Top - Registered