Mountain roads

30 July

We left Sahagun and after about an hour started climbing.  Tonight we're in Santa Rosa de Osos, which is listed over 2500 m.  (over 8000 feet)  The road had lots of interesting slow truck passes, and even a few scary ones.  But we made it to a much cooler altitude.  Tonight should be good sleeping as the temperature is already 65 degrees.

What every girl wants for her birthday

29 July

We left our scenic hotel and headed to the Zooparque Los Caimones near Buenavista  (heading south towards Medellin.)  Our first stop was at a school that Norm insisted we visit.  The kids were like locusts wanting the school supplies we had.  We tried to give them to the principal and teachers, but they said give it to the children directly.  We did not enjoy the experience and doubt the children got anything meaningful from our visit, so we decided that we won't be making any more school visits.  Very frustrating and very typical of Norm not arranging  this properly.  I can't imagine if 4 strangers showed up a USA school, walking into classrooms and  having students start grabbing for supplies.  So disorganized.

Afterwards we walked across the street and went into a local furniture manufacturing shop.  They were making beautiful furniture out of a variety of hard woods.  Sandra has a woodshop so she was really interested in the different woods.  She asked for some scraps and now has the Spanish names written on the wood, so she can later translate the wood pieces.

We then drove the 10km to the caiman farm.  They raise caiman for meat and leather, as well as tourism.  The property also has several animal areas with black horned antelope, zebras, a lion, a hippo named Timoteo, ostriches, monkeys, water fowl, snakes, and water buffalo.

Needless to say, every girl should be taken to the caiman farm on her birthday.  We had caiman steaks for dinner.  They were different and to me rather unremakable.  The farm exports all over the world, especially to Asia.  They also send the skins overseas for proper tanning.

Senor Caiman and how he handles the docile caimans.

Pulling caimans is exhausting

This is what a hot, sweaty, 55 year old looks like.

 

Natalia was the ostrich's name.  She won her race.

Timoteo was the name of the lone hippo in the park.

 

Weird that I saw both Natalia and Timothy on my birthday.

 

On the road again

28 July
We finally left Cartagena, albeit at 12:30 pm.  Norm had scheduled a police escort out of town, which was laughable because apparently local drivers pay about as much attention to a police motorcycle as they do traffic lanes and signals.  Needless to say after several near mishaps we finally found roadways with few motorcycles and taxi cabs.  Sandra said that motorcycles and taxi cabs are like mosquitos in Cartagena, as soon as you swat one away, more appear to further aggravate you.

The countryside that we crossed was some of the prettiest we've seen this trip.  It is still in the hot lower lands of Colombia, but the rolling hills and variety of greens in the vegetation made for a lovely 5.5 hour drive, despite just having an average speed of advance of 35 mph (includes refueling, rest stops, etc).

Norm had told us that we were spending the night in a hotel parking lot.  What he failed to tell us was that it was a truck stop and "hotel" was a strectch.  This is the scenic view from the windshield of our RV.  Yet again, a cheap place to spend the night with the barking dog thrown in for good measure.

 

Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas

27 July

Yes we're still Cartagena, despite getting our RVs back yesterday.   Somebody is causing us to wait because he left driver's license in Panama.  Roger has his driver's license.

We're parked in the lot by the Old Shoes statue.  The poem Viejos Zapatos was written by Luis Carlos Lopez de Cartagena.  After the obligatory pictures, we did a toure of the Castillo.  We rented audio station players to learn more about the castle which really is a fort.  Construction started in 1630, which was finished in a year thanks to a lot of African slave labor.  There were several additions over time.  The fort was only capture one time by the French, who ended up dying on site from African slave infections such as yellow fever, so the Spanairds got it back until the fall of the Spanish empire.

 

Note our RV in the background



The only way into the fort in the 1600-1700s.  Now the steps are not used.

View from the fort down to our RVs.
 

 

Good news, bad news

26 July

The Good News:
Today paperwork was completed, our vehicles inspected (several times), Custom declaration and payment, so our vehicles were released to us.  It took from 8 to 1 to get this accomplished.  Lucky for me all I had to do was sit and wait in a waiting room with a/c.  Since the title is in Roger's name, he had to do all the running around in the hot Cartagena weather.  I think Roger sweated off 10 pounds today.

We're parked at the Castillo de San Felipe visitors parking lot.   We've been visited by both the National Police and local castle seguridad guys wanting us to know that we were safe to park overnight.  I really think they all wanted to see inside our RVs.  One guy wanted to travel with us.  It is hot on the brick pavement.  We are running out generator and a/c because Roger is exhausted and trying to regroup from a touch of dehydration.

The Bad News:
There was damage to our RV during shipping.  Ours was the only unit with damage.  We have a slideout and when it goes out there's a canopy that goes out with it.  Somehow, the shippers destroyed the canopy.  Roger ended up removing the canopy and broken parts, so now at least we can move the slideout out.  Unfortunately the salvagable parts were too big to store, so Roger ended up scraping most of the pieces.  He did keep the smaller pieces that could be stored.  One of the police was happy to get the canopy and said that he was going to use it to shade his back yard.  Glad some good came out of a bad situation.

The other current issue is our right front tire was low, 40 psi and not 85 psi.  Roger spent a long time washing the tire with soapy water trying to see if there was a visible problem.  One of the security guys also came over to supervise Roger's efforts.  Roger could find no leaks, so he's hoping that the valve stem extender just came loose.  He tightened it up some.   He'll test it tomorrow morning and see what the psi is.  The security guard told me that there was a tire repair shop very close by.  I drew a map from his instructions, just to make sure I was understanding what he was telling me, so if we have to go we won't get lost.
 

Still waiting

25 July

So we sat around waiting for Norm to call us, as he said he would.  We didn't want to check out of our hotel, because we didn't know if we were going to get our RVs or not today.  Norm said that he'd call by 11 to let us know how things were going with Customs.  We finally called him at 11:10 and were told, "I'm working hard, but we won't be getting our RVs today."  It was a good thing we called, because that freed us up for another wild goose chase.

We thought it wouldn't be hard to buy a "mapa de las carrateras de Colombia."  There was an expectation that we could pick up a map at a bookstore, thing Rand McNally.  This turns out not to be the case.  We have stopped at over half a dozen bookstores looking for a map.  We had found one that was a magazine like book, in that there was a lot of advertisements and very little in the way of maps.  Even at the toll booth there's a sign that says "Se Vende Mapas" so when we asked to buy one, it turned out to be the magazine book that we hadn't bought earlier.  We're all map people, so this was very frustrating.  I guess Mom would be happy enough with the book, as it's sort of like a triptik, but with a lot less detail.

We called Norm this evening and he told us that we had to be at the Customs House tomorrow morning at 8:00.  It's a good thing we called, because he hadn't called us.  Even though it's Saturday, Norm said that he thinks we'll be able to get our units back.  So if there's no posting tomorrow when you check, that means we're out of our hotel and back in our RV.

Back in Cartagena

24 July

We left Santa Marta at 7:30 and headed back to Cartagena.  We left early with the intent on getting to Cartagena before 11.  Things were just fine until we got to the bypass of Barranquilla.  Traffic was backed up and then Colombians started driving with no regard to lanes.  Roger did a fine job, despite the numerous cars that thought they were going to share the same space as us.  We saw 3 broken down buses along the way, which were all responsible for the mess.  One bus had a tire behind it as a marker that it was broken down in the middle lane.  Another bus barely had three wheels on the road, with the back two off the road.  This wouldn't have been an issue, except that the bus was on the side of the road with a sharp cut off concrete drainage ditch.

When we got back to Cartagena, we checked into our hotel and then were summoned by Norm to his hotel to do paperwork.  He chastised us for being late, as if we had any control over traffic and despite the fact that we didn't know he needed us back by a certain specific time.  Norm went over all our paperwork and made copies of a couple of things and told Sandra and Roger that he would need them tomorrow.

After we left Norm's, Sandra said that she wanted to go see if she could see her rig.  Roger and I should have said wait until tomorrow.  But instead we caught a cab and tried to follow Sandra's GPS where she thought the piers were.  We finally bailed out of the cab, as the cab driver kept arguing with where I was telling him to go based on Sandra's directions.  Once out of the cab, I stopped a man with a Port Authority badge and asked him if he knew where the ship's offload site was.  We gave him the name of the ship, he made a phone call, and then the walking began.  He was headed in the same direction and so he walked us 3/4 of the way there.  He was very interested in knowing about why we shipped our RVs and where were we going after Cartagena.  Since I don't know our specific next stop, I told him in general terms that we were driving to Tierra del Fuego.  He was a very nice man and helpful.  Eventually we found the shipping company, but didn't see our rigs.  We caught a cab back to the hotel and called it a night.

Tayrona National Park

23 July

We left at 8 this morning to drive to Tayrona NP, which is about an hour northeast of Santa Marta.  We only got to the coastal part of the park, because the rest of the park is rugged outback country and we didn't have the right clothes.  We didn't think we would have had time to get to Tayrona, but due to a series of shipping delays we were able to make it without our RVs.  It's a good thing we didn't have our RVs because the road is in terrible shape with lots of washout areas, grooves from wet season driving and potholes galore.  Roger said that he was glad we had gotten the Hilux diesel Toyota pickup, because a sedan would have been terrible to drive over the roads, although we saw cars that had made the trek.  Colombia is working on tourism, especially ecotourism, but our guide book accurately describe the fact that the hotels are unique and now effort needs to be focused on the road into the park.  This time of year is the dry season and the land looks parched.  However cactus grows, so I don't think there's a lot of rain during the wet season, just enough to wash out the road with mud/sand.

The pictures don't seem to do the blues justice, from what we saw today. 

 

 

 

 

 

Santa Marta

22 July

Last night we decided to rent a car and go to Santa Marta for a couple of days, because it looks like at the earliest our RVs will be in port sometime Wednesday, with a chance of starting the paperwork on Thursday afternoon.  More on that hopefully on 24 July.  In the meantime, last night we had reserved a car with Avis and so we arrived at the airport at 8 am to pick it up.  Unfortunately, they didn't have a car for us.  The Avis guy went next door at the Colombian rental car agency, and a little after 9 we were on our way in an unlimited mileage Toyota HiLux small crew cab diesel pickup truck.  The unlimited mileage was a good deal, because Avis was only going to give us about 2/3 of the miles we needed free, after that it was going to be about .50/mile extra.  Roger kept an eye on the gas gauge and our 140 mile trip only required 4 gallons of diesel. He thought the gauge was broken, because it never moved off F.

Getting to Santa Marta was easy.  The highway is excellent, with about 5 little towns that have to be gone straight through.  The road between Cartagena and Barranquilla is all new since five years ago.  It is a toll road, with a total toll cost less than $5.  Once we got to Santa Marta, we couldn't find the hotel.  We had the address, but even with GPS we couldn't put in the right neighborhood, so it took us almost 2 hours to find the place.  Plus there were 4 hotels that were owned by Santorini, which further complicated looking it up.  It was frustrating because Sandra had all the technology, but we still couldn't find it.  Roger accidently drove down the wrong way on a one way street.  Then we were sent up another street that was one lane wide only to find it was a dead end.  I was mad at myself because I had written down some instructions, but couldn't find them.  I finally remembered that it was close to the airport, so we left Santa Marta and headed back towards the airport.  We drove down several side streets getting closer to the hotel and ended up stumbling across it.  Yea team!  Roger definitely needed a beer when we got to the lobby and checked in.  He's such a great "conductor".

The hotel is a block from the beach and is a value for it's location.  We're in for the night and happy to be here after a rather stressful time looking for it.

 

The beach

 

The view from one of the hotel's pools.

 

Cartagena

21 July

We walked around the walled city today.  Not much has changed in the last 5 years, since I was last here.  The fort is still there, the wall is still there, the clock tower may have gotten a coat of paint, and the traffic is busy on weekdays.  One noticeable change was that taxis are now using natural gas, which is 75% cheaper than regular gas, which is about $5/gal. 

I had a request for "lots of pictures" so I'm not going to write a lot today.  The highlight of last night was Facetiming with Trent and Jenny, and then Skyping with Reid this evening.  It's the simple things.  This coupled with the revival of the laptop made today noteworthy from a blogging viewpoint.  Although the operating system of the laptop is back to Windows 7 and the Spanish version.

 These scupltures were outside the museo de arte moderno.  Thought of several people when we saw these.

 

In the Fatherland

20 July

We decided to go ahead and fly to Cartagena.  Sandra's ship app tracker, shows the transport ship in Limon Costa Rica, but Norm told us that the ship was having trouble getting pierside in Panama to load.  We don't know what the true story is, but Norm said it was OK for us to go to Colombia.

We had the choice of either an early morning flight or a late flight, that was non-stop.  Otherwise we'd have to fly through Bogota.  This would have just been frustrating to me, because we couldn't see any relatives, so we opted for the early flight.  We left the hotel at 5 am and rode a half empty plane for 49 minutes from Panama City to Cartagena.  It was an uneventful flight.

We got lucky and our hotel rooms were ready, so we were allowed to check-in despite only being 9am.  Once we got our stuff situated in the room, I asked the hotel staff where to get a data plan on Sunday.  We were told the only place was at the Mall, so off we went.  We got there before 10 and found out that a lot of stores didn't open until 10:30.  First stop was bookstore, where we bought a Lonely Planet guide to Colombia.   We were the first two people in the Claro store and two hours later Sandra and I walked out with service.  It gets complicated translating what we want and then having problems getting two global phones work on the local network.  Roger claims to have read most of the LP Guide while Sandra and I were in Claro.  Next stop was lunch, due to our early morning departure.  Food court food is the same as in the US, just different names of fast food places.

At the airport in Panama City, I bought an iPad card reader.  (Apple has figured out that folks want card readers and USB ports.)  So now I have to figure out how to get pictures off my card and posted to the blog.  So far to me it's not intuitive.  Hopefully this will get updated with a picture soon.

Mission Accomplished

18 July

Since we had were taken (quite literally) on a sightseeing tour two days ago, today was what we'd consider an admin day.  First order of business was to do a load of laundry in the Hilton Garden's laundry machine.  An actual coin operated washer and dryer made my morning.  It's the little things that this American appreciates.  Especially since yesterday and the day before we sweated a lot and I believe Roger's shirts could stand up by themselves with all the dried salt in them.

Sandra went with Ben to see him off back to Seattle, so Roger and I went on walkabout to find a guide book on Colombia and the Post Office.  I had researched on line where a bookstore was in Panama City close to the Hilton and so we walked the several blocks to get there.  Unfortunately they didn't have a guide book.  The ladies there were very nice and suggested another store that had a book department.  It was on the way back to the hotel so we stopped there with no luck.  However, we did find out that we were very close to the post office.  Just across the street in the Plaza Concordia.  We crossed the street and the search was on.  Originally we were told it was on the lower street level and you could see the "Correo" sign.  After walking up and down the block, no joy.  We were then told to go up a level and take an "izquerda" (left) and go all the way through the mall.  Strike two.  We turned around an were told to go around the edge and the Correo was in the back part of the mall.  We found it!  It was an important mission, because I wanted to get Aaron's birthday card mailed before his birthday, regardless of when it gets delivered.  I was told that it would take two weeks to arrive, but wasn't concerned as long as it got mailed.  The surprising thing was the cost, only $0.55.  I thought the lady had made a mistake and she said no, that's what postage costs even for Air Mail.  This was surprising, because my experience during other trips was that mailing back home was expensive.  Despite the affordability it is still a challenge to find post cards.

Roger is a bit under the weather.  His cast iron digestive system has decided to revolt.  Last night was long for him and fortunately this morning's walk about was not interrupted (except for the rain.)  We'll be taking it easy this afternoon as it looks like it's going to be raining off and on all day, and Roger doesn't want to stray too far from his throne.

There's always tomorrow...

Colon

17 July

We left Balboa at 6:15 this morning and headed across the isthmus to Colon.  It was an interesting drive getting onto the toll road, as drivers don't like giving way or an inch of roadway.  Norm has gone native in his driving technique and had an accident at a toll booth.  After getting stuck behind him and people getting made at us for not moving through the ONLY toll booth, the folks in charge realized it might be smart to open another booth.  Once the backlog thinned out, we were able to pay our toll and get through the other booth, while Norm and the Panamanian figured out how to resolve the accident.  Apparently the guy was demanding $300 dollars from Norm.  Norm told the guy he only had $2 and eventually after much arguing the guy accepted Norm's $2.  Norm was quite pleased with himself.

We got to the shipping terminal at 8 am after Norm finally figured out where we were supposed to be.  Picture following the leader with RVs through morning rush hour traffic at the docks.  Roger and Sandra did their excellent jobs driving, despite Norm making an extremely last minute exit that almost resulted in Roger rear ending Sandra.  But Roger listens well to when I say Woah, WOAH!

After a lot of paperwork running around by all vehicle drivers, we left the RVs.  Fortunately while we were waiting it was discovered that our generator wasn't working.  Mr Fix-it (Ben) hadn't left our group yet, so we gave Ben one last job.  He and Roger couldn't figure out what was wrong.  Roger had to go with Norm to do paperwork.  It was really bugging Ben that he hadn't solved the problem, so with my tool assistance he figured out what was wrong.  Apparently a screw had come loose and shorted out the generator's electricity to the entire unit.  Lucky for us there wasn't a fire, as the short was under our bed.  [Mom, we haven't run the generator while sleeping, just to get the microwave running and occasionally to run the ac, so please don't worry.]

While Roger was getting the RV inspected for the umpteenth time he was talking with a guy who's family lives in Chile and they are in the market for an RV.  Roger gave the guy his E-Mail address, so hopefully we can sell the RV without too many headaches in Chile.  After seeing what a pain it is to ship one, Roger is not of the mindset to voluntarily ship ours back to the USA, without trying to sell it first.

Panama Canal

16 July

After the RVs were inspected by the Police and driven back safely to the street in front of Balboa Yacht Club (not nearly as nice as you are thinking and slow restaurant service with weird math totaling your bill) we waited around some more for more Norm required paperwork and were eventually picked up by a Norm arranged tour.  The tour was originally slated for 4 hours, but time crunch meant only 3 hours for the bargain 4 hour price at $85 per person.  This did include admission to the $15 admission to the Miraflores Lock viewing area and museum.

Statue to first female President of Panama.  She started her working life as a maid.

Roger and I at the start of our tour, before we found out how much it was going to cost.

Miraflores locks.

One ship headed towards the Pacific.

-- The US construction of the Panama Canal began in 1903 after the French abandoned the effort due to malaria.  It was completed in 1914 and on 15 August the country will be celebrating the Canal's 100th year of operations.
-- The waterway is a roughly 40 miles long depending where you start measuring from and runs from Colon on the Atlantic to Balboa on the Pacific.
-- There are 3 lock sets:  Gatun, Pedro Miguel, and Miraflores.  The locks are gravity flow water locks, with two section gates.  The height differential from one end to the other is 26 feet, in altitude east to west.
-- The shallowest part of the canal is 8.5 feet deep and sometimes cargo has to be removed and trained to the other end, before the ship can pass just to lighten its load and draft.
-- Each lock has two lanes for traffic.  Typically traffic goes one way during daylight operations, because it is the quickest way to move the most ships.  Generally 40 per day.  During evening hours traffic can go both ways but it makes it slower to transit the passing ships due to limited space in the deeper sections of the canal.
-- A new wider and deeper canal is under construction.  Completion is scheduled for 2015.  The investment was made, because the size of container ships have gotten wider and deeper, due to advancement in naval architecture and propulsion plants.

After we left Miraflores, we were in a car wreck.  I left the scene to go pick up our laundry, which apparently was the smart thing to do.  Roger, Ben and Sandra limped through the Old City at 5 mph, since the van had a badly bent left tire rod.  The travel agent gave us a whopping $10 discount for the frustration.  Oh boy.

New Panama City from Old Panama

When Roger, Ben and Sandra got back, they were tired and frazzled.  I had used my time wisely and had put away the laundry, made the bed, emptied and cleaned the refrigerator.  We spent a long night getting the RV ready for shipping, with some time spent looking for the second set of keys.  I had forgotten that I had put the spare set safely by my book and hat which were going with me after we left the RV.  Dooh!

David and Balboa Panama

14 and 15 July

Yesterday we left Volcan, Panama after spending the night at the Police Station.  We drove less than 2 hours to David, Panama.  The goal yesterday was to get our tanks filled with propane, which was accomplished.  Our tank was 3/8 full and needed less than $40 to fill it up.  After that was accomplished we went to the mall to buy a SIM card and get a navigation (data) plan for the phone.  That cost less than $20 on Claro for 10 days “high speed” unlimited service.  Unfortunately, high speed is a very debatable term.  We spent the night in the Priceclub parking lot (think Costco parking lot.)

This morning we left David at 6:15 to head to Balboa, Panama, which is just north of Panama City.  The first third of the drive was on washboard road, that was only safe going as fast as 35 mph.  Roger was pretty good at missing the bad potholes, when he could.  The road finally got better around Santiago.  In fact there were times that it felt like we were on US interstate, except for maneuvering around the local buses that were dropping off and picking up passengers on the fly.

Balboa is in the old canal zone.  Roger’s bus driver friend, Sam Melendez-Lopez has in-laws in Coronado, Panama.  Sam really wanted us to stop at the family restaurant,  and say hello to his wife’s cousin Malena Ellis and her family.  Unfortunately, the timing didn’t work out so well, as it was too late for lunch (Norm had stopped us probably an hour earlier) and so we just did a brief drive-by visit.  It was really nice to meet Malena, her husband, and son.  They really enjoyed a tour of the motorhomes and Roger enjoyed a milkshake at Malena’s restaurant.  Norm conducted some business with the shipping company, so when he was finished he was ready to press on.  It seems we may be shipping to Cartagena as early as Saturday, 19 July.  We should find out tomorrow morning if that will be the case, and we hope it will.

We got to Balboa around 3pm and then waited on Norm to find a place for us to camp.  He had originally planned for us to spend the night at the local fire station, but Roger could tell that the station had too many trucks and no room for us to park.  After Norm did over an hour’s worth of talking, we pulled out from our parking space at the Panama Canal Administration building and headed to the Armador Convention Center.  There was no place to camp there either, so our third stop was at the Panama Yacht Club and there was street camping available.  There are lots of old vehicles “parked” on the street, as well as some European RVs.

The good news is that I’m feeling better today.  Last night I ran a temperature and was hot to the touch.  Roger ran the AC for about 2 hours while it was HOT in David (before an afternoon cool-off rain).  I guess I caught a weird cold, because today I’m coughing and feel rundown, but fortunately don’t have a fever anymore.  I just hope Roger doesn’t catch whatever I had.  Tomorrow is a tour of canal locks and some pre-European ruins.

Enjoy the pictures, taken on a cloudy afternoon.

 

Our vehicles got stopped for Inspection.  We think the 5 guys just wanted to see inside our RVs.

Roger and Sam's cousin at the family restaurant in Coronado.

The Panama Yacht Club taken from the InterAmerica Bridge



The Panama Canal Administration Building, which is getting the final touches of a face lift for the 100 year celebration of the Canal in August.



The view from the Panama Canal Admin building.

Shipping traffic near the Yacht Club.

Yachts and shipping traffic, from the Yacht club side.  The pier is Yacht club access and definitely doesn't impact on shipping traffic.

 

Volcan

13 July

Last night we opted to stay in a hotel, Hotel Bambito, instead of parking at the police station in the center of town.  This decision was based on a hot sweaty previous night and the need for a good night's sleep.  Norm told us the hotel was a 5 star hotel, not.  We'd give it 3 stars, because the bed was hard, towels thin, no screens in the windows so we had lots of flys visit us, no ac (although none was needed at altitude), but it did have a shower with imaginary hot water and clean sand free sheets.  Neither of us slept well despite our well intentions.  It was a nice hotel at one time, but it needs some serious renovations.

Panama

12 July

Costa Rica was a blur, we were there less than 24 hours.  We sort of feel like we were on the run in Costa Rica.  It took 2 and a half hours to get across the border and moving again in Panama.  It is a grey cloudy day, so these few pictures don't do justice to the Costa Rican west coast.

The highway in Panama was built post WWII by US Army CE's so it was well built.  The speed limit in some places is posted at 100 km.  It was a nice change from CA-1 in Costa Rica.  We made it to Volcan around 2:30.  Roger and I checked into a hotel, because Norm was going to camp at the Volcan police station right in the center of Volcan.  After last night, we decided we needed a hotel room to rest.  Roger had a tough day behind the wheel avoiding trucks.

Tomorrow will be spent relaxing in Volcan.  Norm said that several years ago Volcan was listed as one of the top 5 places to retire and since then the price of real estate has gone through the roof.  We saw several nice compounds, but getting a picture is hard to do when you can't stop and there's no shoulder to the road.

Running thru Costa Rica

11 July

We left Nicaragua after over 2 and a half hours in getting through that border.  Costa Rica took about the same amount of time.

Apparently Norm thought this was a quick crossing, because he guided us to the coastal road of Costa Rica.  We thought we were going to stop at Punta Arenas (all 4 of us heard that) be we continued on to Parrita.  We saw a wreck, one car off the right side of the road, and another with a motor scooter underneath it.  This probably occurred at twilight and on a damp road, because it was late and it had rained a little.  It was dark upon arrival and we camped at a school that Norm has stayed at before.  We were supposed to be able to get inside the locked compound, but that wasn't the case.  It ended up we camped next to the school and a park.  Ben didn't think it very safe and there was quite a confrontation about this.  Norm ended up moving his truck to sort of protect us, plus a local guy told us that there is a neighborhood night watchman that starts at 10 pm.

From what we saw of Costa Rica, it appears to be the green-est country of Central America.  They take pride in not having trash along the road side.  The coastal road was finished about 7 years ago.  It was in pretty good shape, compared to CA-1/-2 which was like driving on a washboard and extremely narrow.  Unfortunately, Norm thinks Costa Rica has too much commercial tourism, and despite our requests we did not stop and get to see anything along the way.

After a hot sweaty night last night, we left Parrita at 8 and headed to Panama.

San Jorge Day 2

10 July

Yesterday we surrendered our laundry for washing.  This was arranged by Norm for $8 USD.  Little did we know that our laundry was going to be washed and dried in the local sand wind.  When our laundry came back we had to violently shake everything out, just to try to get the sand out of our clothes.  Live and learn.

Since last night was so unpleasant with the sand wind, Roger and I went out investigating to see if there was someplace else we could camp overnight without the sand wind.  We found Hotel California and Raul was very helpful in providing us information on where to park in the "sombra" without the sand all for $10 USD.  When we informed Norm that we were moving, he said "I hope it's safe."  We're under the impression that fear is one of the tools he's trying to use on us to play by his rules.   Fortunately, both Roger and I aren't intimidated by Norm's tactics.  Sandra came to check out Hotel California and she decided to move as well.

They take security seriously at the Hotel California.

Norm once again asked her if she knew whether or not it was safe.  Norm reminded us that he had local security keeping an eye on us last night.  This entailed giving a flash light to a 14 year old and telling him to keep watch.  Apparently he didn't do a great job, because somebody was taking pictures of Sandra's rig last night after midnight and we woke up with tourist flyers on our windshield.

After we set up our move, Roger successfully transited out from the beach.  He had a confident speed going and was able to just barely scoot across the thick sand.  Ben was disappointed because he wanted another excuse to use Sandra's wench.

Since we were going to move the RV, we ended up taking everybody to the grocery store.  Norm hopped out without so much as a Thank You upon our arrival.  The grocery store didn't open until 9 and so we had over a half an hour to kill.

We hopped on one of the bicycle taxis and headed to a panaderia (bakery).  Sandra bought some bread, I was not impressed by the pastries so I didn't buy anything.  From there we were peddled to a ferreteria (hardware store), where Roger bought some parts to run an extension cord from our house batteries so we can now run the fan all night long.  Yeah!  We can also now charge the laptop without starting the generator by using the extension cord.  I had mentioned my idea to Roger a couple of days ago, and he need time to cogitate on the execution of my plan.

From the ferreteria, we went to a taller de cuero.  Ben wanted a machete and saw one at the ferreteria, but they didn't have a case.  So I asked our bike guy if he knew of a place where a case can be made for a machete.  He did and rode us there.  I talked with the guy at the leather shop and for $20 USD Ben (Sandra's son) bought a machete and had a leather case made for it.  Ben was extremely happy with the end result.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing.  Tomorrow is scheduled to be a long day, with a border crossing into Costa Rica.  The log says 212 miles tomorrow.  I hope our drivers both get a good night's sleep.