Magic Carpet Ride (Nicoya! My favorite.)

On Thursday, March 9th, 2023, my riding buddy Robert and I enjoyed a delightful ride over to Nicoya. The skies threatened rain, but we went anyhow. Route 601 over to Tempisque bridge was as easy and peaceful as ever, as was the rest of the trip, since there was very little traffic.

Robert had never done the road from Carrillo to Coyote. I took him to Carrillo through Hojancha, which is one of my favorite routes to get to the area. I was glad I did. I really enjoyed all the easy curves. This is partly paved with potholes, partly now-smooth white gravel, and the rest is paved.

We road up above Carrillo to see the view from up there. Breathaking.

We then headed over to Islita beach and the Islita viewpoint, an obligatory stop on this route. 🙂

On our way to Coyote, we detoured into Corozalito beach. I had never been there before. I enjoyed the entrance, as I do most entranceways to beaches. Lovely!

We also quickly visited Playa San Miguel.

We had lunch at Soda Familiar in San Francisco de Coyote, dropped off our bags at Coyote Lodge, then headed over to Coyote beach, before heading over to Costa de Oro for drinks and the sunset. It had been a HOT and dusty day — fun and enjoyable, and overloaded with natural beauty. Having not slept well the night before, I was a bit pleasantly and happily worn out by the end of the day.

The next morning, I was delighted to be able to show Robert the route up to Los Angeles de los Perdidos and Bella Vista from Javillo. Yay!!!

It is such a great route with fabulous vistas, on a nice, easy asphalt/gravel road that winds its way around and on top of the mountains. Really beautiful. I highly recommend it.

For photos, here is a link to my blog post the first time I did this: Take to the Sky on a Natural High.

We then went over to Punta Piedra beach, which has a totally fun entrance on top of dikes along shrimp ponds.

I can’t describe how at ease and happy I felt being there. It was so quiet.

On our way home had a fun adventure taking an unknown shortcut towards La Palma.

First, my bike slid out from under me at one point, when I stopped on loose ground, to see what Robert had in mind since he had pulled over. We were glad this happened because it showed us that we could pick her up if needed. We did a U-turn having seen that the inclide downhill was way too loose.

We backtracked a bit, then continued to hopefully connect with the main road to La Palma. But, we had to do another U turn because the route narrowed and turned a bit tricky. At this point, a piece of barb wire got stuck between my front brake disk and back tire. Fortunately, we were able to get it off without trouble.

We found the main route to La Palma. For some reason, the first part had a lot of cars, which made was less fun because the road was narrow. Then, after a bit, no more cars and it was fine.

LOVED IT!! Wide fields, no cars, in golden, Nicoya beauty!

We had to do another U-turn as the little route sort of dead ended in a countryside cul-de-sac. LOL