Made it to Costa Rica!

Had a great flight into Costa Rica, upgraded to first class!  It was well worth it.  The bike arrived in great shape.  Put it all back together and did a test drive.  Works perfectly, what a relief...

Met several of the other riders.  They are a bit worried as day one is a tough day right out of the gate.  We start with a bit of a riders convoy for the first 10k (yes I am back into metric measurement again).  That is to navigate the city traffic of San Jose.  Then we start climbing.  There is over 2,000 meters of climbing in the first 30k.  At the riders meeting the leaders were stressing no harm in taking the van on day one when it is such a tough start. As we were coming in on the plane I looked at the lay of the land.  It does look like this could be hellish.  There is a main road that is too busy to travel on and then there are little bitty winding dirt roads as the only alternative.  And the terrain looks a wee bit foreboding.

Oh well back to the good...  we flew over Cuba as we crossed the Caribbean.  Saw some beautiful islands and atolls that were stunning.  The blues and greens and aquas and turquoise waters were just breathtaking.  Here are some photos from the plane...

This is just the beginning.  Stay tuned this is going to be quite the ride!