Dear friends of Ann and Kent Moriarty:
They sent this note on Thursday 21 May 1998.
Hi family and friends!
Thank you to all who wrote messages -- whew! Took us over an hour to read them all! And looks like we won't have time to respond to all of them right now, but hope to hook up again in Panamá.
We are in San José, Costa Rica, after some grueling hot rides. Kind of cool: Every night we have been staying with different people, either who picked us up off the street or sent us on to someone else. What an awesome thing! We feel very taken care of.
We look to leave Friday or Saturday for Panamá but first have to climb this massive mountain to be able to coast down the other side. Sheesh! Not that we are sick of climbing or anything.... We're still varying highly in the amount of mileage we do, anywhere from 40 to 70 miles, depending. So we're going slowly but enjoying our time.
Kent has got this mystery rash that we think was initiated by ant bite he received in Honduras -- pretty scary to see little rashes appearing all over your body! So we went to the doctor yesterday and hope the medication works. I am dying from a lousy cold. You know, one of those that no one knows you're sick but you feel like crap, right? So my muscles are sorry ole things! Listen to us whine!
We are in pretty regular contact with other cyclists doing the same route, even met some friends crossing the border into Costa Rica and rode with them for a couple of days. Hopefully that will happen again. We are all hoping to gang up to ride through Peru together! See what happens.
What else? Pray for our decision about Colombia. The folks are all pretty worried and we don't want to make any dumb decisions, but feel pretty okay about it right now. We'll keep looking for up to date info to make our final decision. We will fly or boat past the Darién Gap anyway. (I don't want to get seasick, so I'll be opting for the plane! Also, we have heard a story or two about sinking boats -- great!)
Anyway, got to catch the bus -- thanks again for all your communication -- we miss you very much and really look forward to reading everything you send.
Love, Ann and Kent