The Costa Rica Coast to Coast Challenge Race
Tough navigation choices
Jacqueline Windh / 14.03.2007
Using a mixture of map navigation and just gut instinct, teams made their way to WP1, on a hilltop with a the communication tower. No roads were shown on the map leading to the tower, but three actually converged here – teams had to choose (or guess) which one would most likely take them towards the next WP, located about 5 km to the northwest across the valley.
Bones (USA) arrived first, looking tired from pushing their bikes up so many hills but still in generally good shape. They headed out on the road to the west. Dark Horse (USA) and Aditec ACB (CR) arrived nearly together, about 15 minutes later. Dark Horse also headed west, but after a bit of discussion Aditec turned around and headed back east along the road that they had come up. Gregg and I headed out on foot towards the west (with the benefit of a bit of navigational hints from the directory), to head down across the valley and back up to WP2, to see what teams we might see along the way.
We saw Dark Horse a little way along, choosing to go through a gate and take a small track northward, down the valley. Tracks showed that Bones had continued west here, and Gregg and I did the same. Racers were lucky with conditions – it was 2:00pm, but it had clouded over in the last hour and a light but steady cool rain was falling.
SleepMonsters
