Red Lightning's First Trip

The Purchase

The purchase of this bike was about as spontaneous as it gets. I arrived in Costa Rica having just left Modoc in Ecuador. I was planning on a small break from the boat as the count down to the Galapagos trip had almost begun, I knew I needed some time off the boat before that trip so I had a genius plan (or a plan that I thought was genius at the time).

I had been inspired by a Youtube called c90adventures, who had imported his Honda Club 90 from the UK into Alaska and ridden all the way from there to Argentina, without a great deal of planning. How hard could it be?

The plan was as follows:

• Purchase a motorbike upon my arrival to Costa Rica.
• Spend a few weeks exploring Costa Rica (as most of my time I had travelled directly to the boat in the Osa Peninsula).
• Take the bike from Costa Rica through Panama, Columbia and into Manta - Ecuador. Where the boat was, and where I would sell the motorbike having had the most incredible month of my life.

There were a few issues however, which were highlighted from the get-go.

• I didn’t know how to ride a motorbike.
• I didn’t know how to fix a motorbike.
• I didn’t know which motorbike I should purchase and what factors should even influence my decision.
• But possibly the most enormous hurdle that would have to be overcome was a stretch of jungle that spans the entire width of the Panama and Colombia border - The Darién Gap.

Aside from all of these complications, I was still rather passionate about my plan!

Firstly, I located the motorbike on Facebook marketplace for a price of ₡456,000 ($1000). Secondly, I had to ring my dad to ask what on earth I should be looking at to check this bike over before I purchased it. Which was conveniently 7pm for me, and 1am for him! He was not too chuffed.

After that debarkle I realised that I found a rather good bit of kit, which had only 1 previous owner who bought the bike from new and only used it for commuting. The seller agreed the price and after teaching me how to ride it (seeing as I had never ridden a manual before). We went over the bike, he slung me in a helmet for free and off I went! The dream was beginning to become a reality!

The First Leg

The first journey would not be a short one, but the fact that I had got this far already felt like a miracle.

I would set off from the centre of San Jose to Kinkajoungalows, where a friend of mine was waiting for my arrival. The predicted time was approximately 8 hours, and 372km. Light work for a bloke who learned to ride a motorbike yesterday! If I tried to explain this idea to anyone at this point they would have rightly talked me out of it, so I decided to not talk to anyone. That made most logical sense to me.

After finding a cheap hostel, which was so sketchy I had to roll my bike into my room for the night to be sure that it would even be there in the morning, I got a good night sleep before setting off at 0500 the next morning.

The first 5 hours went well, coasting down the beautiful Pacific Coast of Costa Rica in 25 degree heat. That changed when I started heading West into the Golfo Dulce. It all went a bit pear shaped. Roads turned from tarmac to mud and speedbumps turned to rivers.

After about two hours of bouncing over roots, passing through shallow rivers, and kicking the rear axel back into place as the nut had fallen off somewhere and that caused my rear wheel to keep falling off, I arrived at the Kinkajoungalows!

Left her parked under this Guanacaste Tree while my new axel nut arrived.