Pura Vida in Costa Rica

Here we are in San Jose, killing time and waiting for a boat to take us to South America. We’ve sent a bunch of e-mails to shipping companies, and received several negative responses, but are waiting to hear from 3 companies that said they thought they could probably send us and would let us know how much, and when. Fingers crossed!!

In the meantime, we’re getting the van ready to be shipped. Douglas built a wooden partition that separates the front of the van from the back, which will hopefully keep our stuff from getting stolen in transit. We’re hoping to ship it via RoRo, or roll-on, roll-off, which entails giving our keys to the port guy, who then drives the van on and off the boat. This means that the van will probably be unlocked while it voyages across the ocean, and it’s very common for things to mysteriously disappear from the van. Hopefully the wooden partition will prevent that.



Building it was a bit of an adventure. There’s no Home Depot in Costa Rica, but there was a hardware store, with wood, just a few blocks from our hostel. We got directions from the door guard – he told us not to walk directly to the store, but walk down to Avenida Central, over several blocks, and then back up to the same street, because there was a bad section between us and the hardware store. We did as he suggested, buying some avocados and green mangoes from street vendors along the way (side note – the green mangoes are very small and hard – unripe – and they are delicious!! They’re really tangy, and cut into small pieces, with salt and lemon, they make a wonderful salad). The vendors were very nice and insisted on picking out perfectly ripe fruit, asking when we were going to eat them, today or tomorrow. The hardware store was small, with wires strung across the ceiling so they could hang everything that wouldn’t fit on the shelves – extension cords, hammers, whatever. The wood was kept around the corner, in a separate location. We picked out our wood, in 4 meter sections, 5 pieces, and then carried it back to the hostel, getting lots of strange looks along the way.

Our hostel was kind of peculiar, filled with 20-something backpackers who seemed to do nothing but sit by the pool (even though the pool was closely surrounded by high concrete walls topped with razor wire, not so scenic) and drink. No one would talk to us – I’m sure we were ‘the weirdos in the van’! 8)
We’ve made a couple of side trips, to escape from the city. We went up to Volcan Barva, where we camped near the ranger station and hiked in the woods. It was absolutely heaven up there, cool and misty with great views, giant plants, and hummingbirds the size of my thumb. We saw all sorts of excellent plants, and came back to San Jose feeling very refreshed, ready to deal with the shippers again.



We also spent a night in Palo Verde, tons and tons of birds!


The city has been good for getting things done, though. It’s an interesting mix of Central America and America, with lots of American franchises and fancy cars, mixed with Latina fashion and fresh mangoes. Tonight we went to a movie (as a post-dentist pick-me-up, more on that in a second) out at a multiplex, and we could have been in a mall in Anytown, America. Cinnabon, McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Timberland shoe store, Benetton, you name it, it was in the mall. The only giveaway that we were in Central America was the Carrion. Yes, Carrion. It’s a big chain of department stores, and there are lots of adverts about how they’re first in fashion. That one won’t be coming to any English-speaking country anytime soon…

So, the dentist. Many of you will remember that just before we left, one of my molars was bothering me, and I saw 4 dentists about it, whose reaction ranged from “gee, I dunno” to “all of your teeth are cracked and you need a root canal right now! It’ll cost $1200” to “you don’t need a root canal, your tooth looks just fine to me, why don’t you just wait and see” to “I think you clench your teeth, here’s a bite guard”. Well, many hundreds of dollars later, here I am in Central America and my tooth still hurts. No, it hurts *more*. Luckily, this summer I worked on researching a book on dental tourism (many countries have established an industry catering to patients who can’t afford dental care in their own country (read, ‘merica). In places like Hungary and, ta da, Costa Rica, the standard of care is high, and the prices are low), and I knew that there were some excellent dentists in Costa Rica. So I contacted the editor of the book (thanks, Joe) and asked for a recommendation. I saw Dr. Marco Peralta today, and he took an X-ray like the other dentists had, and it showed nothing, like theirs had. Then he did something novel, and actually looked at my tooth. And lo and behold, there was a very small cavity just at the gumline that the other 4 dentists somehow hadn’t seen. He showed it to me on a nifty little camera-TV setup, then quickly fixed it, and I left the office $40 whole dollars poorer. I won’t even tell you how much the &%$#$% ‘merican dentists cost me. And today’s dental visit was one of the most efficient and painless I’ve ever had – thank-you Dr. Peralta! So far, the tooth feels much better – a little sore from being drilled and prodded, but the dull ache that’s been bothering me for months is *gone*. That’s all I have to say about ‘merica’s much-touted standard of care.

A couple of funny incidents: tonight, taking the cab home from the cinema, the cabbie had no idea where to go. We were maybe a 10-minute cab ride from the center, and our hostel’s near the big road that runs down the middle of town. I gave him the address, and he wandered in circles, eventually stopping to ask some other cabbies. Several of them stood outside the car, waving their arms and giving directions – mostly repeating the same set of directions multiple times, which were, as they always are in Central America “la vuelta, y entonces RRRRRRRRecto” which basically means turn here, and then go straight ahead!!! Somehow, every single time we ask for directions in CA, we are told to go RRRRRRRecto. It’s hilarious. Of course, everything is straight ahead. What makes the cabbie’s lostness even funnier is that San Jose is organized on a grid system, with streets running north-south, and avenues running east-west. What’s more, they are numbered. We wanted 5th Avenue, between 36 and 38th streets. So, how did he get to be a cabbie here…?

Yesterday, when we were driving through a smallish town called Heredia, on our way back from Volcan Barva, we stopped to check our e-mail (hoping for something from the shipping companies). There was lots of parking space near the Central Square, but there were signs saying you needed a ticket to park there, and it wasn’t obvious how you got this ticket – did you buy it monthly? Did you pay at some station we couldn’t see? We ended up in a parqueo, as usual, and ran our errands. On our way back to the car, we asked a vegetable vendor about the signs – what type of ticket did we need, and where could we buy it? He pointed up the street and said ‘In the florist shop, of course!’ Of course!!

So, yes, we are enjoying Costa Rica. It’s one of our favorite countries so far. It’s easy to disfrutarnos here (one of my favorite Spanish words – disfrutar, to enjoy. Doesn’t it just sound like what it is?? It always makes me think of Carmen Miranda taking off her big fruit hat - dis-fruitar). The people are super-friendly, and the parks are stupendous. We’re chomping at the bit to get to South America, though….

Little Corn Island

Waking up after another night in the Granada parqueo (oddly, sleeping in parking lots is seeming normal) we were giddy with excitement to get out to the Caribbean. A short bus ride and then a long taxi ride got us to the airport in Managua, the capital of Nica. Boarding the plane, Kim asked, the concern evident in her voice, “You reckon this thing will fly?” Other than the fact that all the gauges were in Russian, and neither pilot appeared to speak Russian, it seemed like a serviceable enough plane. I assume the gauges with post-it notes were Spanish translations of the important ones. As we approached Big Corn Island, it was just like in the pictures, mottled water of deep blue and aqua. WOW! We started walking the 2 km to the dock after wading through hordes of cabbies at the airport, knowing that the boat to Little Corn left in an hour. Half way there a taxi stopped and told us that on Wednesdays they leave early and we should hurry, so we hopped in. We waited for two hours for the boat. Arriving on Little Corn we were greeted by many islanders each offering the best place to stay. We had been told that Elsa’s was really nice, so we headed that way with her son. Upon arrival, we discovered they were full and went to the next group of huts on the beach, Grace’s Cool Spot. This was a bit more of a Florida spring break atmosphere, but the food was good.

The next day we intended to find other lodging as the hut motel wasn’t really what we wanted. The day slipped by quickly once we had strung our hammocks up between a couple of palm trees. The only interlude was taking a dug-out with Randal out to the reef, 500m offshore. So National Geographic rates Little Corn Island’s reef as one of the top 10 in the world and boy, did it ever deliver. There was brain coral, elk coral, green coral, red coral, and sea cucumbers and parrot fish and blue fish and and and. And then, as we got into a bit deeper water I saw this large dark shape gliding along. Assuming it was a shark, I didn’t want to get Kim’s attention, but as it got closer I saw that it was an Eagle Ray, the one with spots. Kim was a ways back bobbing in the waves and by the time I got her attention, there were 3 rays!! Needless to say, getting back into a dugout in the ocean takes some doing, but before long we were back in our hammocks, every now and again saying to each other, Wow! RAYS!

After Grace forgot to shut down the generator and the mice kept us awake well into the night, we decided to prioritize other lodging options. We got an early start, 11:30, and soon found Ensuenos (Dreams). The owner has built the cabanas out of materials that were found on the beach. Our cabin was the smallest, and cheapest at $15/night, and had tons of charm. Each building was different and funky but the owners’ house was truly magnificent. A ship’s steering wheel serving as a window, sail cloth awning over the deck, lots of funky.

And then there was the bathroom. Again, all found materials. My drivel can’t truly explain it, so have a look at the movie. I’ll rate this toilet as my second favorite, the best being in the saddle of the Tetons in Wyoming. And the water pump was pretty neat. It was a PVC pipe coming up from the well and a piece of rope running through it. On the rope were tied little ceramic cups, just smaller than the pipe. A crank handle to get it all spinning and the pipe soon filled with water and poured into a water collection tank serving the shower, toilet and sink. Although this would have impressed the Professor, Ginger would have loved the exercise bike that could also spin the pump. The sink in the bathroom was an old dug-out. This also served as a clothes-wash station, with a wash board fitted in the middle.

We spent 2 more days stuck in our hammocks, the loud thud of a coconut falling nearby confirming the need to carefully choose where you hang your hammock. I once calculated how fast a coconut is traveling by the time it hits the ground. It took lots of calculus, but I seem to remember it would hurt. During this time I managed to convince Kim that we should go scuba diving. Who couldn’t for $25?

We got to the dive shop right on time. However, our watches were not on island time and we hung out for a while and chatted with the new managers, both very friendly and professional. Our dive master, Esteban, was an enthusiastic Mexican and he walked Kim through the procedure on how to put her kit together with endless smiles. She was a bit rusty as her last diving was in Malawi, ten years prior. A ten minute boat ride and we were at the dive site. I can’t say how proud I was of Kim as she put her hand over her regulator and fell backwards over the boat looking like a pro. Growing up in northern BC does not seem to foster a love of the water. Once we started to descend we could see reef with sand channels running all over and barracuda fish looking at us down their long noses, bristling with teeth. This was amazing! The coral was much denser than at snorkeling depth and there were way more fishes. We followed Esteban around, me snapping a bunch of photos with the digital camera I rented. Underwater photography is an art that I have yet to grasp. In what felt like 10 minutes Esteban signaled that we were going up for our decompression safety stop. The hour we spent bobbing around with such an extensive array of fish, coral and sea critters was a highlight of the Island trip for both of us. Once back on the boat Kim noticed that she had been stung, most likely by a jellyfish. We quickly washed her arm with vinegar and took pictures of her very angry skin. Nothing that a few more hours in the hammocks won’t fix.

And now for a low point of our Island trip. As we headed across the island into town for dinner, a 20 minute walk, a couple coming from town told us about how they had just been mugged. They looked frazzled (who wouldn’t) and this didn’t help their English, but they said a guy with ‘The biggest machete I’ve ever seen” asked them for all their money. Kim and I didn’t know what to do. Go back with them to Ensuenos? They said he and the machete ran off into the woods, would he be gone? Well let me tell you a well known fact about Kim. When she wakes up, she starts thinking about food. About half way through breakfast she usually strikes up a conversation about lunch, you get the picture. I asked her, should we risk it, or go hungry? I knew the answer and we headed into town. Once in town I headed to the police station and Kim hurried to the dive shop to pick up our photos on CD. As I would never have found it alone, I asked a man where the police station was. He of course asked why, and was visibly upset about what I told him. He led me straight to the station which only had four guys eating dinner outside to differentiate it from any other house. The cops immediately scoffed down the last of their dinner once I had explained to them what happened. I then saw what many of you may never see. Inside the station were a couple of bunk beds. The cops pulled on their uniform shirts and then from under their pillows, yes under their pillows, they produced machine guns. That made me laugh, until four guys with machine guns all looked at me. They started tossing a couple of names around and then settled on who the crook was and decided to go looking for him. I suppose with only 500 people, half being female, half again being black, half again being young, it doesn’t take Colombo to figure it out. I also arranged for them to walk Kim and I home as it would be dark once we ate dinner. While Kim was at the dive shop she established that one beer would be appropriate compensation for walking us home. According to the dive shop, this would be the first time in almost a year that anything like this has happened. Apparently the Island used to have a Wild Wild West feel but the tourist police came in over a year ago and sent the ruffians packing. Tourist police are a subset of regular police, trained in the ways of tourists. They are the government’s (very effective) answer to muggings of tourists at places such as Tikal, Copan and the Corn Islands. The walk home with four cops was wonderful glimpse into another facet of Central American life. They make peanuts - 2000 cordobas or $120 a month. A dinner out on the island costs between $2 and $10, a beer is $1, and canned supplies are pretty expensive, since they have to be brought in from the mainland. They didn’t like the Island and were glad their tour there was almost over. Can you imagine wishing for your tour of duty on a peaceful Caribbean island to be over?? The national police are stationed all over Nica and move around a lot. They were also, like most Nicas, amazingly nice. A highlight was a HUGE crab running up one of their legs. He wasn’t so impressed and I thought he was going to shoot it with his machine gun.

The next morning we got up really early and caught the first boat off the island. At the airport, which was a large thatch roofed hut, they were doing hand searches of carry on since they didn’t have an X-Ray machine. Going through Kim’s bag they found two pairs of nail clippers (actually three but the one didn’t have the file thingy, and no, I don’t know why Kim carries 3 pairs of nail clippers). They told us we couldn’t take them on the plane, and then offered to check them. Separately. They wrapped them in tape, and stuck a ticket on them. Then he started to search my bag. I pushed on it and said it’s just clothes and a hammock which was good enough for him and I was let through. Oh, but don’t worry, if I had had anything in there, they would have found it in Managua. There was an X-ray machine for folks getting off the plane and *leaving* the airport. Seriously. I gave my usual objection about the camera and the guard said “well take it out.” I took out my camera bag, they scanned my backpack, but no-one looked at the camera bag. Weird.

We were both relieved to see La Tortuga snug as a bug in the parqueo. Although as we came in the attendants came running over with Strong Man in their hands! Dean had tied Strong Man onto the grille back in Asheville and he’s become our guardian angel. We had also notice how the kids looked at him and apparently one kid did more that look! The attendant, who spoke Spanish in what I would liken to a southern drawl, and was generally unintelligible, explained with lots of vigor about how the kid had reached through the fence are gjavascript:void(0)
Publishrabbed strong man (and the VW badge) and ran down the street. He of course gave chase (I wish I could have seen this!) and soon caught the miscreant who, we were assured, received a very strong lecture. Strong man has been relocated to higher ground. This will not only give him a better vantage of the world, but should be out of harms way.

Turtle murder

So we decided to spend the night at the Refugio Silvestre de la Flor, in southern Nica, near the border with Costa Rica. This national park is known to have lots of turtles and this is the right time to see them, and the pictures seem wonderful. We drove the corrugated dirt road, even crossing a stream that was deep enough to almost cover the wheels, and got there just before dark. Turning off the main road our spirits began to soar as the scenery was just gorgeous. We walked up to the ranger station and started the usual conversation, how much, where, and the response was a little befuddling. Mainly because what he was saying just didn’t make any sense. But the gist of it was that it would not be safe to camp here as the usual group of soldiers had left and that there were miscreants and robbers on the beach. But this just didn’t make sense. We were in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a national park that’s a turtle sanctuary to boot. The ranger bid us to follow him to the beach, and we did. What we saw was horrific. Hundreds of people, men women and children, sitting behind the turtles and putting their eggs into sacks. It was so outrageous that they were even carrying the turtles up to holes, so that the bastards wouldn’t have to wait for the turtle to dig a hole or make its way slowly up the beach. The ranger said that if he were to do anything they would barricade him in his office. The only thing that kept the turtles safe was the soldiers based there. We are not sure, nor was he, as to why they were called away.

We decided to drive back to San Juan del Sur, waves of tears and anger washing over us.

Special Edition – Van Life

Before we ship the van we thought we’d post a little about what it’s like to live in it, just in case it doesn’t make it.

We’ve named the van La Tortuga – turtle in Spanish. For anyone that’s been behind one of these portable houses on the road, this is self explanatory. It’s a 1982 Westfalia that I traded my brother’s Geo Metro for. It came with a bum aircooled motor which I replaced with a 1.9L turbo diesel from a 1998 Jetta TDI (AHU engine code). This could not have been accomplished without the help of the Vanagon TDI Conversion Yahoo group. Many thanks to David of Fast Forward, Karl M, Costica and many others. As part of the conversion I re-geared the transmission. This was really nice in North America, however down here the speed limit is usually 60kph which is just in between 3rd and 4th. Oh well, 3 speed with overdrive. We’re getting 30-33 mpg, fully loaded. And diesel is everywhere in Central America. We even stopped at a gas station that *only* sold diesel. Anyone that wants a wonderful camping vehicle with more pep than a Vanagon, this is the way to go.

We are both amazed at how comfortable the living space is. At night we sit facing each other (the front passenger seat swivels) or snuggling on the couch typing, reading, knitting, much as we did in our mansion in Durham. The cabinets inside easily hold our clothes, books, more books, camping gear, food, pots, and more books. The stove and sink are great for cooking. Once we pull into camp and close the curtains, light the candle lantern (thanks Cecile!), we are in our cozy little home, and it’s amazing how great that is on a trip like this one when every day is full of foreign language and sensory overload.

We’ve made a few modifications which make it a little more comfy. For extra storage, we bought 2 120mm mortar canisters (ebay). One is painted beige (which ended up looking more like desert camo) and is strapped to the roof and chained on. The other one is painted black and 2 metal straps hold it under the van. It would take a keen observer to notice this as anything other than part of the car, as intended. It only takes a couple of minutes to get out, but does require groveling in the dirt. We have spare car parts, fuel filters, snorkeling gear, that kinda stuff in there.

We also installed mosquito netting everywhere – in the tent top, across the van door (two big overlapping pieces that roll up and tie up above the door when not in use) and two envelopes of netting that fit over the front windows and are held in place by magnets. We wish we had enough netting to make two more windows in the sides of the top tent, for more ventilation. A 12-volt fan would have come in handy, too. It’s HOT here, and the mosquitoes are fierce.


We reupholstered the back seat and back seat cushion with some black cordura, because the old van upholstery was, well, kinda grungy, and no amount of cleaning would make it look better. We also put some “Bound” brand seat covers on the front seats. These have endless pockets and an almost magical ability to repel dirt, so they’re very handy.

Refrigerator: After 2 years of fighting with the Dometic fridge, we ripped it out and turned the space into a large 2 shelved closet. The fridge was very temperamental, not surprising since the instruction manual mentions a Ouija board. Good riddance. Our German friends have a solar powered compressor fridge, similar to what our next rig will have, that they love. We do miss cold beer.

One ‘modification’ we made was maybe a bad idea. At the beginning of our trip, the van was pretty loaded down. We spent at least a month throwing stuff out. It was an orgy of purging. Our table, alas, was a victim of the purges. Westys come with 2, and we only brought one, and now we have none. Poor thing, we left it on the side of the road in Mexico because it made access to the pantry a bit of a hassle. We go back and forth on whether that was premature, but mostly, we wish we hadn’t thrown it out.

Overall, living in the van has been so good that we are actually seriously considering moving into an RV full time for the next while (no bigger, just without an engine in the back). This would let us save up for the house we want to build in BC, and we are excited about the prospect of living ‘mobile’ in Europe. We keep meeting folks traveling around in practically bombproof expedition vehicles, and we’re a little jealous.

There are a couple of things that we’d change, but not many. We’d like a bathroom and shower. Although showering outside has been wonderful, I don’t think I’ll have quite so much enthusiasm in the Andes in the autumn. The blue box is fine for emergencies, but it does NOT need a magazine rack next to it. 4 wheel drive. Not that the van has gotten stuck, we just want more ground clearance and a more comfortable ride on the endless corduroy dirt roads that we hope to explore in the future. Although I drool at the sight of a Unimog, we are thinking about something like a Toyota Landcruiser with a camper shell on the back. More payload capacity. With fuel, water, bikes, books, we’re probably pushing 5000lbs which shows when we bottom out on the paved roads. To be fair to the van, this was never a problem before the Mexican border.

We had to make list of all of our belongings for the customs agents (in Spanish!! I’ll bet they’ll have a good laugh when they read it). It was 314 items long, and it took forever to make. They told us it had to be ridiculously detailed – that if we had 4 pencils in the car, we should write ‘4 pencils’. Sheesh. It was interesting to look at what we still have with us, though. It reminds me that we wanted to make a list of our favorite gear, to help out anyone else planning a trip like this one.

REI quick-dry towels. They’re huge, soft, dry in about 30 minutes, and best of all, they’re orange.

Sani-Fem Freshette FUD – The name is ridiculous, but this handy doodad lets me pee standing up. I can’t tell you how many times a day I’m glad I have this. REI, also.

Pressure cooker, 4 quart. We love this!!! We cook everything in it, in a fraction of the time it would take otherwise. Why didn’t we ever have one at home??

Plastic buckets we bought in Guatemala for $1 each. We put one of them under the car to catch the greywater from the sink. The other is good for doing laundry, or for washing in on those days when using the solar shower is tricky (see below).

Shur-Flo faucet. We replaced the van faucet with this guy, and we love it. It’s really mobile, and regulates the flow of water from trickle to gush, which the old van faucet couldn’t do.

Small LED lights everywhere – lots of these used to live on bikes, and now they live in the van. We’ve glued some of them to magnets, so they can go (and stay) anywhere we need light, and they use almost no energy, and they don’t run off the car battery. Alas, we wish we’d bought a solar panel for the roof, to recharge the battery. Next trip.

Candle lantern. So handy. We accidentally brought about 12 candles with us, and Douglas has been making fun of me for bringing so many, but I think we just might use them all.

Easy button. Thanks, Louis. We use this thing every day, and multiple times a day when we cross borders.

Sewing needle and thread. I’ve sewn meters and meters of seams by hand on this trip. I’m getting a lot faster.

Water: We often buy our water in the 5 gallon ‘water cooler’ jugs. At $1.50 each this is an easy option. We also brought a Katadyn Base Camp filter. This filter rocks. It’s a filter element inside a nylon bag. Fill the bag, hang it on the side of the van and gravity pushes the water through a hose and into the tank. A recommendation from Great Outdoor Provision Company in Durham and we give it a 2 thumbs up. We will often also add a few drops of bleach to the water for viruses (less than 1 micron). All the bleach bottles down here have instructions on how to do this.

The bleach bottles also have instructions on how to mix up a concoction for vegetable cleaning, essential in a land full of amoebas and other nasties. It’s a stronger solution of bleach water and you soak everything in it for 5 minutes. We’ve notice this also makes the vegetables last for a long time with no refrigeration.

Osram Flex light: A wonder map light on a 20cm flexible stalk. Very handy.

Garmin eTrex GPS. Almost the cheapest one available at $100 and we very nearly did not bring it. Now that we are starting to connect with serious overlanders who rely on GPS a lot and all their information is with GPS coordinates, we’re really glad we did. The eTrex also interfaces with our laptop, which is handy.

Laptop. An old HP NC6000, a real workhorse with a nice combination of power and battery life.

El Cheapo 300 amp power converter. Picked this up at a truckstop a while back and it’s now solidly mounted in the van. Great for the various electronics that want 110V for charging.

Cannon EOS Rebel Digital. This camera is light, cheap when you consider developing costs, and has all the features any amateur could want. Brought a Cannon EF 75-300 zoom for the wildlife and an EFS 28-55 for the rest.

HP 670 digital camera. Thanks mum and dad! We love dropping this little gadget in our pocket for snapshots and its best feature, movies. The lens cover doesn’t really close all the time now, surely not from when it leapt out of the van onto the concrete

Eagle Creek Pack it Cubes. These things are great and keep our clothes organized and in neat stackable cubes.

Solar Shower: Thank you Rob and Christine! Fill it with water and put it in the sun and within 30 minutes you have a hot, and I do mean hot, shower. We use this everyday and it lives tied to the roof. We’re currently building a removable shower stall that attaches to the side of the van. We’ll post a picture when it’s done.

iPod: Gotta love Latin American radio, with its crazy announcers, but sometimes some Le Tigre or Neko Case is what you really want. We also have a doodad that will download photos from our camera straight to the iPod. This is nice when we travel without the laptop.

The Blue Box. Sometimes when you gotta go, you gotta go. Its an old army ammo box, water (and smell) tight that’s strapped to the front bumper. We painted it blue after Jon’s story of the East German guards insisting they see inside their ‘blue box’. This is almost as difficult to explain at the border as Kim’s pee doodad.

Jerry Can: I picked up a European style jerry can on ebay. Unlike the screw top American ones, this does not leak. It fits perfectly on the roof with the storage box on its side. Low profile and hopefully remains unused.

Highlift Jack. After seeing pictures of the Austral Highway in South America I started thinking about winches. Winches cost money, and the highlift was rusting in the back yard. It fit neatly in my rear bumper once disassembled and is inconspicuous. This too I hope remains unused as they are more work than pushing the go button on a winch.

deWalt 9.6V cordless drill. Although this seemed bulky and maybe extraneous, it’s been used almost daily on various van projects. It’s no longer cordless as I brought my old one and the batteries will only last long enough to put in 4 screws. Yesterday I wired it to the car battery, held my breath, and pulled the trigger. Eureka! It likes 12 volts even better than it liked 9.6.

Large Mag-Lite. Not only does it work great for spotlighting monkeys in the trees or finding the right turnoff at night – this thing is BRIGHT – but it spends the night next to the bed when we are in a sketchy spot. I think just the sight of this monster will ward off most evil doers.

Petzl headlamps: For all of you who’ve drooled down the flashlight you’ve got in your mouth, these little wonders make for handsfree lighting for your active lifestyle.

And of course the Van: Thanks Brian and I hope the Metro is doing you well!

We would both like to thank everyone that has contributed to this pool of stuff. We don’t have much, so we use it often, and think of you every time.

The size of the world

It’s littler than we thought. Or maybe Central America is bigger than we thought. But we’ve gone 5021 miles since we left Asheville, and we’re done with the Central American portion of our trip. We’re in San Jose waiting for a boat to take us to Ecuador already. We think it’s about 10,000 miles through South America, from Ecuador to southern Brasil. Which means that South America is only about twice as long as Asheville ->San Jose, which is a lot littler than we thought. But then, the southernmost point of South America is S54*47’, making it about as far from the equator as Vancouver is. And Vancouver doesn’t seem so very far away. Hm. Geographical perspective.

Our route so far...

Here are some maps of where we've gone so far. The numbers don't mean much, unfortunately; they're just there to help me reconstruct the approximate route.

Here is the first part of our route, from Durham to Xela, Guatemala (on this map called Quetzaltenango). Click to see a bigger version.



And the next part of our route, from Xela, through Guatemala, finishing in San Jose, Costa Rica:



By the way, we've posted lots of new photos and videos. We'll have posts about the Corn Islands trip etc. soon...

Nos Encanta Nicaragua

Within 1000 meters of entering Nicaragua, we’re pulled over on the side of the road taking pictures of these AMAZING orange trees.



I end up chatting with a coffee farmer and am told that they are shade trees for the coffee. Asking him for permission to take a photo of his quaint operation, it’s obvious they have none of the superstitions held in Guatemala about fotos. He calls over his daughter and makes her pose for me.



Kim is perpetually amazed at how I can start a long conversation with anyone, in any language. This continued for the next several hours, pulling over every few kilometers for yet another photo op, Nicaragua is wonderful. We stopped in Esteli, at a ‘turicentro’ thinking they would have maps (the eternal search for maps) but quickly realized that it’s a tourist destination, not tourist information. There were pools, cabanas and a science museum with some really neat exhibits, like a wood fired pressure cooker (we still think anything with a pressure cooker is neat) inside the belly of a dragon, the steam vented through the nostrils and the smoke out the mouth. There was also a Brontosaurus with a series of pulleys to raise and lower his head, and a T-Rex with hydraulic powered jaws, and a Triceratops with solar panel and solar powered eyes. Lunch in Esteli was accompanied by a delicious cup of fresh tamarind juice, a taste Kim says she’ll never forget.

We, and many, many horse drawn carts and Russian cars navigated the narrow streets into Grenada. The Antigua of Nicaragua they say. WOW has been our mantra. It lacks the touristyness of Antigua and rivals it for charm and beauty (although the streets are not cobblestone, which was quaint for about ten minutes driving around Antigua). And the people! Though unemployment is high, the Sandanistas’socialist experiment seems to have left a good mark here. There are more road signs here than in the rest of Central America combined, we’ve seen actual operational ambulances, the drivers are very friendly and courteous (we even saw a cop with a RADAR), the kids are all in school and there’s a lack of garbage on the roadside. Kim even said it reminds her of Canada.



We had a funny experience trying to find a place to camp. Several travelers recommended eating at a local restaurant and then tipping the guard to sleep there. Sitting down to eat, the smell of fish quickly reminded us of amoebas, and then the completely uncooked chicken they served confirmed our fears. Not wanting to be rude, we didn’t know what to do, so Kim went to the van to get a plastic bag. Amid hysterical laughter we built a wall of napkin holders and beer bottles to conceal us slipping the raw chicken into the bag. Ok, so maybe the ample beer after a hot day on the road made this a lot funnier. We didn’t see any security guards and decided to head back into town a few blocks away, and slept near the central park in a parking lot. Not the lakeside night we had anticipated, but a wonderful night’s sleep.

For Valentines day (happy V-Day moms and nana) we are being very decadent. We have booked a flight to the Corn Islands, on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. We will be staying on Little Corn, surround by sharks, rays, and reefs with all the fish you can imagine (so say the posters). We ran into another tourist and he went on and on and on and on about how amazing his two weeks out there were. We’re excited! There may not be internet so this will be our last post for a week or so.

http://divelittlecorn.com/photos.shtml

By the Grace of God

Wow, by the grace of God (now that Kim has found Jesus, and is praying A LOT in traffic) we made it out of Honduras alive. The crazy driving got worse and even I started to pray. Unfortunately, we didn't really like Honduras that much. We found the people a little pushy and downtrodden and then, there was the driving. This of course has its caveats, like we only spent three days there, and we only went through the center and missed the Caribbean coast altogether.

We spent one night at the archeological site Las Naranjas in the parking lot on the shores of Lago Yojoa. We showed up, and asked the guard, Mario, about sleeping and he said if we were going to see the ruins, and maybe buy him a coffee, we were welcome to stay. He assured us the security was excellent and introduced us to his squadron of military kids, each with an M-16, so we felt good about it. The next morning we saw him, much like the pied piper, marching in front of the 5 boys with a dead armadillo dangling by its tail in his hand. When I asked him if Hondurans ate armadillo, he first told me it’s illegal to hunt them and that this was ‘road kill’ (yes, each boy still had taken his M-16 to pick up the ‘road kill’, hmmm) and that yes, armadillo is quite tasty. Another man promptly stepped out of the museum office to tell me that ‘not ALL Hondurans eat armadillo’. Mario does have an interesting palate. We bought him a drink at Coti’s restaurant next door to the museum, and she was cooking up an odd looking plant that we had seen in the markets. Finally we discovered how to cook it. You can either just boil it, and eat it with a bit of salt, or after boiling, throw in some eggs and make a hash out of it. We tried the first option, boiled (luckily we were spared the second) and NO amount of salt made the bitterness go away. It was the worst vegetable we have ever tasted. This is Mario’s favorite dish, and several other men that came in to the restaurant were ecstatic to smell it on the stove. Pacaya con juevos they exclaimed. Weird.

The ruins were nothing more than a couple of mounds of earth, a disappointment after the amazing ruins we’ve been to so far. The birds however, made up for that two fold. The word for trail in Spanish is ‘sendero’. We laughed many times about what may have been lost in translation as the wooden sendero in the marsh had as many missing boards as rotten ones. This causes a bit of a perilous situation as ones gazes into the trees at the birds. I think we saw at least 30, of the 365 different species!

From the lake we headed towards the border, stopping in at El Paraiso for the night, a dusty cowboy town where the horses outnumbered the cars. I certainly was thinking of my niece and wondered if she can parallel park a horse.

The border was the first at which we encountered the ‘guias’ or guides. Of the ten kids offering to usher us through I picked one to get rid of the others, and then told him I wasn’t going to pay him. He was unfazed and took us to the first office window. Now imagine 100 feet of tiny windows, none with any indication of what it’s for. I quickly decided a few bucks for a guide would be worth it. When we got to the Nica immigration office, there was no one there. Juan, our guide, thought nothing of it and ran off to find the right guy, coming back in a few minutes with him. After a flurry of stamping and about $20US for us and the car, we were in Nicaragua. Oddly, this is the first country where the guard at the gate actually looked at our passport.

Honduras!!

We finally made it out of Guatemala! We thought we might not. It was too nice. Here we are, in country number 3.

The border crossing with Honduras was really easy. We crossed at El Florido, and the officials were efficient and friendly. The only hitch was that we had some trouble making the photocopies for importing our car into Honduras. Every border has an independent contractor who photocopies documents for a small fee. But this time, one of the photocopiers wasn't working, and the guy who ran the other one was off somewhere for over an hour. Douglas ended up going back into Guatemala to find a photocopier, and when he did, it took at least 20 minutes to copy 8 pages. His copier was almost out of toner, and he had to turn it off and tap the toner cartridge between pages to make it work. I also got this photo of a truck driver hanging out in his hammock under his 18-wheeler, waiting for his turn to cross the border:




While Douglas was off photocopying car documents, I was keeping an eye on the car. I noticed two border guards at the back, looking at the bikes. Everyone looks at the bikes, so I just ignored them. Then I noticed there were 3 guards back there, then 4. Then 5. So I got out to see what was going on, and I walked over and said "Buenas". One of the guys took out a big roll of bills and asked if we were willing to sell the bikes. The border guards wanted to buy our bikes!

The ruins at Copan were fantastic, and the pictures speak for themselves.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dpwool/RuinasCopan

We're camped at a Texaco station tonight. Not much for atmosphere, but we paid to camp here ($2) and there's a guard outside with a big gun across his lap, so we guess it's OK. We asked several people in town where we could camp, and they all suggested the Texaco. We asked in hotels if we could park in their courtyards, and they told us to go to the Texaco, too. So we did.

So far, Honduras is really different from Guatemala - much more prosperous, and also more expensive. I think we're having some mild culture shock. We had dinner at a really nice restaurant ($10!! - to make up for the Texaco station), and sat on the patio and watched people go by. Aside from the odd tuk-tuk, we could have been in a town in North America. Weird.

We're not going to spend much time in Honduras because we're kind of anxious to get to Costa Rica and find out about shipping the car. The newest possibility is to take a ferry from Panama to Cartagena, Colombia, via a Caribbean island. We can't seem to find any good information about this, though, like where it leaves from, or how much it costs, or whether we can really take the car on it (though our Colombian friend Alexandra has confirmed that it exists - that was in question, too). If anyone out there in blogland knows anything about this, please pass it on. This would be a great option - until now we thought we would have to leave the car at the mercy of port workers and hope it would be intact when it arrived in Guatemala. We've heard lots of stories of cars getting robbed while in transit, and we're not excited about sending La Tortuga off on her own.

O, and every kid under 10 *had* to touch the strong man that Dean tied to the front of the van, as a sort of figurehead. I think we'll be lucky if the strong man makes it out of Honduras.

OK, this is the next day and we drove right by Tegucigalpa and are now at the Nicaraguan border in El Paraiso, a kind of cowboy town. We're going to cross into Nicaragua tomorrow morning. The drivers here are *insane* - we figure that Douglas' long years of mountain biking experience are coming in handy helping him dodge giant car-eating potholes and avoid oncoming buses/trucks/you name it. Everyone seems to like passing on blind corners best, and keep on coming even if you are coming towards them! It's like an adult game of chicken, and several times I was sitting in the passenger seat saying 'o god, o god, o god' and squeezing my eyes shut to block out the sight of an oncoming semi in our lane. BUT, we've made it this far, and Douglas says he always has his eye on the shoulder of the road so he can dodge off. i should stop this train of thought, sorry mom.

Nicaragua looks great! more from there

Spanglish

So, before leaving for this trip, I didn't really speak any Spanish. I had some language CDs, and I took a short class at a local language center, but that was it, I had about 20 words. Language school in Xela helped a lot, but I'm still not sure what's going on sometimes. We're practicing a lot - language tapes in the car, grammar books under the seat, but I'm still wishing 'good appetite' to the guy in the tienda who just sold me soap, and 'excellent!!' to the guy in the internet cafe when he tells me they close at 10, and at the paper store, looking for card stock to make flash cards, I asked if they sell homework (tarreas, tarjetas...almost the same thing).

Back in the Land of the Chocobanano

Out of the jungle and amoeba-free!! Heaven!! There was even this gorgeous rainbow right after we passed into the rainshadow of the hills. This was maybe the biggest rainbow I've ever seen! Maybe not. Maybe they were bigger at Victoria falls. But maybe not.

We stopped at Estanzuela to look at a dinosaur museum - this part of Guatemala was once home to heaps of dinosaurs. The museum was tiny and kind of rustic, but had really excellent bones, including a giant sloth about 10 feet tall. They also had a fair amount of early mayan pottery - mugs in the shape of faces, and some containers big enough for me to disappear in. cool stuff.

We spent the night in Chiquimula, preparing to cross the border into Honduras. The contrast between this region and the Peten is *sharp* - the city was so wealthy we felt like we were back in the US. The supermarket was chock full of tasty goodies, including guanabana flavored yogurt (the perfect flavor for yogurt), powdered soymilk (which is actually good, and really handy since we abandoned the fridge), and things for preparing chocobananos. It's nice to have a change from avocados and plantains!! Although, if I had to choose just 2 foods to eat, those might be the two I'd pick. Fried plantains, mmmmm

I have to say something about chocobananos - they're a phenomenon. Even hardware stores and cellphone stores sell them - they just stick a piece of paper on the wall saying "and we have chocobananos!!" It's basically a banana on a stick, covered in chocolate. Aside from tortillas, I'd say it's Guatemala's national food. Amazing. In the grocery store you can even buy special sticks, just for chocobananos. Special chocolate, too. I haven't seen the special chocobanano bananas yet, but I'm still looking.

O, and at the hotel we met a family from Quebec who sailed here from Quebec via Cuba. How cool is that? They took the kids out of school and put them on a boat. Excellent. They think it'd be easy for us to find a sailboat to Ireland, and gave us some websites and contact info. We've met an amazing number of Canadians on this trip - far more than any other nationality. Germans are a close second. Douglas even saw a newspaper headline declaring that there are "hordes" of Canadians in La Ceiba, Honduras.

Se alquila telefonos (telephones for rent)

After the touristyness of Antigua, we headed north, into the hinterlands of Guatemala. But first we stopped at Coban for a tour of a coffee plantation, and got to see every stage of the process from seedling, to picking (each red fruit has two green beans in it, and they squirt out if you squeeze the fruit - they have a really vegetably smell and are covered in sticky goo), to washing, to drying, to roasting (we went into the tiny roasting room, where they have a wee little roaster and two grinders, the size you'd see in a coffee shop at home, and two folks roasting and packing each little bag of coffee by hand). We also got to taste cardamom fresh off the bush - yum!

The central part of Guatemala was gorgeous to drive through. Rolling hills, the forest getting more and more tropical. We drove a little ways off into the jungle to eat a bite of lunch and start soaking the purple beans I bought in the market in town. Here's a movie:

(coming soon-the internet cafe is closing...)

Some of the roads were out-of-hand bad, too. One day we drove for 8 hours, and only went 100 miles!!! 100 miles!! The roads were dirt, and sometimes sand, and incredibly windy. Here's a picture of a chicken bus coming up a hill towards us on a really sandy bit:

(coming soon-the internet cafe is closing...)

Somewhere in the planning of this trip, we worked out the total mileage, and the number of days we had, and figured that we'd only have to drive 100 miles a day to get to Argentina in 4 months. We thought, great, an hour and a half a day, maybe 3 or 4 if the roads are really really bad. ha!!

Once we got out of the hilly region, the roads got a lot better. Only the major highways are paved in the north, and all other streets in a town are dirt, which makes it kind of easy to find the way out of town - just follow the ashphalt. If you hit dirt, you've made a wrong turn, and you'd better go back to the center of town and find a bus to follow.

Things got increasingly tropical as we headed north, and the folks got poorer and poorer. I wonder why those two things seem to go together. The Peten was also hit pretty hard by the war - many of the Mayans who fled their villages ended up living in hidden jungle villages in the Peten. Maybe the area is still recovering - the peace accords were only signed in 1996.

The north is also the country of motorbikes - everyone has one, even the schoolgirls. You see them motoring around, two to a bike, with their little plaid skirts hitched up and their braids flying. No one wears the Mayan typical dress up here, either. Just in the highlands.

Then we got to Tikal!! We spent a night on Lago Peten Itza, near Tikal, and that was glorious. The water was so clear you could see to the bottom even in moonlight. We also met some interesting Italians who are driving from Buenos Aires to Alaska, and we exchanged tips about the road - how handy that we're going in opposite directions! On their advice, we waited until 3 pm the next day to go into Tikal - that way you get a few hours in the afternoon, and your ticket is still good for the next day. Tikal was absolutely magical. Read on to Douglas' post for stuff about Jungle and Birds, birds, birds!!!

Antigua - picture perfect

Antigua is the hotspot for tourism in Guatemala. It's a UNESCO world heritage site, and it's packed full of language schools. So we thought it would be easy to find. But it turns out that they've rerouted the (very new, nicely paved) highway *around* Antigua, and not put up any signs!! You actually need to exit at a different city, drive through that city, and arrive at Antigua. And there are no signs!!!! I guess most people don't drive themselves here, but still!!

Once we found it, we liked it - well, sort of. It's amazingly touristy, and pretty expensive. But so lovely!! Every view is just perfect, cobblestone streets lined with brightly painted colonial-style houses. Little shops selling marzipan animals and cappuccinos. It was charming. We unfortunately ended up staying in a parqueo, which is a gravel lot surrounded by big cement walls with razor wire on top, but we spent all of our awake minutes out in the city, so it didn't really matter.

We of course ran into our friends Linda and Maggie, which was nice - it's funny how we keep running into them, even though we're not planning to. I guess we're just walking the same path through Guatemala.

We decided to mail some packages home from here, before we went on our volcano walk. What a saga!!!! First, all the DHL-type shipping places had closed their offices in the past year or so, so we trooped around town looking for all of them, only to be told they were closed. We finally find the regular mail place, but they don't have any boxes we could use to pack our stuff in. Next door, at the Dispensa Familiar (kind of a cheap supermarket), they had a pile of boxes as high as my shoulder - but we were only allowed to take *one*. Go figure. So we took our box back to the post office, and tore it into pieces and wrapped each bundle of stuff in pieces of cardboard and packing tape (and now we're hurrying because the volcano walk leaves soon), and wrote the addresses on them, and took them up to the counter. Where the lady tells us we have to unwrap them so she can see what's in them. She watched us wrap them from a few feet away!! It took at least 30 minutes!!! Anyhow, the packages got totally covered in stamps and sent off, and we hope they arrive!!!

We dashed off to our volcano walk. The woman at the tourist office told us to follow another woman to our bus. We followed her a few blocks, and she stopped at a little tienda and went inside. Another woman came out, and told us to follow her. She dropped us off on a street corner, and told us to follow another guy. We thought we were in a James Bond movie!! But we got to the bus, and drove to the volcano, and the pictures say it all here. It was HOT!!!! I thought I was going to get cooked by the lava.

Finca Ixobel and amoebas

Ah, little animals that you just didn't see running around on your plate. YUM. Amoebas. We think we came home with more that a suntan from our school trip to the beach. Eating with the Guatemaltecos we were reassured that dive restaurant was better than it looked. And the food was tasty....

Neither of have felt 100% for the last couple of weeks, and in Poptun, decided to get it checked out. This would prove to be my first clinic visit on a dirt road. Here, you first go to the lab and get whatever test you think the doctor might want, and take those results to the doctor. The lab was quite something! There was a box growing something purple, and when she pulled out a spatula had to blow dust off the box. What the lacked in 'lab protocol' however, they gained in speed and efficiency. 20 quetzales and ten minutes later we were certifiably amoeba'ed. Our next stop was the doctor, finding one not in the field took a bit of time, but within an hour we were leaving the pharmacy. Both of us laughing about what Shelly would think as when we told the doc Kim had similar symptoms he just told us to buy 2x the medicines! (and why are drugs so expensive in N.America!??)

We spent a couple of days at a wonderful farm and have recuperated fully. I would highly recommend Finca Ixobel in Poptun if youre heading south of Tikal.

Uaxactun bike ride

After spending all day enjoying the ruins of Tikal, I (Douglas) got on my bike to try and reach Uaxactun, a village 23 km north of Tikal. The guy at the gate couldn't quite understand why I wanted to *ride* their, especially as the bus was right behind me. Now the fact that there is bus service to this village is truly amazing. I actually stayed ahead of it for most of the way, navigating 1/2 meter ruts in the mud road and would consider it a pretty good *mountain* bike ride. During the hot afternoon on my way out there the jungle was quite and my uneasiness was quickly displaced with a bit of exercise. (I unfortunately came within 1km of the village and the not so touristy ruins, but was running out of time to get back to watch the sun set again from the temple in Tikal with Kim.) The trip home, was a very different story. The sun was now coming in at a more acute angle, and everything was glowing green, a truly spectacular light. The jungle was also waking up from its nap and the birds started to make quite a racket. Then I spotted a group of spider monkeys in the trees next to the road. Now there's two types of spider monkeys, the ones that are used to tourists, and the kind that aren't. These were the later, and upon seeing me began screeching and shaking the branches and piling three high and waving all there appendages around. It was an amazing sight! They even did that monkey thing of scratching under (and up and down) their arms. WOW. Pressing on, I heard something running through trees, even Jim M. woulda been impressed at how fast that made me go!

Tikal!

wow! it´s been a whirlwind week. we drove all over guatemala - antigua, then all the way north to Tikal and the mayan ruins, and are now headed for poptun, on our way to Honduras. We´ve had adventures mailing packages, climbing volcanoes, taking dirt roads that were so bad we only went 100 miles in 8 hours of driving, seeing parrots and toucans at the mayan ruins, getting screamed at by packs of spider monkeys, having the heat and humidity of the peten melt our brains. whew. more later. here are a few pictures...

here is a map of guatemala...