What led to this day getting a bit of a blemish was the last minute decision to traverse the route to San Jose through Valle Parrita, rather than our previously planned route via Jaco on the hardtop. Valle Parrita is gorgeous, but better suited for the dryer season in January through April (when we had talked about doing this before). The area had been the highlight of the Costa Rican news for days, as the effects of flooding and landslides were still being cleaned up. We hit our snag in a patch of fog on a descending patch of road covered in wet red clay. We had been spaced out pretty good on the dirt, but in the rain and fogging up of glasses and helmet shield I was losing my ability to see the road conditions ahead and I closed the gap between myself and Gordo so I could follow a better track. He didn't keep his speed down enough and when he hit the clay he started to wash out and likely panic braked rather than letting his feet help him slide upright through it. He went down hard and his bike sprawled across most of the one lane road. I picked going to the right and rode a ditch out around and a few meters past him, then somewhere in all the excitement I mismanaged the throttle and was unable to stay upright much longer than that (I can't remember if I was trying to power out of the ditch or slowing for a place to stop). Andy had no choice but the small left edge and rode it out pretty impressively to an appropriate place to pull off the road about 25 meters down the grade.

My damage was limited to staining the left handgrip with red clay (laugh, but it does take a bit of effort to clean off) and pealing off the outermost rubber ring on the shifter. My foot landed backwards in the mud under the swing arm. I wasn't under it long enough to notice whether my knee pads helped at all, but no doubt the heavy motocross boots paid for themselves. I thought about pulling myself out from under the bike, but with no apparent injuries I decided to wait for Andy to leverage the back up a bit before yanking my leg the wrong way or losing more footwear in the mud (see flip-flops). I got my bike started and out of the ditch under power (why not before?) and power walked it down to where Andy had parked. 

I walked back up to help Andy get Gordo's bike righted and out of the way. After a few minutes it was obvious that Gordo's day of riding was over. A local couple passing by in a pick-up offered to haul the bike back to San Jose. Gordo had a difficult time standing so we sent for an ambulance to bring him to the local clinic. We met him at the clinic where they soon decided to send him on to San Jose for X-rays and tests. Assured he was in the best hands, we concentrated on getting back safely to San Jose.

Continuing on in the rain and mud, I was very pleased with what I was learning to do on the bike on this leg of the trip, but my vision in the downpour was horrible. In the efforts to get the bike righted and into the truck (what ramp?), I had gotten a bit toasty in the rain gear. I then had to keep my ever fogging helmet shield up too much to keep my glasses dry. I was having to stop every ten minutes or so to shake or wipe water drops off the glasses. I am definitely going to look into getting contact lenses for this kind of activity.

The weather broke as we crossed the ridge to Santiago, conveniently as we hit the hardtop again. The road was clean and the curves were engineered (not just some lazy old farm road asphalted over). We took a good section of road at quite a clip, leaning over far enough to drag our boots on a few tight curves.

We met up with Gordo's bike back in San Jose and Andy had to insist that the guy take some money for hauling it down there. Hard to believe the incredible hospitality of some people. 

140+ Km for the day.