Jan. 30/Feb. 1 - Costa Rica

February 1st, 2006 | By April | 2 Comments »

Day 182/184 - Good news, bad news, good news. Henry is locked up secure in his own personal hotel room for the next ten days or so. I hope he enjoys his solitude and the rest from driving. We didn’t get to go on the ship with Henry. The port was backed up and the captain wouldn’t be coming ashore for another day or two – so we decided it was a better use of our time to backpack it by bus and plane to Chile, especially since we had no idea if the captain would even let us come with them. We get to visit the Panama Canal and see the Seahawks kick butt in the Superbowl, which we would have missed if we went on the ship.

waiting and sunset at Caldera

We spent two full days of sweating, waiting, doing paperwork, and drinking coffee at the port of Caldera, until we loaded up the van and locked it up. Not too exciting.

loading Henry up into his temporary casa.

tied down and locked up

now fully homeless with just our bags and two feet

We met a nice gentleman who offered to give us a cheap ride to San Jose from the port, in one of the nice turismo vans. It was a very pleasant ride and our first time being in the rain since leaving Seattle. Now we are in San Jose at a youth hostel; man, seeing all the young ‘kids’ makes me feel old! We are now looking for bus tickets to Panama City. The Tica bus is full for the next nine days! That was the bus we wanted to get on, but now we are looking into others. Once we get down to Panama we are planning on trying to get a standby ticket at the airport, to fly down to Santiago, Chile. This is the cheapest way we can think of getting down there. Any suggestions or help on cheap flights to Chile would be wonderful!!!

there was a line of ants outside our hotel that were carrying leaves and petals back home, it was really cartoon like to see.

Jan. 28/29 - Costa Rica

January 29th, 2006 | By April |

Day 180/181 - We spent this Saturday in Jaco, a beach resort town that was having a big beach party this weekend. A beach volleyball tournament was going on all weekend and a live concert on Sunday afternoon. We came here to sell our surf board in order to get some cash to help with our shipping costs, and because we’ve been told there isn’t as much surf in South America. After accomplishing this task we spent our time wandering the beach and slept in a campground for the night. The campground was one big party! I believe there were people that never went to bed, the cars just kept coming in. It was impressive.

A big community of campers! A very great culture, even if it was noisy

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A river of Crocodiles

Today we are looking for a cheap place to shower, sleep, and use the internet We are packing our bags for either a trip on the ship or backpacking our way to Chile. Henry even got his first bath since we bought him! We want him to look pretty for the customs officials in Chile!

A clean shiny Henry in Puntarenas!!

Jan. 27 - Costa Rica

January 29th, 2006 | By April | 1 Comment »

Day 179 - An eventful a day as any, but at the same time it was uneventful. We crossed the Costa Rican border with no helpers and no troubles. It was the most peaceful, and the easiest of all borders we’ve crossed. I don’t have much to say, except follow the signs and the official’s instructions. We crossed within an hour at the most; record time for a border crossing! Unless you count the crossing from the USA into Baja, Mexico (taking only 1 second).

Lago de Nicaragua

Costa Rica. This road looks nice, but this country has the worst roads we’ve driven on so far…. talk about potholes!

We drove down to Caldera, a port on the Pacific Coast side, and spent all day there. Jason started making inquires about shipping our van to South America. We knew a couple that shipped their car from here, on a roll-on roll-off (RORO) ship and it was very cheap. Unfortunately, there were no RORO boats coming into port. A helpful gentleman gave Jason some shipping agents that we could contact to request information about the schedule for next few days. We found out that there is a ship leaving on the 31st for Chile, and arriving in San Antonio, Chile around the 9th, which was very good news. That is exactly what we were looking for, but it was more expensive than we wanted. It is going to end up costing $1150 USD, which includes taxes, customs, and everything – about the same price as most people have paid to ship to Ecuador. After numerous phone calls and in talking with the customs officials, we decided that this was the route we wanted to take. We want to meet up with some good friends of ours in Uruguay in the middle of February, and this boat will put us there right on time. It was perfect, how everything was working out at the port. We will have just enough time to get our paperwork done before loading the car on the ship, and we have the possibility of riding on the ship with our car. If we can do that, it would be the most ideal situation. We have to wait until Monday to get our shipping container number. Once we have that, our van is secured for shipping, and we just have to convince the captain to let us join them for the ride.

greenery!!