Warnings Instead of Tickets: A Lucky Day on Costa Rica’s Coast

Day 31 Pines 2 Patagonia log

Puntarenas, Costa Rica

to

Paso Canoa, Costa Rica

We departed Puntarenas early knowing we had a better chance of staying cool and hoping to beat the morning traffic. It was cooler however the seemingly endless construction zones kept stopping us from making forward progress. It would have been much worse if we were in a car.

The bikes are “allowed” to filter through and around traffic so at each new zone, we would work our way to the front with all of the other motorcycles.

After a few of these work zone delays we decided to pull off the road and take a swim in the ocean. The beach we stopped at was beautiful and we all enjoyed watching the paragliders landing, but the rocks and beach were not the best for swimming so we decided to try again down the road. We found a nice National Park Beach that we pulled into and got in the water. It was a beautiful spot with far fewer people, nicer beach and some cool wildlife around.

Feeling rejuvenated we saddled up and headed south. Admittedly a little rowdy now and making good time we took the path of least resistance at each opportunity. This was great until Keeb and Red came around a descending set of S-turns and passed a few vehicles in a no passing lane… with a police van watching us at the bottom of the hill. We were all flagged over to the side of the road and instructed to shut the bikes off and provide identification.

As Keeb was talking to the officer he learned what we were accused of doing and that the fine would be $400 USD each.

After 7-8 minutes of the officer attempting to input our international info into his system he gave up. It wasn’t working and he informed us we were getting a warning. Excellent 🙏

From there we played by the rules for the rest of the day and made it to our destination, a small border town called Paso Canoas. After getting checked in by our gracious hosts, we walked to the store a 1/2 mile away for some water and provisions.