This post recounts a weeklong bikepacking trip in Costa Rica from Feb 21 thru 28th, 2026. The route roughly followed the Gira de Costa loop 2, which is 300 miles and change.

Day 0, Hotel Primavera, beef rib dinner

I got off the airplane into the warm evening air around 7pm, and it was already dark. After a short line through immigration and collecting my bike box, I got a cab into Liberia. I met up with Xavier at the hotel and we went across the street to get dinner. There were lots of kids playing outside in the town square. Seeing so many kids in public feels almost anachronistic to me.

I had a plate of beef ribs with rice and beans and plantains, a very standard arrangement for Costa Rica. The beef ribs were very heavy and fatty and probably not a great idea given what we were getting into, but they were tasty.

I built my bike up and we went to sleep.

Day 1 Liberia a San Jorge

In the morning we got our bikes packed and went out looking for some breakfast. I'm not a big breakfast person, especially if I'm going riding, I prefer to just eat on the bike. But as I discovered, Xavier eats a lot. Nothing was open because it was Sunday, so we just grabbed some snacks from the grocery store, loaded the bikes, and took off. A German girl travelling with her mom took a photo of us before departure. You really can't go anywhere without finding a German.

Given the packing and breakfast delays, we were a little late on the road, rolling around 9:30. It was already hot, around 90F and full sun. We got maybe an hour of riding done before I started to really feel it. The route took us through these bowl-shaped lavabed roads that felt like ovens. I knew the heat acclimation was going to suck, and luckily by the second day I was mostly over it.

Our original plan was to follow the full route, which would take us north around the backside of the volcano. Given our (lack of) progress, we decided to cut across the south side of the volcano, which allowed us to take a more leisurely first day. This included: one river swim, one leisurely lunch, one waterfall hike and swim, and a singletrack detour. Xavier flatted on the singletrack, he really gashed the sidewall so we had to throw a tube and a boot on it.

We ended up at a pretty nice place called the Rinconcito lodge in San Jorge, which is a place on the map but not really a town. There was a hammock balcony, beers and cokes in the minifridge, and an attached restaurant.

It was a short day, probably around 30 miles.

Xavi hitting some volcanic flow

Cooling down

More cooling down

Flat city

Sick rainbow

Day 2 San Jorge a Cañas

Leaving the hotel was hard because it was quite nice. We rolled thru the foothills and saw a lot of windmills. Xavi flatted again on a big gravel descent, cut the casing in a couple places. After some unsuccessful plugs, I managed to stick a 2.0 tube into the 40mm tire using sunscreen as lube. This got us down to Guayabo where we found a nice shop that swapped some new Maxxis tires onto his bike with fresh sealant. After that we blasted down via 164 with a monster tailwind. I saw 47mph on the GPS, loaded on 2.2 XC treads.

Near the bottom we turned off onto a cool lavabed road, which then dropped us into Bagaces. We stopped for a light lunch and coffee, then continued on down to Bebedero, a tiny village in the farmland. The road there was very flat and hot and dusty. The whole experience reminded me a lot of the central valley. There was nowhere to stay in Bebedero, and nowhere to eat either, so we decided to cut north to Cañas. This was only ten miles off the route, but with a brutal headwind on a busy two-lane road. By the time we pushed into Cañas we were beat. Luckily we found an amazing restaurant — I think I got a fried fish plate, and we both had mango milkshakes as well.

Lil truck

More volcanic flow

Dinner on the Cañas town square (also yes Xavi did this ride in road shoes)

Day 3 Cañas a Hojancha

We had a tailwind in the morning out of Cañas. Fast gravel farm roads riding south, practically flying.

We met fellow bikepackers Zeke and Eric in Colorado, they're from San Jose and Redwood City. Rolled out of there through a very dusty limestone road downwind of a cement quarry. Stopped at a soda by the entrance for a Coke, it was hot as hell and I needed the sugar. A bit more rolling gravel till we hit a main road and eventually landed at another soda. Killed a couple hours there waiting out the heat. It was just us and the waitress, who seemed high school age. We chatted with her in our poor Spanish about her life there.

We rolled on thru more rancho country till we started the climb up to Hojancha, which was very steep and fairly long at 1400'. The sun was behind the ridge and it was getting cooler as we climbed which made it easier. Took a while to find a hotel but eventually found one right on the town square which was quite nice. It was adjacent to an excellent restaurant. Biggest day at around 60mi.

Hojancha was really a beautiful town, reminded me a lot of the highlands in the California coast ranges. Think inland Mendocino county, or the central coast. Lots of coffee plantations.

Farm road

A rancho

Chill guy

Day 4 Hojancha a Nosara

Got started late out of Hojancha after a big breakfast at the restaurant. Got my chain lubed at the local moto shop. Then it was some hot and dusty climbing out of the valley to about 2k feet. The final climb was grooved concrete slab, very steep. The descent was dusty and fast, then became rolling pavement down to a river and then up the hill to Puerto Carillo, which has a very large and nice beach planted with palms for shade. I ate a skewer and some ceviche from a cooler, drank a coconut.

We got back on the bike after some swimming and did another 20mi maybe down to Nosara. We ended up in a very expensive hostel, which was still cheaper than the other options. Nosara is a ritzy beach bum resort town, lots of yoga and acai bowls and such. Ended up being a pretty chill night, but also the most expensive. Probably wouldn't stop there again.

Steeeep

California?

Made it

Beach wheeliez

Day 5 Nosara a Tamarindo

This day was pretty chill. We did some fairly easy but pitchy miles and eventually met up with a couple more bikepackers. These were more the crusty wanderer types, they were here for five weeks or so and taking their time. We got lunch at a small surf resort near Marbella. It took a while but was good — pan fried fish casado. After that we spent an hour or two at the beach and then took a back way out to the route, which eventually ended up in us needing to drag our bikes under a large gate.

From there the route became much busier as we approached Tamarindo. Coupled with the dust it was very unpleasant. The route actually cuts inland rather aggressively before Tamarindo, likely because of this. But we wanted to check out Tamarindo, so I stopped and found a little backroad that looked like it would drop us straight into town. It ended up being more of a horsetrail but was plenty rideable, and we even got to see a monkey family at the end.

We rolled in and stopped for a couple cold ones at a Mediterranean restaurant on the main drag. The host was a Tico high schooler with great English who we talked with for a bit. He gave us some club recommendations. We found a hotel, got cleaned up, and came back there for dinner, which was good (chicken shawarma platter). Checked out the beach a bit in the dark and then went back to the room, we were too gassed to go out again.

Found horsetrail

Retvrn to Monke

Day 6 Tamarindo a Liberia

This was the hardest day, partly due to the route and partly due to our legs starting to break down a bit after 5 days with no rest. The route I picked out of Tamarindo actually wasn't terrible. It was mostly paved but busy and very hot. At one point the road we were on became a washed out river bed (this is common) and we ended up at some guy's shack. Luckily he was nice and let us pass through onto some singletrack that led us up and out onto a farm road. From there it was a bit more pavement until the climb up and down into Las Catalinas.

Las Catalinas is a strange little resort tucked into a rugged hillside. I'd say it's actually not a very nice location, but it's very private and as such gives an air of exclusivity. It's built up to look like a southern European town, with three or four story plaster buildings and a sort of meandering street layout. The food is all very expensive but good. The beach was probably the least nice overall — not much sand or shade, and lots of annoying flies. The accommodations look expensive and I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

The climb out was truly awful — a steep road of deep dust cutting straight up a 30% grade. It was a walker for sure. To be fair to the route, there is some managed singletrack that we were supposed to take, but we opted for the shortest route. The singletrack only cut off half the climb anyway. By the time we got up to the top we were pretty cooked, and the descent back down was crazy steep as well. First time on the trip I had to put two fingers on my brakes, which thankfully experienced no fade. Once down we were on a paved service road which climbed up and over another ridge. This sucked as well. A bit after the top we rode by a BBQ shack on the side of the road and decided to stop for a coke. We still had over twenty miles to do but the two climbs had gassed us so bad we needed a break. We ended up getting these incredible choripans. They were kinda massive but it was delicious and the rest of the day was mostly fast flat pavement anyway. From there we pacelined to Guardia, where the traffic became so bad we were sucking diesel fumes and riding in twelve inches of shoulder. We did that for ten miles all the way to Liberia.

We made it into the hotel at dusk and had some batidos and dinner on the street. There was a festival going on in the town square, with a band and dancing.

Bangin' choripan

Day 7 leaving

Xavier went to get his car after breakfast and discovered it'd been burglarized. They took the stereo and speakers, which sucks, but the real problem is they took the battery too, and cut the positive and ground leads. It actually took me a minute to figure that out, because they cut enough of the wiring harness I suspected they might have messed up part of the ignition circuit. Luckily he found a tow quickly and I got a cab to the airport.

I sat on the ground in the airport for a while since I was so early that the Alaska Airlines check-in staff wasn't there yet. It was hot, and it was the first time I'd heard so much English (mostly Texan) in a week. It was strange.

In all a great week and a great ride. I'd go back and do it again, but I'd allot more time for rest days. I think it'd be a great country to do on a motorcycle too, you could fit a lot more miles in and have more routing options.