I forgot to share these entertaining anecdotes before I got to the current day. Track back. Remember that Woody got a Honda fuel pump in the interim (while the replacements were somewhere en route). And if you're a gear head or monkey wrench kind of reader, you're going to really appreciate these details and creative fixes:
"while in monteverde we ran into 3 out of 5 guys from washington state whom are traveling on motorcycles as well. we first met this group in san jose a couple weeks ago. they are an interesting conglomeration and i am not sure how they have made it so far without killing one another, or at least separating. they started out january 30th with five guys ranging from 21 to 26. in mexico, the first of them cashed in and sold his bike to jarko, the fin. in mexico, jarko was a stranger. he has been riding with the original 4 ever since. also while in mexico, the new 5 met a 50 something man on a ktm adventurer traveling solo. this guy has ridden with them since as well, more entertained than anything, from what i understand. there are 4 kawasaki klr's and jarko is on a 600something suzuki something. so the 3 who were in monteverde, had met the owner of a hostel there, and this guy is a motorcycle enthusiast, along with his family and his friend. anyhow, we ended up leaving monteverde a day after they had, headed for playa samara, on the nicoya peninsula, to meet up with them for a couple days. playa samara is a smallish, relatively laid-back, surfing town. lots of tourists, of course. so we spent a couple of nights there, camping cheaply and walking the beaches. last wednesday it was, rachael and i went for a ride north up the coast, looking for something new. the roads were all dirt and fairly rough. it was a good ride, but hot. nosara is about 25 kilometers, or 45 minutes, from samara.
on the way back we were literally 100 yards from the tent when the fuel pump burned up. i took it out and it was really hot. this was the first time that i had really seen the pump the ktm mechanic had put in. it didn't have points like the old one, but it was fully electric. the "greenboard" was literally burned right up. i had had a few problems with minor flooding under certain circumstances, but otherwise it had been very good and i thought it would go for a long time. there was not fixing this for me. however, i had my old fuel pump with, and i went to work on it. i put it away that night at midnight, with some success. the material of the actual "points", of which i am not sure exactly what the material is, was completely gone on the bottom, leaving only metal, top had a touch left. the more time i spent on this pump, the more ridiculous the design appeared. basically because the the points were gone, the position of the loading spring was changed just enough so that it could not reset itself, thus causing the plunger to over rebound and "lock" the spring. if that makes sense. so i did what anyone would have done. i used my $18 butane soldering pen i bought from radio shack, and i soldered a "shim" onto the bottom plate where the point once was. then i zip-tied around the pump, the plate holding the new point, and the plunger, thus creating a "stop" for the plunger so that it could no longer over-rebound and lock out the spring. and it worked. it was good fun problem-solving this. so because of the zip-tie, the pump was no longer very waterproof. we headed out thursday morning for nosara, and further north to ostional, on the "backroad" where supposedly there would be no water crossings to potentially damage the pump. it was hot, steep, and rough, with little traffic. we drove for a good 3 hours with no problems, and i think that we were about 8 kilometers from nosara when the pump fried. i think it was because of the zip-tie. i didn't think about it at the time, because i was so excited that it was working, but the plunger was having to push against the zip-tie, which gives a little, causing the pump to strain. had i been able to fabricate a solid "stop", i may have gotten further. but the pump was fried. we (rachael, richard, me) were in the woods.
begin the good times. our first attempt at towing came last summer, when i ran out of gas by the state garage while practicing at the motorcycle test course with duane. we towed into super america with relatively little sweat, granted there was nothing on either of our bikes. now we are both loaded, and i with a passenger as well, on rough dirt roads with hills and big rocks. it took us close to 3 hours to make the 8 kilometers. richard tipped 5 times, all on hills, and we crossed 3 rivers. it was a blast. we made it to "playa guiones" just before the sun went down. while checking out for camp areas (and there were many, as there are no houses on the beach and no town nearby), we met "chainsaw". real name "ryan", from mission beach, san diego--he has been living in costa rica for a couple years, working on his tourism website business. he has long hair and an interestingly manicured beard, which was definitely not done with a chainsaw. he drives a 1971 toyota landcruiser, and lives in a house in the actual town of nosara, where there are no tourists. he immediately invited us to stay at his place, opening everything up to us. we towed into a secure place and rested. this guy chainsaw is strange in a different way. he started out in the screen printing industry as a teenager, building up fast and developing a name in california. he explained it all to us in pieces, which have been difficult to piece together. he and his business partner went to high school together, where they became known as the "regulators", as they "ran" some things. they had a few t-shirts printed with their name and logo. shortly after, with dozens of requests for t-shirts, the "regulator" name and brand went into the screen printing business (the logo is a skull with dreadlocks). this clothing company has since been put onto the "shelf", as "chainsaw", (he uses the 3rd person sometimes), refused to go big into the surf shops with his line, opting instead to keep it small and special. in fact, the only way you can buy from them is to meet one of "them", or someone who has, and get a password number to use on their website to order their clothing. we, of course, are going to be given the code, as we have befriended chainsaw. so this happened on thursday night.
rachael and i stayed at chainsaw's another night, then he turned us onto a friend who was moving into a house up the coast, in ostional. the "house" his friend is moving into is something special. wide open kitchen with concrete bar and countertop, artistically tiled bathroom, and two sleeping lofts. the entire bottom is open to the air, on a hill, overlooking the tiny town of ostional and the pacific ocean. his friend is paying $170 a month for this place. we slept on the beach and then stayed at the house the next night. yesterday, monday, we took the bus for 7 hours into san jose. it was a coach, and actually a rather enjoyable trip…richard is hopefully picking up the package as i am writing this, and tomorrow i will take a bus back to chainsaw's, and get the bike ready to drive."
And that is exactly what he did.
-- luludilly
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