Merry X Mas

Merry Christmas to all. My Christmas wish is for none of you to ever drink the tap water in a costal town in Costa Rica. After travelling for over a month in Panama where the tap water is ok to drink I arrived to the beach town of Dominical in Costa Rica on the 22nd and kept drinking the tap water until on the 24th I took the time to look at the water I was drinking and it was full of black floating particles and some other UFO´s (unidentifed floating objects). For Christmas eve and all night I practiced running between my bed and the toilet. Christmas Day was spent in a hammock eating yogurt. Boxing day I woke up feeling much better so I headed for the waves only to come back 2 hours later beat up and probably feeling worse then the previous 2 days as I learned 12 ft waves are lot funner to look at then to play around in. Paddling out through these waves is a task on its own and when you end up on top of one of them, looking down at the sea below you before being pile drived into the bottom I gurantee your heart will skip a beat. After a few surf outings this trip I am starting to think it might be the ultimate cross training for mountain bike racing as it is great excercise for your upper body and it works on your balance and core strength. The layed back relaxed atomosphere is also pretty chill. More then anything though I figure its the perfect way to practice crashing uncontrollably. I think that after getting tossed around in the ocean with a surfboard tide to your leg that crashing on a bike is pretty tame as once you crash thats it, you dont have wave after wave pounding on top of you reminding you that your hurt and a surf board bouncing off your head. Crashing also makes you more flexible and bend in ways you never though possible. After a few days of this I had enough and road up to Quepos and world famous Manual Antonio National Park to meet my good tico friend Ronald who rode from his home in Sant Ana. Arriving in late afternoon was pretty scenic to see the cars lined up along the rode for over a mile and the beach jam packed full of tourists and vactioning Ticos. The national park has 5km of hiking trails through virgin jungle clinging to the cliffs overhanging the ocean and is full of monkeys and other crazy animals. We were up at 5:30am today to beat the rush into the park and we sccidently walked in the exit and had the park to ourselves for over an hour before the tourists hoards arrived at the park opening time of 7. We met a ranger at around 6:55 am who was a little moody and wanted to deport us out of the park but after some negotiations I think we confused him as I spoke in english and Ronald joked around with him in spanish and he decided to let us continue on our journey through the park. After a quick bite to eat it was on the bikes were we are now headed north towards his parents beach home near Orotina.