Theme for today was ride to Burger King to avoid the heat.

Had a nice relaxing rest day in Granada.

There is a chocolate factory which does tours and also has a nice all you can eat breakfast buffet.

Historic looking buildings, a nice open square with statues.

During the afternoon it was hot. Hot enough that we mostly relaxed in shade of the hostel. Also came to the conclusion that it would be best to try leaving early next morning to beat some of the heat as well as the Papagayo winds.

Set the alarm for 5am with plans to be on the road by 6am. Sometimes when we cycle we’ll have a rendezvous location so can travel independently and meet at that spot if not before. For today, previous blogs had suggested that the Burger King in Rivas was nicely air conditioned, so cycled with that in mind.

There was a gentle climb along side of a volcano before downhills to the main Pan American highway at 21km. It was still nice and cool until the junction. After this point we started getting cross winds, though nothing too bad.

These cows were starting to seek shade.

Windmill was turning.

However, overall was better than I had expected.

Stopped briefly at 42km at this bar and restaurant. I ordered a pepsi. They must have misunderstood that I was happy to drink it there since they poured it into a small plastic bag as if “to go”. However, I drunk the bag from a straw and relaxed in shade of their restaurant.

The road was moderately busy as we neared Rivas, though traffic generally allowed good room.

By 11:15am, my main goal had been reached. It was nice to get 70km all done in the morning and before it became very warm. Waited here until David arrived and then we found a hotel. This time our conditions included air conditioning and fortunately nice a cool.

General plan is to cross into Costa Rica tomorrow, hopefully again going early to avoid some of the heat and wind.