9 down, 3 to go.

The Vuelta is getting weird as all us riders are starting to act hungover 24/7. The dutch are starting to understand the guatemalans, the english canadians are starting to understand the french part of the team and the Russians are still hanging around the hotel surfing around on facebook all day. Not too sure why the Russians arn´t down on the beaches with the bikinis but I havn´t understood many of there decisions since they arrived.

After two crazy climbing days and an uphill time trial we were given a day of rest on the 24th to send out belated wish lists to Santa. I headed to the Canadian embassy to send mine as 3 of our packs were randomly selected for Santas anonymous and somebody took off with our pass ports. Guess I may be stuck down her a little longer after the race until Santa finds me with a new pass port. I am really sad about this as I may have to head down to the beaches to kill some time. After my embassy visit, Cody Canning and I headed down to the nearby town of Sant Ana for Christmas haircuts. They took close to 3 hrs and once they were done it was dark. Not quite what we had in mind for a rest day but we hopped on our bikes and pedalled 1 hr back to San Jose in the dark. The locals said we were gonna get mugged with our nice bikes as the city was dangerous at night. We were lucky and didn´t get mugged although I was questioning how ¨dangerous¨ it really was as kids were playing on the streets and and Chirstmas music filled the air.

Today was stage 9, the Presidents Circuit in the beach town of Jaco. Doing 10 laps of a 10 km course with bikini girls lining the streets was enough to get me off the back of the pack and into a 6 man break for the last 3 laps. I figured if there was ever a stage to win this would be the one but the only problem was that my legs dont´sprint so well as 8 hr bike touring days build more of a diesel engine then the croch rockets the Ticos are riding.

After the race we stopped at a river to see alligators. We couldn´t see them so well off the bridge so we pulled a Jon Nutbrown and went down to the river bank to get a closer look. Our photographer was getting some sweet shots of them but when the Guatemalan with us got a 12 ft stick and began poking one of the gators we decided it was time to go before someone got munched on. The scariest part of the day was the 2hr drive back to San Jose. We saw 6 vehicles with smoking engines on one of the steep climbs and witnessed numerous close accidents. I don´t understand why there aren´t more accidents in this country with the crazy highways and the even crazier drivers. I think Costa Rican´s would make the best rally car drivers ever.

Tommorow we climb a 50 km 2600 m climb. Not sure where were going but it sounds like a nice ride. It will probably hurt though with the Colombians setting the pace.

Merry Christmas!