18 September, 2002

We awoke to the sounds of happy laughter in the hall and, well, welding of all things, next door. Bb often wonders if these Ticos have any idea that their guests may not be getting up at the crack of dawn for the 4:45 a.m. bus out of Santa Elena or the sunrise hike through the cloud forest. It was well enough though, as we were supposed to meet Frank in about an hour.

We hollered out the window at Charlie, the Soldedura (welder) as we hurried by on our way to Frank's. He seemed ready and amenable to working on Buttercup's new roof rack later today.

Frank was gracious, if a bit thrown off track when we arrived without a new roof rack - HA! Obviously either Frank gets much better service from the local merchants than most people (highly likely) or he hasn't really spent much time dealing with custom work at the mechanic or soldedura. It is rather nice though, to tell people that Frank Joyce sent us, or that when pressed, to tell someone that the friend we are visiting in town is Frank. Everyone knows him, from the welder to the duena (female owner) of our hotel and he is well-respected.

We had a great time talking, drinking coffee and munching on the pastries we brought while sitting out on Frank's deck and listening to the birds (which he can name by call). We had a couple of really good laughs and just generally enjoyed the company. In a rare moment of time-awareness, Steve actually suggested we get going to get the rack built so that we could chat more with Frank later.

Next off, as we're parked in Santa Elena, getting parts, who rolls up the street but The Hoopty! Fantastic! We chat with them for a while and trade Traveling To Monteverde Stories -- there is always a story in getting here -- and agree to meet up at their hotel in a little bit after we drop off materials* to Charlie. Our intent is to leave Buba with him and walk back to their hotel.

Well, it turns out Charlie needed us to come back at 4 p.m. and just as we found this out, lo and behold, Frank drives by -- great, we can just tell him in the middle of the street. Sometimes, ya gotta love a small town.

We showed Vee and Cocktoaston the newest update -- sorry y'all, we tried to update on the 17th, but were unsuccessful, but if you visit Costa Rica, you too can preview the site in person! and then much to Vee's delight, we agreed to go with them to the cheese factory. Bb had babbled on and on about the dairy products being one of the key reasons to visit Monteverde. We don't know if everyone would agree with that, but Vee and C seemed pretty impressed with the products.

We all got ice cream cones, except C who got a strawberry milkshake -- holy cow was he happy with that! C had picked up some bread on the way and with cheese in hand we made ourselves a little picnic with some wine we had in the car.

We parted ways with Vee and John -- they to some hotsprings and then to Alajuela to stay the night before Vee's early flight out, and us back to Charlie.

*It was great to meet you Virginie. We really enjoyed your company and wish you could travel with us more.*

Well, of course when we got to Charlie, one of his other customers was there pressuring him to get his order done. So we go back in the morning. Early. We'll see if we get out of MV by tomorrow!

19 September, 2002

Wow!! We just so happened to notice that this little journal of ours isn't so little anymore! Today marks the THIRD year of writing more or less daily about all the silly little things we do. Been a bumpy ride, but a lot of fun. Hope ya'll are enjoying following along. For those of you just joining the show- click here to jump back three years and read about how all this got started!

We're still in Monteverde. We did an update (including some changes to the new Traveler's Page, which now shows Steve with short hair for those of you who were curious about the trivialities of his coiffure) and ran around town looking for a phone card and doing various errands. The day passed quickly, but we've not much to show for it!

Buttercup had a fairly productive day at least- she got to try on her new roof rack (not painted, but at least built). It fit great. She also got to pull out a big-ol flatbed truck that was stuck in the mud on a hill. The truckers didn't seem to believe us when Steve offered to pull them out (they were in the road that leads to our hotel, we had to move them to get there). But once we did pull 'em they were awfully happy.

We also managed a trip to the Ranario de Monteverde (frog zoo) which delighted Bb to no end and even taught Steve a couple of things (maybe, he might have just been being nice to the guide). It's a small place with about 14 terrariums. The $8/person admission gets you a 45 minute tour with a guide and allows you to enter twice- once to see the diurnal (daytime) frogs and another to see the nocturnal ones- most of the them are more active at night. So of course we went back after dark to check in again. Going twice is definately the best approach as the place changes dramatically between day and night.

Then we headed off into the pouring rain (there is an awful lot of pouring rain around here at night) to find a place to chat and eat dinner before turning in with visions of a fully painted roof rack and mounted rooftop tent dancing in our heads.

20 September, 2002

Up early to grab the roofrack and get the tent put on...
Rack isn't done- paint doesn't dry overnight when it is pouring rain, big surprise.

So we headed off to a tipico breakfast and met some gringos who we sent to Tamarindo, then we hit the internet.

Finally got the rack on at about midday. Total cost to us was about $60, but still a little bit more expensive than what it might be worth down here.... but that's all right, we got the rack!

Since the rack was still tacky to the touch, we decided to wait it out one more night. We ate well, talked about the pros and cons of purchasing vs. managing a hotel vs. buying land and building a hotel and went to bed at a reasonable hour with a million questions spinning in our heads.

21 September, 2002

Ok, rack in place and we are off to get the rooftop tent! Yeah! Frank had said to get there early as he had a busy day, so we showed up at 8 a.m..

Frank was available to help put the tent on, thank goodness and we managed to do so with minimal delay. After getting the tent on top of the rack, we took a break to eat some muffins and drink coffee with the Joyce family. We enjoyed watching the whole busy-family-in-the-morning dynamic.

After the kids and Frank left for soccer, we headed back out to finish up mounting the tent.
Then it got interesting. See, we had made the design low-profile to keep the tent snug to the roof (avoid branches better, less wind drag) and the welder had made it slightly lower still, by oversight we suspect. The end result is that there wasn't enough room to connect the rooftop tent's mounting hardware to the rack. It would fit- we just couldn't get hands or wrenches in there to tighten anything as the nut and plate stack was exactly the same thickness as the available space. Wow. Were we ever frustrated by that! Our comments regarding the design would have made a sailor blush.

Fortunately we solved the problem (in theory) by adding a chunk of rubber mudflap between the rack's rear feet and the rain gutter. Of course, that necessitated extending the clamps a little, so Steve jogged back to the welder. We got the new feet made and got the tent attached to the rack and the rack attached to the roof. By the time we were all done it was approaching 1pm. Unbelievable. 3 1/2 hours to attach the tent to the roofrack.

The front clamps were still pretty dodgy as the nuts on the clamps only barely covered the end of the bolt (no washer, no lock washer) and Steve didn't want to drive all over bumpy roads with nuts that could fly off at any moment (we've had negative experiences with losing important nuts in the past). So back to the welder to "quickly" fab up new feet like the ones in back.

"Quickly" turned into most of the afternoon (the torrential downpour that hit at 2pm didn't help) and a very very frustrated Steve and Bb returned to our hotel around 3:30 to spend another night. We thought about leaving Monteverde then, of course, but realized that we wouldn't actually *get* anywhere before nightfall and driving in the rain at night is a real drag, especially if you don't know where you are going. So we stayed. Again. But at least we have our tent!

22 September, 2002

Finally. After a quick breakfast and a long chat about "what's next" we headed off down the road out of Monteverde. The rack held up fine (to our delight) and we pointed Bubba towards Quepos and Manuel Antonio using the rational that before we commit to anything in Tamarindo we really should finally see the most popular beach area in Costa Rica.

As we were tooling along, enjoying smooth pavement (the roads in Monteverde are horrid -- adds a lot of charm to the town, but it is nice to be on smooth pavement again) Steve looked up ahead and said, "Hey... is that The Hoopty?" What a silly question! How many Caprice Estate wagons can there possibly be in this country?

With a honk and a wave we turned around and met up with Cocktoaston again. We all swapped tales of what we had been up to the last few days, then we each took off towards our respective destinations again. Sure is fun to bump into people, especially when we only know about 10 people in the whole country.

After a quick stop along a bridge to watch crocodiles, we arrived to Quepos in the afternoon and were whatever the opposite of impressed is. The town of Quepos, in our initial estimate, isn't a very lovely place. Mostly it reminded us of small cities in Honduras- a little run-down, dirty, crowded and generally unkempt. So we rolled on through up to Manuel Antonio (MA). Wow. It is often said that the beach at MA is perhaps the most beautiful in Costa Rica. That may not be far from the truth. It really is lovely. On the road to the National Park there are dozens, perhaps scores, of hotel and restaurants. In fact, along the three or four mile drive we don't recall seeing anything *but* hotels, homes, and restaurants. We figure that if anywhere there is a place to talk with some hotel owners, this may be it!

But first we stopped for a cold beer and watched a very nice sunset at El Avion- a US bomber that was abondoned in costa Rica long about the Iran-Gate era that has since been converted to a hilltop bar with an ocean view. It is as strange as it sounds. But the view was great and the breeze felt awfully good after a long day in the car. While the sunset wasn't quite as nice as you get at ground-level in Tamarindo, it was pretty spectacular.

Then we headed off to get a room at the Mono Azul hotel, then into Quepos for dinner.

23 September, 2002

Travel day! (again). We woke up refreshed and happy at El Mono Azul and after a quick chat with the friendly owners we decided to head on down the coast to Dominical, since we've heard so many great things about it. Well, other than the lousy, dusty road to get there from here (and a quick repair of a squeeky-rattly hood hinge), Dominical is great. Beautiful and largely undeveloped still. We really liked the beach there. The town is so-so. Not bad, just nothing particularly impressive. What was impressive was the price of real estate when you consider just how little is already there. It seems that land owners are already planning on the place's eventual growing up.

Huge bull! It could probably see over our Cruiser while standing next to it.	How would you like to ride this for 2 hours over bumpy dirt road? Notice the guy in the cab of the crane, also notice the poor guy on the motorbike, sucking dust.	This is a pretty typical soccer field, you see them in just about any town of any size. This town is only about 200 people, yet notice how well-tended the field is.	View from one of the properties for sale near Dominical. The only catch is that the property seems to be poised for a quick slide into the ocean.	Looking south along the beach at Dominical.This is an extrremely low tide, would like to see it normally.

So we drove around a bit, chatted with a real estate agent and headed southward towards Uvita, another little town by the beach. Didn't like Uvita much, but that could have been because we were tired of driving and a rainstorm was rolling in, making everything look gray and dingy.

Because of the rainstorm we headed back north to Manuel Antonio again where Steve had a great sitdown with Chip (the Mono Azul owner) and talked about hotel managment. Bb went for a nice hot run, then came and sat with us for a while. In addition to offering loads of information about hotel managment, Chip gave us much-needed encouragment and enthusiasm. It has been a tough week so it is nice to have someone remind you that "of course you guys will do great."

In other good news: Since it was sunny in the morning, Steve opened up the rooftop tent and to our great surprise there is apparently no nasty mold or anything from having sat in the tropics for 15 months! We had nightmares of huge stringy green furballs filling the interior (seriously, we were very worried that it might be a disaster). But all is wonderful on that account- we'll air out the mattress and wash the sheets, but nothing different than what we would have done if it had all been stored in an attic for a year. Thanks again, Frank, for letting us store it in what was obviously a great place!

24 September, 2002

Since it had gotten late and we were enjoying the place so much, we decided to stick around another day at the Mono Azul. In addition to wanting to chat some more with Chip and Jennifer, we also wanted to meet some of the other people who make up the community and see what sort of opportunities exist there for hotel management or possibly finding something for sale. We got a couple of interesting names and numbers to follow-up on and spent some time chatting with Ann, the affable editor of The Quepolandia, a casual black and white magazine dedicated to keeping Quepos/Manuel Antonio gringos in touch with what is going on in their adopted home.

Somewhere in all of that we also managed to get online at the local internet cafe but were dismayed to find out that we couldn't get any of our email due to some sort of changes that our hosts had made, or that we hadn't made... or something. After emailing back and forth (always good to keep an extra "freebie" email address) with our friend Ryan (the support desk at our host) Steve finally gave up, hoping that things would be squared away by the next time we could get on line. Traveling with a laptop can be great sometimes (like when you download 40 emails and only pay for 15 minutes of cafe time) but it also opens up the opportunity to waste hours with computer glitches, just like home!

One of the two three-toed sloths that is rehabilitating at the Hotel Mono Azul	Mono Azul co-owner Chip snuggles with the sloth a little	Plantation houses along the Manuel Antonio/Jaco road

We headed up into Manuel Antonio again to visit some more hoteliers, all of whom stressed the importance of getting residency squared away, then jumped into Bubba to head up towards Jaco to spend the night. Ended up driving at night again, and vowed to stop driving at night (again), but arrived safe and sound in Jaco.

After a few tries we found a place to park and sleep that was under $30. In one of those unexpected twists of pricing we learned that in the "low" season a junky, ugly, unkempt hotel in Jaco can actually be more expensive than a really nice little place in Manuel Antonio- hands down a much more expensive destination. Odd. It seems that ironically Jaco's reputation as a cheap surf destination keeps its occupancy relatively high in the green season whereas MA's reputation as higher priced seems to keep more of the budget travelers (the bulk of the green season's tourists) away. Funny how things work out sometimes. Funny, but not in the "ha-ha" way, more of the "Are you kidding? You want $30 for THIS?" way.

We walked around town a little, ate some food, walked around a little bit more, then called it a night. Our big conversation during the evening was how to describe Jaco. Here's the positive spin: Jaco is purported to have great waves, it is probably a really good place to go get hammered at a neon-lit bar that looks to be fresh out of any number of coastal cities in Central America that cater to tourists looking for some sun, some "cheap" drinks, and loud music. And, the best part of all: Jaco is possibly the only small city we've seen that has clear and consistent STREET SIGNS. Very nice. Oh, and the beach isn't nearly as dirty as you would expect considering the huge number of surfers in the waves.

Obviously we aren't big Jaco fans. There are surely dozens of people who LOVE Jaco, they can tell you why on their websites. We probably won't spend much time there in the future.

25 September, 2002

Got an early start in Jaco, had an easy drive up the coast (the road is great) grabbed a nice breakfast in Orotina and arrived in Atenas before 11 a.m. Hit the internet cafe then headed off to buy our car.

"Buy your car?" "Haven't you had it for a month now?"

Yep. But you see, here, to buy a car you have to actually go to a lawyer and have a legal document drawn up. So while we had paid for the car before and had a receipt (and the car) to prove it, we hadn't jumped through the legal hoops yet. We also still owed the seller 40,000 colones (about $120) that we had held back from the purchase as he offered a one-month engine guarantee and we thought it easier to hold onto some money than to get it back from him. Turned out to be a good idea as it took about two hours to get him to concede that the water pump that we had to replace was A) a part of the motor, and B) that he should pay us for the full cost of the part even though he could have gotten it cheaper in San Jose. His theory is that we should have called him and he would have brought us the part. While there may be some validity to what he was saying, it was a stupid argument to have considering the amount of money in question. At the end of it all stubbornness won out- he knocked the price down about $60 and we left satisfied.

Isn't there some saying like: "If both parties leave the table grumbling then it must be a good deal." ? Well, that seems to have been the situation.

Of course, despite our having called ahead earlier, the car lot hadn't yet called the lawyer to confirm that he was available, so he wasn't available until later in the afternoon. Bb came up with the good idea of running off to see a movie at the nearby theater while we were killing time. We watched Signs - not a bad flick - then headed back to pick up the car guy to go to the lawyer. Of course, despite having made an appointment earlier in the day, the lawyer was not ready when we got there and we had to wait for him to finish up other business and wait again for them to find/fill out the necessary paperwork. When all was finally said and done we had paid the lawyer a whopping $24 and he gave us a page and a half legal document that said we were the new owners of the car. And it only took six hours! (Including a movie.)

An interesting point that Bb made is that while most of us in the US may never actually set foot in a lawyer's office, here in Costa Rica lawyers are an integral part of literally dozens of "day to day" transactions and they only charge about $25/hour for simple paperwork stuff. Interesting difference. We couldn't help but wonder just how much worse the legal system in the States would be if lawyers there only charged $25/hour. Can you even imagine the number of frivolous lawsuits you would see?!?!?

Because of the late hour we decided to grab a room at the Hotel Pacande and relax over a nice meal. A quick phone call got us the room, then we found a Chinese place in town to eat a huge plate of veggies in mushroom sauce. Funny restaurant that- It had an Italian name, served Chinese food, and also had Tico "casados" on the menu. Go figure. But the food was delicious.