Costa Rica – The Coast to Coast Adventure Begins

by Alan Cole · Tuesday, May 19th, 2026

I managed to sleep a little in the hotel in Quepos, but not much. Fortunately, I’m quite used to this and function pretty well on next to no sleep, so I felt fine. We started the day with a nice breakfast, and then I pfaffed about with my bike for a while as I’d brought my own SPD pedals and shoes, along with my own saddle.

Today was the day we started our Coast to Coast adventure across Costa Rica for real. It had felt like a long time coming. The travelling and the first couple of days in Costa Rica had seemed slightly drawn out, all leading to the sleepy little town of Quepos on the Pacific Coast. According to the itinerary, the plan for the day was a 19 km cycle with 350 m of elevation gain, followed by a 14 km hike with 1000 m of climbing and then a 700 m descent.

In the past, I’d have been confident not only of completing this sort of day, but probably of being one of the strongest in the group. That’s no longer something I can assume. I’m older, I’ve had a heart attack, and I can’t train the way I once did. With such a small group of four, there was nowhere to hide. In the end though, there was little point worrying about it. All I could do was get on the bike and see what happened.

MTBing into the Naranjo Valley

With doubts about my ability these days, my plan was simply to take things steadily, so that’s exactly what I did. I pedalled along with virtually no effort, just gently turning the pedals. Thankfully, the pace was comfortable, and I was keeping up without any issues, although I was soon sweating heavily in the heat.

We stopped at a shop for some supplies and then continued along the road for a while before heading off onto forest tracks. I couldn’t really tell how much effort the others were putting in, but I was having no problems keeping up, and everything was feeling surprisingly manageable so far. The pedal-and-shoe combination that I had been worried about was fine too, and the scenery we were cycling through was amazing as the rainforest closed in around us.

After almost 12 miles (19 km, as promised), we descended to some buildings where Memo, our support driver, had set up a table loaded with food. We had a second, larger breakfast there and made packed lunches for later in the day. There was ham, cheese, delicious tomatoes, peanut butter, jam, bread, various biscuits and nut snacks, along with a selection of fresh fruits and juices. Perfect — and there was loads of it too.

The first MTB section had been fine:

Waterfalls

There was also a little track leading down to a waterfall that tumbled into the Rio Naranjo. At the base of the waterfall, tucked beside the wilder Naranjo River, was a lovely pool. I wasted no time getting into my swimming kit and jumping in for a cooling dip. It was refreshing but not at all cold, and sitting beneath the waterfall provided a surprisingly good shoulder massage.

We sat there in the pool for a while under the hot sunshine, but we couldn’t stay all day as we still had a long 14 km hike ahead of us. The swim and second breakfast had revived us nicely, but the hottest and hardest part of the day was still to come.

I climbed back up the track, and we all dried off and changed into our hiking kit. The bikes were loaded onto the trailer, and Memo would drive them to our camp, where we’d meet him later in the day.

Suitably nourished and refreshed, we set off once again, this time on foot along rainforest trails.

Hike to Naranjillo

The sun was now higher in the sky, and the temperatures were rising fast. The humidity of the rainforest was closing in too, and I was soon drenched in sweat. Once again, the pace was relaxed as we strolled along forest trails. We were climbing most of the time, occasionally tackling slightly steeper sections, but much of it followed gentle gradients as we passed small waterfalls, crossed streams, and took in the increasingly impressive scenery.

Views through the trees revealed steep-sided, forest-covered mountains stretching as far as the eye could see. We crossed numerous trails of leaf-cutter ants and passed plants stripped bare by them. There were impressive tropical plants everywhere, many of which we try to grow in the UK as houseplants — only here they were positively thriving and five times the size.

And then it started raining — and when I say raining, I mean it! We were soaked through within seconds, and it just kept coming down. Soon everything was drenched. Even the inside of my rucksack was gradually filling with water. There was nowhere to shelter, so we just kept plodding along.

Eventually, at an elevation of just over 1000 m — a little higher than the highest point in Wales — and with the rain still torrential, we started descending towards a small village amid coffee plantations in the Naranjillo Valley.

My knee started to hurt on the descent, as did my piriformis, and once at camp my back began to seize up as well. Getting old is no fun. Ibuprofen seemed to help though, as we made camp under a barn-like structure beside a football pitch.

The promised distances and elevation gain had been pretty much spot on.

Camping

Memo and Doty cooked dinner in the kitchen of an adjoining building, and we even had the luxury of cold showers and flushing toilets. It was camping, but under cover and with decent facilities. Considering it was still hammering down outside, the shelter was definitely appreciated.

We had some lovely snacks when we first arrived at camp. The pace had felt very relaxed to me, but Doty said we had been fast and had arrived around 90 minutes earlier than expected. Maybe everyone else hadn’t been taking it quite so easy after all. Or perhaps the small group simply meant we were more efficient during stops and photo opportunities.

After a delicious dinner, we started getting things ready to do it all over again the next day. The first priority was trying to dry some of our kit out.

Memo lived in the village, so he got a night in his own bed while the rest of us settled into our tents. It was far from quiet though, with rain hammering on the roof, the river rushing nearby, and crickets, cicadas, and frogs creating a deafening racket from the surrounding forest. Tomorrow would take us deeper into the mountains and further from the Pacific Coast, but for now I was just happy to have made it through the first day feeling stronger than expected.