Living well in Tamarindo, Costa Rica: Travel, Land Cruisers, Gardening, Food, and Jewelry

Clear Skies for Departure

2010-04-30T06:17:00.001-06:00

Antigua.... you coy little minx. For two days we've walked your streets, looking hopefully at the flanks of your beautiful volcanoes, in vain, for you hid behind a veil of mist and rain.

Of course it is today, as we arise early for long road trip, you cast aside your gauzy shroud and impress us with your beauty, challenging us to leave you by finally revealing your full splendor. I would say that I hate you for it, but how can I hate such loveliness?

You're a cruel lover, Antigua, and a rare gem.

I can't wait to return, but for now I must push on towards Mexico.

Antigua

2010-04-28T12:48:00.000-06:00

We've made it to Antigua, Guatemala. Loooooong travel day yesterday, from Choluteca, Honduras to some little truck stop/motel on km 120 of the highway in Guatemala. The borders.... ah, the borders. Another story later.

It is beautiful in Antigua, as always. The weather isn't helping, yet, but lovely just the same.
Having a dog makes finding a hotel difficult, so we rented a house for about the same $ as we spent for a crappy hotel in Honduras. Excellent!

Some teaser pictures. Front door, 2nd floor patio, and "Steve's Room".
But now we have a city to walk, so more updates later.

Choluteca, Honduras

2010-04-27T05:43:00.000-06:00

No time for photos right now, but after two solid days of driving we are in Choluteca, Honduras. This town has little to offer beyond safe parking and mediocre eating. But it is about halfway between the border of El Guasale and El Amatillo and thus good enough. We stayed at the Paradise Hotel. It is neither a hotel nor paradise, but they do offer WiFi.

We'll be getting an early start today with eyes on arriving in Antigua, Guatemala by nightfall. Which will take some luck, especially at the borders.

Borders, in fact, have been the slow-point of our trip. Getting two gringos, a dog, and a Land Cruiser through all of the various windows and payments has not been difficult, but has been time-consuming.

Interestingly- the dog has been the expensive part. For instance- yesterday to enter Honduras it cost $13 for the truck, $3/person, and 250 lempira for the dog, which is nearly $14. And the car has only three sheets of paper related to being legal whereas the dog has four, plus a vaccination card.

I certainly value the dog higher than the truck, but.... it seems odd that both Nicaragua and Honduras are being more strict in their canine than automotive controls.

Surf, Packing, Praying for Benign Registro

2010-04-20T08:55:00.002-06:00

Got up to a muggy morning and took the dog and the Dad to the beach for a quick surf. Caly and Dad played stick, when the two other dogs would let them. I surfed.

The water was glassy and clean, the waves were waist to chest high, and three good friends were in the water with me. It wasn't perfect, but it was wonderful.

Back to the house too soon with a sandy mutt and a smile on my face, now I'm sitting here checking in on my vehicle with the Registro Nacional- hoping that all is clear so we can start driving soon. No luck as of 8:30 AM, but maybe later....

Still have a few things to pack up, but otherwise pretty close to ready to roll. Feeling a lot of mixed feelings- excited for the journey, sorry to leave the place I love so much, excited to go to a new place I love.

A Typical Day

2010-04-10T08:21:00.000-06:00

Long day, but I think that it was pretty typical of how things go squirrely here and some of the beauty of living in Costa Rica.

I got up around sunrise to get an early start on the day and get a long list of things done. After making sure that I had the tools and junk that I thought I would need for the day, I loaded up the car and hit the road...

It took me nearly ten minutes to realize that I had forgotten my coffee.   Dangit!   I did not want to take the 20 or so minutes round-trip to go get it, but knew that it was going to be a rough morning without. Ah, well, such is life.

I arrived in Liberia after an uneventful 80 minute drive into the rising sun, and was sitting at the Revision Technica Gate when they opened for the morning. I need to do a 'voluntary' annual inspection in order to straighten my vehicle paperwork. The annual inspection is widely regarded as being slightly better than a dental exam, in terms of overall pleasure. So there I was, smiling and friendly, chatting with the Person Behind the Glass Divider to get my place in line. I was extra friendly and nice because I knew that I did not have an appointment (none available until end-of-month) and was thus at the mercy of said Person Behind the Glass Divider. I knew that the no-appointment detail was unfortunate, but when I had spoken to the Person On the Phone yesterday, she told me that no-appointment status would take longer but was not a problem.

It was a problem. In Liberia there is no provision for no-appointment status. You simply can't do it. Would have been good information *before* driving all the way there!    Since the Phone Person was so wrong on the no-appointment status, I decided to ask the Behind the Glass Person to check for available appointments this week. Pure genius on my part. There *is* an available appointment. Tomorrow (Saturday) in Nicoya, which is only an hour from my house. Disco.

Slightly frustrated by my failure, but buoyed by my potential success on Saturday, I proceeded to the turbo mechanic. The nice folks at Laboratorio Turbo Diesel are becoming friends of mine. I see them twice a week this month.   After fully rebuilding my injectors, and accidentally giving me the wrong seats, which required removing/replacing the injectors not once, but twice; then fully rebuilding my turbo, and not having a correct gasket which required a little fiddling, we were still right back as square one- my turbo was only producing 5lb of boost when it should give 13.6psi.

It was a head-scratcher, but we rather assumed that the problem was the turbo wastegate, which they did not specifically remember testing when they had the turbo on the bench. Too bad, the wastegate is pretty well hidden between the turbo housing and the motor and is thus a certified pain in the ass to access without pulling the manifold and turbo off of the vehicle (which is also a PITA, but at least it can be done whereas accessing the wastegate on-vehicle is closer to impossible).

I left the truck in their happy hands and went off in search of coffee. I was pleased to eat at the bus station for the second time in a week (not sure about the 'States, but in CR, some of the best cheap food is always at public transit hubs: cheap and delicious).   The gallo pinto was fabulous, the coffee strong and hot, and my scrambled eggs with tomato were appropriately scrambled and tomato'ed. The hand-made tortilla on the side could not be improved upon.

After thoroughly enjoying my chow and watching the comings and goings of people at the bus station, I packed up and got ready to run some other errands.   Just then I got a call from the LTD guys- they needed my ignition key to test the turbo. "Waitaminute. You've already re-installed it?"    "Yep".

Now I'm worried. There's no way that anyone short of a top-flight race mechanic on amphetamines could pull, troubleshoot, and install a turbo in the time it took me to eat my breakfast, it just isn't possible. But instead of argue with the Office Guy on the phone, I walked back to the shop. Sure enough, they hadn't pulled/fixed/replaced anything, but just needed to run the engine to trouble-shoot. Okay. No worries. Here's the key, my bad for taking it (habit).

With that done, I walked back into town in the now-rising heat. I walked to the bank. Quick non chronological plot development: Between the RTV and the LTD, I drove out to the COSEVI (similar to the US DMV, in a very broad sense of the word "similar") to see what need be done to renew my soon-to-expire CR driver's license. Part of the process is to pay 10,000 colones ($20) at the bank and get a receipt. In typical Costa Rican urban planning, the nearest bank is 10 or so miles away from the COSEVI office. So I headed into town and here we catch the previous thread of our story....

In the bank I had number 110, number 74 was at the window. There were eight windows with six of them staffed. Quick mental math told me "Leave. Come back later." Which is precisely what I did.

I walked further into town to find a part for a neighbor. That is it's own saga and I'll save the story for another day, but it involves many, many phone calls and several visits to Liberia to get a part fixed. The part was never fixed at all, despite them having said that it was, and we are back to square one. Ridiculous. Typical.

With no progress there, I walked back to the bank. Not having a car is good exercise. But hot.

In the bank again (nearly 45 minutes later) they were serving number 97, but there were only five tellers now. Still, there was AC, so I opted to wait vs. head out to do other errands.   I enjoyed watching a four-year old boy who was playing soccer between the waiting-area chairs and the tellers. He had a little 4" rubber ball and was aiming at I-don't-know-what, but it involved hitting the backs of complete strangers' legs. Pay attention: this is one of the things that makes Costa Rica AWESOME: each time the ball would carom off of a wall and into someone, the Someone would usually look around for the offending object, smile, and kick it back to the young boy.

Can you imagine what would happen in most places?!?!    I saw this little miracle of getting along played out a dozen times and was impressed by the gentleness and kindness of the people each time. Children are sacred in Costa Rica.

Eventually a little girl got in on the action, playing with the little boy, and the assault on people doing business came to an end. The parents? I don't know who they may have been. Various adults got involved at various points, but nobody seems to have been in charge. If I were more energetic, I would tie this story together and better illustrate the metaphor that this experience is for living in Costa Rica.   Maybe in my novel someday.

SNAP: back to reality. The only reason I got to enjoy this heartwarming spectacle is that in order to execute a very simple transaction (pay $20 to the COSEVI to renew my license) I had spent 40 minutes sitting at the bank after a 45 minute walk around two while waiting for my number to come up.

My take-a-number-and-wait ticket said 9:08am. I walked out at 10:56am and was back on the now-stultifyingly hot street.   TAXI!!!

I jumped into a nice, new taxi with a big stinky driver. On the ten minute drive to the COSEVI I asked him about why his meter wasn't running.... and got a mumbled, invented response. We arrived safely and he extorted too much for the fare. I talked him down some, but still got a bad deal. Such is life.

I got an even worse deal from the little "medical exam" place across the street from COSEVI. See, to get your license renewed, you have to have a doctor (nurse? quack?) fill out a form that assures that you are alive, and have enough limbs and digits to operate a vehicle. After checking my blood pressure, height and weight (I didn't write down the bp, but I think that there were numbers like 70 130/XX involved? I'm at the same 66kg that I've occupied for nearly 20 years and unfortunately I'm still 1,70 short with my shoes on) she asked me for my blood type (A+, I knew, because I had called my mother to check) and if I had any ailments. That was the "exam". Oh, wait, she also asked me if I could read aloud a poster that was part way across the room, I could, which was apparently good enough for her. 15,000 colones ($30) and I was on my way. Complete ripoff.

I got to COSEVI and the nice guard person behind the desk (GPBD) shepherded me into the inner building. He and I had talked earlier (remember the non-chronological twist a few paragraphs ago?) and he was very upset then that my driver's license number did not match my residence ID number. One thing that Costa Rica does well vs. the USA is that they try very hard to have all of your ID numbers *match*. It makes book keeping much easier for all parties. In comparison, my recently renewed USA passport number is totally different than my original passport number and also different than my CA driver's license and my Social Security number. My library card is different still, but that's ok, I don't go to the library much anyway. Side to my aside: you can't even imagine how inconvenient the change of passport number is, in a country where your ID number is yours from birth till death. It is inconvenient.

So GPBD was in a little bit of a tizzy because the numbers were different and took it upon himself to Make Things Right. Which was just plain fantastic for me as I vaulted ahead of twelve other people in line, and instead of trying to talk through a 1" hole in the glass, I got to actually enter the office of the Person With the Computer. PWC and GPBD had a conversation that couldn't have been more inane, yet amusing, as he explained the situation, she repeated it, he confirmed it, she repeated it to me, I confirmed it with GPBD butting in to confirm my confirmation, then some sighs and literal head scratching, then finally PWC opened one screen, changed the license number to match my ID number, and this massive problem was instantly vaporized. Ten minutes of 'work' for ten seconds of actually fixing the 'problem'.    But, hey, I was in the air conditioned inner sanctum under the protective wing of GPBD, so ten minutes watching other people sweating in 100*+ heat while my problem was solved... didn't seem so bad.

GPBD's kindness didn't end there. Perhaps he thought I needed special care after the perilous non-matching-numbers episode. I don't know. Maybe it was my winning smile?   He took me from PWC to another Person with a Camera and Computer.   I was genuinely impressed that PWCC managed to snap my photo, take my digital fingerprint, and get me to sign a little digital thingy all while speaking in a voice that I doubt even *he* could hear, inside his own head. Nice fellow, but boy it would help if he could speak up a little. At least the stuff I had to do was relatively self explanatory.

Maybe this is commonplace in some places, but the next part wowed me: the machine next to PWCC's computer and camera started whirring and clanking. It sounded like a sewing machine was mating with a VW bug. Less than a minute later, a minute filled with Mr. Quiet's lips moving but no way in this earth I could even hear his whisper, let alone understand him, and 'click', my new ID spits out of the machine. All done. Nifty! I signed a little book of his stating that I have my new ID, and I was off again- back into the now *painful* 106* full midday sun heat.   I stopped to show GBPD my new license (correct number) and he seemed touched by my thoughtfulness. I imagine most people just walk on by. Poor guy.

Sweating through my shirt after just walking across the street, I took a seat under the shade of the bus stop, and awaited a bus.   After a few minutes, a cabbie was pulling out and gave me a "What's Up?" gesture. Sort of a palm upturned with shoulder shrug thing. Very common here.   He then point towards Liberia. I rubbed my fingers with my thumb in what I believe to be a more-or-less universal "money" gesture, and he showed me five fingers. I thumbs-upped him, he drove across the street and stopped. Still stinging from my earlier cabbie experience, I confirmed 500 colones to get to Liberia. He said yes, I happily entered the meat-locker cold of his taxi and we were on the way. He smelled nice, like inexpensive soap.   This was an entirely more pleasant taxi experience and 20% of the cost of the "To" trip. Happiness reigned.

I got back to my truck (and was immediately drenched in sweat again- 105 with humidity just isn't fair) to find that they had made some progress in that they determined that the turbo was functioning perfectly. Being a turbo-repair place, they couldn't help but say that with a hint of smug. After a few more test drives (one without the exhaust in place, wow, that does make a difference on noise and power) we determined the problem: the fuel filter holder leaks air into the fuel line at a fitting.

Let me recap the basic situation here: I've just spent $1,000 on major repair items, as well as about a week of my own time doing the labor for 90% of the repair, only to discover that a $35 fuel filter housing needs to be replaced- about a 1-hr job if you move slowly.    Happiness's reign had ended.

While they buttoned up the exhaust and removed the old fuel filter housing, I walked (and perspired, a lot) the two blocks to get a new housing. Along the way, just for giggles, I stopped at the Toyota dealer to find out what Toyota wants for a new housing. A mere $228 for the housing and filter and water sensor, and it'll take 24 hours to arrive.   At least I got a delicious cup of coffee along with my comedy relief. I walked another block to the parts store and paid $34 for the housing and a new filter. I also got some hose, in case you were worried. And some clamps gotta have clamps.

Israel, the mechanic at LTD, and I put the new filter in, which required drilling some holes, but that only took a little while. Then took the truck for a spin. Wooo-hooo!! Power. Power like this truck has never shown before. Plenty of boost, and a whole new driving experience. The turbo and injector repairs, while not necessarily the cause of what had gotten me into the shop in the first place, have re-awakened this old diesel motor. I'm very pleased!

My being pleased didn't stop there, however, when I asked the guys at LTD what I owed them for them having put 1 and 1/2 guys on my truck from before 9a.m. until after 3p.m. they said "Well, you paid for the filter, right?" I said yes. "Ok. Thanks for your business, we're sorry it didn't work for you the first time. No charge."   Now very very pleased, I left Liberia for the drive home, passing at every opportunity, just to enjoy the surge of power.   I should re-iterate that the fuel filter was in no way their fault/bad call or anything, yet they appreciated my laid-back tolerance of their minor mistakes on the other stuff, and thus I got a nice freebie out of it. That's sort of how it is supposed to work here-- a lesson that is hard to learn, sometimes.

Unfortunately, the little rubber connector on my boost gauge tore while I was driving home. Perhaps too much manipulation during the various repairs. So I didn't get to enjoy watching the gauge zoom up to 13psi, but still wasted a lot of fuel charging up every hill available.

I also have to reset my idle setting. The lack of air in the fuel stream means that the injection pump is slighly overfueled now.

I got home before sunset, stopping along the way to pick up some more supplies. Still joyful, I grabbed the mutt and we had a nice romp on the beach, with a swim. After that I took my sandy self to a local cafe to deliver some stuff I had picked up on the way home, and enjoyed a nice martini on the outdoor patio, with sand on my toes and the dog happily greeting each customer who came through. Deposed Happiness leapt sprightly to the throne again.

After a martini, I took us to Sharky's for a burger and beer (where I bumped into some friends and enjoyed a great conversation, and another beer), before finally heading home and into bed, exhausted.

Just a typical day here in what isn't always, but always could be, Paradise.

Up on the rooftop

2010-04-08T18:51:00.000-06:00

Nothing gets you up on the roof faster than realizing that the first "real" rain of the season might be starting, and that there are six months worth of dead leaves filling your gutters.

My first reaction when the pitter-patter began was to head out to our lovely outdoor patio upstairs to watch the sunset and storm interact over the estuary. Light, flowing trees, gentle breezes, gray clouds, and zephyrs... OHCRAP! The roof is probably covered in leaves!

Out comes the ladder, and up I went. Sure enough, the leaves were nearly a foot thick in some places (our gutters are less than 6" deep).

So far, the rain hasn't arrived with any force, just gentle droplets that more-or-less evaporate without flowing. But at least there are mostly-clean gutters into which all the droplets can flow if their buddies decide to make a party of it tonight.

And there is one less thing on my list of things to do. Double-bonus.

80 series dimensions

2010-04-08T07:36:00.002-06:00

I found this info about Land Cruiser 80-series dimensions online and thought it could be handy for later (and for others). There are a few different versions- with or without flares, bumbers, etc. So if you have doubts, do check the site from which it came (links above and below). All figures are metric, you can convert them quickly and easily by typing the dimension into Google and then "in inches". ex: 1900mm in inches will yield 74.8031496 inches. Handy.

The original can be found here.

Very Hot Weather

2010-03-26T21:57:00.000-06:00

It was over 100*F in Tamarindo today (nearly 40*C). I, however, spent the hot part of the day in Liberia, where it was 41*C in the shade at nearly 5pm. That's 106*F, folks. Hot. Damn hot.

Oddly for this time of year, it is also windy. Which is great comfort as the wind, at least, helps make the heat a little more bearable. My plants don't agree. They seem to think that the wind and heat is a good excuse to shrivel up and die.

For a Fish: I Miss You

2010-03-24T17:02:00.006-06:00

While you're stuck in the Kuh, (would we say that?) and I'm up here, get your nose right down in there and take luck, 'cause pie, "I'm huuuungry", and you should see my shoes, these roads are covered with filth and muck, so be the ball, danny, and be appy like the ippo while you go to the place and have swimmies with the woozle.

Parakeets

2010-03-24T09:12:00.000-06:00

I really like the sound of parakeets squabbling in the tree outside my window.

I'm not so fond of the sound of doves. It's just so... repetitive.
And the sounds of pigeons mating? Hate it. Flap flap flap. Arrg.

That's all. Thanks for stopping by.

Hello Turbo Rebuild

2010-03-23T17:14:00.000-06:00

Due to some questions about lowering boost levels on the turbo, I fought with the beast long enough to extract it from under the hood. When attached to the exhaust manifold (cast iron) the (cast iron) housing of the turbo is pretty heavy, awkward, and generally unpleasant to remove.

Removing it, however, was much more pleasant than seeing the condition of the intake impeller. Ugly. The leading edges of the fan blades are supposed to be quite smooth and sharp, not broken and jagged. This is a seriously abused turbo. I plead innocence, but I must be responsible for some of the damage, in some way, as this doesn't just *happen*, something has to hit those fan blades. I'm guessing oil buildup from the crankcase ventilation could have passed some sort of crud. Odd, but possible. A catch can is in my future.

It is at the turbo rebuild place now, I await an estimate of how much this carnage is going to cost. It has been an expensive weekend working on the truck. :( On the plus side- it is going to drive much better next week, so that's good news! :)

For what its worth: you can't pull the turbo housing off of an hd-t without pulling the exhaust manifold. I tried. It doesn't work. There are two bolts that simply can not be reached.

Also, all of my manifold studs pulled out (except one), so I'll be reinstalling those. Anyone with tips on how to seat them properly, please feel free to make suggestions.

I did get my injectors back today, they are lovely and clean and I'm very excited about installing them and starting up the motor to hear/feel the difference. But it looks like I'll be waiting until my turbo comes back, ah, well... if there is one thing that I have learned in Costa Rica, it is the importance of patience.

Big End Bearings

2010-03-23T08:48:00.000-06:00

One of the few flaws in a modern Toyota HD-T motor is that Mr. T used inferior bearings on the bottom end- where connecting rod grasps the crank.

There have been documented cases of abrupt and total failure of the bearings, which then does all manner of ugly damage to the motor.

Among HD-T owners, it is commonly recommended to swap out the Toyota bearings with replacement bearings made by ACL. The job is not particularly difficult, but it is messy as you are under the motor with the oil pan off, and oil will drip out onto you throughout the process of removing the old bearings and installing the new ones. To add to that, getting the bearing caps on and off takes some torque, and there are numerous car parts that interfere with swinging a long wrench handle, so it is a challenge. Again, not difficult, but certainly complicated.

My bearings were in decent shape, some scoring, some wear, but nothing alarming. Still, I feel better having ticked that job off of the list.

Injectors

2010-03-19T19:07:00.003-06:00

Sometimes, when you spend a lot of time doing preventative maintenance on a vehicle, you can't help but feel as if you may have wasted much of that time. The job in question could have waited, right? Maybe a long time?

On the other end of the spectrum- I pulled my fuel injectors today to discover that they were horrid.
I've shipped them off to be rebuilt, hopefully by Monday, and can't wait to install them again and feel the difference in performance, I predict a very noticeable gain in mileage and power with less noise, less sooty exhaust, and a smoother ride.

Of course, much of the other stuff I worked on could probably have waited a long time. Such is life.

here are "before" pictures of the injectors. The photographic quality is not excellent, I was in a hurry.

Work Day

2010-03-19T12:59:00.000-06:00

It's darn warm in the garage, but once I got started....

I'm now pulling the injectors to send them to be serviced
and
cleaning the intake manifold and replacing gaskets that were leaking
and
replacing some heater hoses because the heater valve broke and I've got to McGyver it until my Dad flies down
and
I figure that since I won't have injectors until Monday, I may as well attack the big end bearings,
so
I'm draining the oil and dropping the pan
and
need to pound out dents and paint the pan
so
I might as well take it to the welder to get a skid plate added
and
the turbo is still acting up a little so I'm pulling it out
and
replacing a bunch of hoses and gaskets while I'm there

it'll be interesting to see how much I get done today vs. this weekend.

I'll try to take a photo or two, but not too likely as all the jobs involve much oil and I don't like that on the camera so much.

Now if only the temp were in the low 90s instead of near 100, I'd be happier.

Driving Day, Boo to Blogger, New Link

2010-03-10T08:44:00.003-06:00

I spent all day (and I mean, all day) behind the wheel yesterday for the first time in a long time. It wasn't so bad, I'm pleased to report.   I'll get back to the nuances, but first a little venting and a link.

Blogger just sent me a note saying that they won't be supporting ftp-based blogs anymore. WTH? Now why in good gravy would they do that? It appears that they would rather shoulder the cost of the bandwidth than have me pay for my own site, or they want me to get a custom url... I haven't even read the whole note yet, but I'm frustrated by yet another example of the computer-based world's inability to just leave well-enough alone. We've been using this system for.... I don't remember how long! 5 years?    But now we'll be doing something different. So if you see major operating issues with Sandcruiser.com come about May 1, it is because Google has decided to mess with things and we're trying to find the least painful solution. If anyone has any suggestions for alternative blogging software/systems, please feel free to let me know.

And speaking of blogs- I just found Bio Truck Expedition which is a well-written travelogue about a man with wanderlust and a veggie-powered Mercedes van. His exploits to date include some QT in an Indian jail (for having a satphone) as well as some mechanical mishaps, hang-gliding, and who-know-what.   Take a look, you'll probably enjoy reading about his travels.

As for yesterday:
Got up at 4, didn't get out of here until a little after 6:30 due to a coffee machine failure, low tire pressure, some pressing email, and a desire to play with the dog a little bit before leaving her alone all day long.   Took the new highway to San Jose from Caldera. It is a much nicer road than the old highway. The tolls aren't too high, but might seem that way to many locals. I didn't keep track but would estimate that it was about 2,000 colones, total, which is under $4.   It almost certainly saves at least $4 in fuel and wear and tear on the vehicle. I'm sure that under normal conditions, it also saves much time. I was unlucky in that there were two spots in which they were doing road repair due to rock slides.... so I waited for about 15 minutes at each and had more traffic, so it probably added 45 minutes to the drive, which erased much of the gains of taking the fast road. So be it. I arrived at the US Embassy around 10-something (Note: 4 1/2 hours to San Jose is a big step up from the old highway which takes 5-7 hours. All this for a drive that is less than 150 miles).

The Embassy trip marks for me the very first time that I've felt preferential treatment for being a gringo in Costa Rica. Upon arrival I skipped to the front of the 50-person line and was admitted straight into the 1st security checkpoint. Should you go there, be aware that they will hold your iPod, phone, flashlight, headphones... pretty much anything electronic, while you are inside the embassy. I am sure it is for "security" but I suspect that a fringe benefit is that people are less likely to miss the audio prompts for "8....3....4 to Window 4" which has the net effect of speeding things right along, but makes the wait more boring (glad I brought a book).

They have a photo booth at the entrance, for $2 you get the two passport photos that are requested on the forms and website, only one of which is needed, as I'll explain later.

I then got to skip ahead of the next line, which consisted of over 100 people. Wow. The little blue US passport was like a magic wand in that place: just wave it at the person tending the line and they pull the nylon tape out of the way and usher you to the next stop. Good stuff!

At the window, things proceeded well with the exception of the person behind the glass insisting that I put at least two US phone numbers. See... I don't call US phone numbers very often, and the only ones that I do call, I store them in my cellphone for reference. My cellphone was handily locked in the security checkpoint.... so I finally took a page out of my Tico survival manual: When you are required to furnish information that you don't know, and suspect is arbitrary, just make it up.   So, hey, if someone calls 408-701-0001 looking for Steve.... um.... tell them I'm out of town?   Sorry about that.

$75 and another brief wait got me a chance to chat with a very nice young lady who seemed to be a little slow on the uptake, but was so full of smiles that it was easy to patient with her. She offered to give me one of those fat-daddy upgraded passports because "You seem to travel a lot". Which is nice, because if past history is any indication of future performance (despite what your stock broker tells you, it usually is) I'll probably have a pretty large number of stamps in my new passport within the first month. She then informed me that my new passport would be ready in about 14 days, at which point I would need to return, with my old passport, to get my new one. In reading the website at the US Embassy Passport Page I knew that her info was only mostly true. But she didn't really seem to know that, which I found oddly disconcerting.    The following are just four of the odd bits of misinformation on the website:

The website says	My Experience
"You need two passport photos."	I got two, carried one around, then finally asked "What about this second photo" to which she replied "Give it to your wife!" Huh. Sure glad I bought two photos. No harm done, but... Why ask for two if you only need one?
"Since October 1, 2007, DHL can deliver your passport for you for a nominal fee"	This is true! For only $6 or so, DHL can get your passport closer to you*. But the girl behind the window disavowed knowledge of how it worked, even though I am certain that she does it every single day. Odd.
"Your passport will be ready in 10-12 days"	The window girl said 14-15 days, the DHL guys said 12 days. It isn't so critical to my life to know exactly when they say that it'll be ready as I assume it will be ready within 7-21 days and that's just that. But they might try to get their stories straight.
The most confusing: The website says that you can pay DHL to take your old passport back, where it will be canceled, then they will bring your new passport. (That's another couple dollars and would save someone like me many hours of driving or flying to get my passport)	I asked the window girl if I could just leave my passport... She was HORRIFIED. I may as well have asked her to eat a live snake. She went on and on about how the passport is a crucial identity document, should always be safe, never leave it anywhere, blah blah blah. "But...", I tried, "...wouldn't it be safer to leave it with the State Department than to send it to them via DHL in 10 days?" .... she was having none of that. NONE! of that. So I went to the DHL counter and he said: "Oh, just have her cancel the passport now, so you don't have to pay to send it back and wait an extra day." Eureka. It is all in the wording. "Cancel"is what I should have said, not "leave". So I go back to nice window girl: "Can you cancel this now so that I don't have to send it back?" to which she replies.... "Oh, you can just punch some holes in it, so that it can't be scanned." It remains to be seen if they are going to demand my old passport before sending my new one. I'm at about 50/50 on the odds. Time will tell.

Along the way I accidentally pulled a serious Tico line-cutting move. If you have spent any time in Costa Rica, at some point a Tico has jumped the queue and pushed their way ahead of you. This can happen in the bank, or at a bar, or onto a bus, or a grocery store, almost anywhere. I 100% guarantee it has happened to you; unless you are sitting in the airport reading this. Even then, odds are pretty high that it happened getting off of the plane. As a visitor to this wonderful country, I usually just shrug it off and keep doing whatever I'm doing, but it does bug me. Well, yesterday I was the grand-cutter-of-long-lines. Maybe it was due to the unprecedented courtesy of the embassy security who kept letting me cut in other lines, or maybe it was subconscious expression of years of frustration, or maybe I was just tired and didn't notice. One thing is for sure: when I walked out of the thick glass "inner sanctum" door of the passport processing facility, and walked right up to the DHL desk and started talking to the DHL guy, I did so right in the face of about 45 people who were waiting in line, and would probably continue to wait in line for at least 1/2 hour before getting anything done. I did it without malice, but once I realized that I had cut off all of those people, I must confess that I did snicker a little bit (internally) at how, for the first time, I as on the winning end of such a bold move.

After my Embassy coup (getting in and out in less than 90 minutes really did seem a coup to me), I had to navigate across town to pick some stuff up for a friend. It sucked, but my momentary getting-lost-in-Heredia experience probably saved the friend many hours or many $$ in work, so I'm glad to have helped. Maybe I atoned for my line-cutting.

From there I worked my way back across town to do some shopping and to find some roofing sealant stuff. I won't go into all the details, but this roofing stuff shouldn't be my job in the first place. The rat-bastard son of a motherless goat designer who built Oro del Sol did a poor job of designing the walls. There are leaks. He is legally required to fix them, but hasn't done so, despite many many appeals from us. At one point the guy actually had the gall to tell me that it would cost me more to sue him than to just fix the leak. He was right, so I'm fixing the leak but spewing venom at every opportunity. He did give us $55 worth of material to fix it ourselves, which covered about 1/2 the problm, but kept giving me "mañana" on getting me the rest of the material. Anyway, he is a bad person based on my business dealings with him and I'll take a moment to assure everyone that the odds of me selling/buying another Patrick Rey home are very nearly zero. Unless the current owner has been there long enough to have fixed the problems that he left behind. Rant over.

I've been searching high and low for this Alucapa stuff from Venezuela. Apparently there is one place that sells it in Costa Rica. ONE. I finally found them and the guy was super-nice. Nice enough to help guide me through the industrial area in which they are located, by cellphone, to get me to the store just before closing. Upon arriving I was dismayed to find out that they are all out of Alucapa. Won't get more till around June. Arrrrgh!! Frustration! But I hung around, mostly because I was so frustrated I didn't want to drive and kill someone, and we chatted. After a spell, I discovered that they did have some end-cuts in a pile. Pretty big end-cuts. Big enough, in fact, that when we put a bunch together it was actually more than a full roll. Whoo-hoo! I asked if I could buy the cuts, the friendly guy disappeared into the office for a minute, then returned and said, "Just take it". Now, I know I only "scored" $55 worth of free material. But compared to getting nothing, or re-inventing the wheel, or waiting until June (well into the rainy season), I was elated.

As if that wasn't enough, I asked for directions to get to where I was going next, in order to miss the rapidly accumulating huge traffic jam, and the nice fellow offered to lead me all the way across town, through rush hour traffic, as he was sorta going in the same direction anyway. He probably added 1/2 hour to his evening commute, but saved me at least an hour. What a nice guy! If you need roofing products in San Jose, check out Cindu, in La Uruca, in front of Loza.

I did my last errand, a quick trip to the Costa Rica ARB distributor, to pick up 2 orings that defy Costa Rican postal transit (two tries, no success to date). The proprietor there is a great guy and I wish I had more time to chew the fat with him, but it was getting dark and I wanted to get home.

So at 6pm, after a very long day, I set out on a long drive back to Tamarindo. I did stop along the road and ate a GREAT dinner (whole fried corvina, yucca, salad, lemonade, hot coffee... all for about $7) which took nearly an hour. I also had to stop a few more times to stretch and walk around a bit as I was feeling drowsy. I got in the door at 11:09pm, exhausted.

Whew.

*Note on DHL: "'closer to you", in this case, means that DHL can only deliver your passport to the "nearest DHL office", which actually means "nearest DHL distribution center", which, for me, means Liberia. That's about an hour from my house, but much better than driving back to San Jose for it. Still.... if they can take it to their office, why can't they take it to my office? Isn't that what DHL does? Deliver stuff?

piano for sale

2010-03-05T12:54:00.000-06:00

Yamaha Piano. From the late 80s. Great fun to own, sounds very good. In Tamarindo.
$2,500 OBO.

Overland Camper

2010-03-05T09:05:00.002-06:00

Ulysses and Penolope

More like a land-train, really, than an off road vehicle. But it is an interesting concept, at least. I would rather travel in something a bit smaller, but I suppose that if you want to travel AND have your condo too, this is the way to go!

February Rain

2010-02-08T06:51:00.000-06:00

February is usually windy and very dry. Atypically, it rained on Monday.
It did not rain hard, and it did not last very long, but it was a bit of a treat to have rain at all. The garden certainly appreciated it, two of our plumeria trees that were dormant seem to be putting out new leaves. Which means A) more plumeria blossoms in the near future (hooray!), and B) now I have to be sure to give them a little water every few days or they'll drop the leaves again (booo).

Monkey Monkey

2010-02-01T15:37:00.000-06:00

We are a little surprised that the howler monkeys are still around... they spent the morning lounging and nibbling leaves. One came over to check out our bedroom patio, leaving behind a nasty momento and greatly ruffling the dog's composure, but otherwise innocuous.

Eventually we cruised next door to watch from our neighbor's better vantage point and had a great time inventing stories to describe the troop's behavior. Of the 13 monkeys, we think that we identified the alpha male- other than his absurdly large and dangly bits, we also figured that his general attitude could only be described as "in charge". There is an infant that was being cared for by what we think is an "aunt", because one of the other females looks much more like a nursing mother with a still-distended belly that could be from a recent birth.

When the "aunt" tried to hand the baby over to the female that we think is the mother, "mom" scurried away and went back to sleep, covering her bosom. Her actions left us wondering what could be going on.

There was a minor tussle at one point, with one monkey walking up to another who was feeding and giving her a good verbal dressing-down. The 'victim' ran off to a third monkey, who then went over to the first monkey and told her off. In the mean time a male moved in between the first two and sat there scratching his butt, perhaps to say "Hey, you two.... settle down." At least that is how we imagined the conversation to have gone.

Perhaps the most notable part was that a single male was sitting lower and apart from everyone else, once in a while the two other males would hoot and grunt in his general direction, at which point he would look away with what we imagined was a very sad look on his face. We think that maybe he was either getting cut out of the troop or perhaps just failing to join. Hard to tell. As the day wore on he was further from the rest and around midday he seemed to have left to go off on his own. Such drama.

Howlers in the Yard

2010-02-01T08:25:00.001-06:00

Right around sunset we were doing some yardwork when a troop of about 9 Howler Monkeys cruised through out neighbor's yard, onto our fence (just about eye level, less than 3 feet away from us) then up into the neighbor's trees for a nice snack of tasty fresh leaves.

It amazes me that after nearly ten years of watching those beasties, I'm still totally fascinated by them. They are just so amazingly.... primate. How people can possibly persist in the disbelief of evolution, confronted with the intelligent stare of a monkey, is beyond me. But that's another discussion.

Back to the antics of the Howlers. They strolled through the trees, working their way to or back yard, munching on fresh bugs and blossoms while grunting and squeeking at each other.

We had made plans to have a small bonfire in the back yard and I worried a little that the fire/smoke would bother them, but it didn't seem to do so as at least one was in a tree almost directly overhead throughout the evening.

We watched a spectacular moonrise as little puffy clouds organized themselves into what looked like ripples on the sand at the beach.

This morning my love of the Howlers waned as their guttural screams greeted the first rays of dawn. If you've never been awakened by a large howler monkey less than 10 feet from your window, I won't be able to describe for you the mix of terror and annoyance that you feel as your heart rate slows and your sluggish pre-dawn brain remembers that "It's just a monkey".

And so we start another week...

Fixing Gauges

2010-01-21T20:41:00.001-06:00

One problem with the factory temperature gauge on most modern Land Cruisers is that it has a "dead spot" in the middle. While the motor is anywhere from about 185 to 225 the factory gauge sits exactly in the center of its sweep. That isn't specific enough for my preference.

One of folks on ih8mud.com has taken the time to figure out how to make the gauge indicate a better range- by changing some resistors. I'm going to try to duplicate his efforts... we'll see if I succeed or if I need to buy another gauge. It'll be one of the other, I imagine.

These are some before pictures: In taking the gauge apart, I also realized why my oil pressure gauge doesn't work. It seems to have burned out at some point, probably because of bad grounding on the motor swap. I'm going to try to repair it as well, can't break it any worse than "not working". I'm not sure yet, but I wonder if the bent portion in the photo below, with the white wire wrapped around it, is supposed to be straight. If so, then something went horribly wrong at some point.

Update: Wow, it didn't take much time to de-solder the two bits (a zener diode and a resistor) and re-solder on two resistors. The new parts look about like two dark grey sausage-shaped things. Here are some pics of the finished product. The first picture is before I trimmed the "legs" on the resistor. The 2nd picture is the final version.

I look forward to assembling it tomorrow to see if it actually reacts to temperature changes now!

Sunday Marbella Beach Day

2010-01-20T12:08:00.000-06:00

For many days now Jocelyn has wanted a day trip to Marbella Beach. Playa Frijolar, to be more precise, named for the gravelly beach that looks like a pile of beans in some spots. An apt name.

I've been reluctant because I've spent a lot of time on the road recently and didn't particularly want to be in the car on a Sunday unless we were going somewhere new and thrilling, or particularly difficult to reach which involves a reasonably high chance of getting stuck.

Regardless, her feminine wiles overcame my masculine stubborn-ness and so to Marbella we went!

The key to the story is the simplicity. We drove south for a while (40 minutes or so). Stopped to snap some photos of my favorite windmill (which I never photograph despite tremendous being tremendously photogenic). Then proceeded to a beautiful beach with very few other people. We bathed. We snacked. We enjoyed a cold beer. We strolled. We read. We harvested some driftwood.

The breeze was onshore and cooling, the water crystalline.

We drove home mellow and sunkissed, stopping for another photo or two.

Turns out that Jocelyn was right, it was a great way to spend a Sunday.


Better-than-typical gravel road, Guanacaste	Beach, Wife, Dog. Happines	Goats!! We always yell "Goats!" when we see them, for some reason.	The roads are already dry and dusty, I predict a dry summer.

Temperature Probeinto Nicolas' Land Cruiser

2010-01-16T11:54:00.000-06:00

While Nicolas was here (see last week), one of the things that we did was to install an electric temperature gauge so that he could have some sense of the actual temp of his coolant vs. the stock gauge that basically says "ok" or "about to boil over" with not much info in between.

There are many options as to where to put the probe in such a setup, we chose to take an easy route that may or may not stand the test of time. I post some photos here for others who are keeping track and to open the door to "I told you so" later. Either giving or receiving (hopefully me giving).

Installing the probe was darn easy: the plastic top of the radiator is a thick section of high-quality resin that drilled nicely and was stiff enough for a 1/8" NPT tap to get a good bite. The thickness is about 1/4" in this area, and not too rounded. In all I estimate that we had 4 or 5 threads in radiator into which the probe could get a good hold.

Because the probe relies on a ground path through the probe housing, we added a washer and a short wire to a nut on the upper radiator support, the ground wire has a blue shrink-wrap cover. The top wire goes to the gauge. The wiring tucked neatly into the corrugated wire sheath as seen, and in general was a clean installation.

To prevent getting plastic bits in the coolant, we detached the top hose and stuck a bent soup spoon into the radiator. It caught a large amount of plastic from the drilling and tapping.

To help prevent future leaks, we dabbed some silicone sealant onto the threads of the probe. Normally that's a bad idea- because the probe grounds itself through those threads, but in this case it should help seal and keep the probe from moving against the threads and potentially stripping them (brass is much harder than plastic, after all).

We were worried at the height of the probe, but the radiator sits pretty far back under the bulge of the hood, so there is no contact with the heat-insulation and no need to fret.

Wind!

2010-01-13T11:53:00.000-06:00

Sure is windy around these parts right now.

The beach was spectacular this morning-- wind swept, perfectly clean and neat, hardly a footprint to be seen. At low tide we stood with our feet in the cold (for us) water and felt the sting of the sand on our back while playing with a deliriously happy dog. Funny how sometimes a beach trip will make her happy, but other days it makes her HAPPY. I suppose that we all do the same sort of thing, at some point.

I was frustrated to see people watering the street this morning. For those of you who don't live in dusty 3rd world countries, around these parts some folks waste a bunch of (evermore precious) water by spraying it onto the gravel/dust road in front of their home or business. The thought process appears to be that by wetting the ground, one reduces the dust created by cars driving by. I'm sure it works. Absolutely certain. For the first hour or so, I'll bet that almost no dust is created in the area thus wetted.

But most folks only wet the area right in front of "their" space. So dust is still kicking up from either side of the moist patch. And it is WIIIINDY right now, like up to 50mph gusts. The wind is kickind up dust from all over the province and moving it kilometers in various directions. How much does 10 meters of road matter? Finally- the same wind and the tropical sun dry out the moist patch within an hour...

I suggest that these same folks would get a lot more relief by planting a hedge or some trees in their area and watering those instead of the street. It would lend some shade and knock down the wind a little, as well as providing a host of other aesthetic and environmental benefits.

Some day, when I'm supreme ruler of of everything, this watering the road business is going to stop, dangit.

Till then, I'll just try to enjoy the wind storm for its howling fury and hope that nothing big falls on anything expensive around here.

Nicolas' Great Adventure Continues

2010-01-11T16:13:00.004-06:00

Nicolas Rapp is driving around the world but along the way he has had some minor mechanical setbacks. You can read more about it on his blog, but the short story is that a steering sector shaft broke, which led to a collision that led to to front axle mayhem.

When Nicolas finally rolled into Costa Rica after a delay in Honduras and another in Nicaragua, it couldn't have come as much of a surprise that he was bound for yet another delay. When I offered him a place to spend a night or two, I thought that we might fix some minor detail on the truck, enjoy a few beers, and wave goodbye after, um, a night or two. But the Cruiser gods had something else in mind.

The last post I wrote has some more pics and info about finding a broken side gear in the differential. For those of you not mechanically inclined, a broken gear in the front differential can safely be considered a major repair. Not quite catastrophic, but very bad.   So it was incredible good luck that he ended up here, and that I noticed the problem, and that we could tear into it.

Even more incredibly lucky, on the order of "I really can't believe it" lucky, is that Toyota Costa Rica had a new differential gear set in stock.   It was even about 25% less expensive than the same part in the USA, which was a nice touch to the "Holy Moly we have been lucky on this job!" situation. So we ordered the part and some other minor spares, and they came a mere 24 hours later.   In the mean time, I determined that setting up the differential was a little beyond my expertise level for a vehicle that will soon find itself in the wilds of Africa. Our great luck continued when we found a qualified mechanic who could put the diff back together for us in "1 day". Not too surprisingly for Costa Rica, "1 day" took a little longer than 36 hours.   Still well within the realm of giddiness-inducing great luck.

While we were waiting on various parts to arrive and mechanics to perform, we also took a look at what Nicolas thought was a potential overheating problem. As it turned out, it is merely a fairly normal phenomenon for this model-year gas-powered Cruiser. The front DS fender gets hot when you drive them in hot weather. Who knew?   But just to be on the safe side, we did change out his thermostat/gasket and get a new radiator cap. We also bought and installed a temperature gauge so that he has something more than just the stock gauge for helping determine if he is running hotter than he should be. In the short period that he was here after the gauge install, it seems that he maintains temps between 195 and 210, which is perfectly normal operating temperature for his motor. More good news!

We sent Nicolas and Nadia off with a quick trip to a beautiful local beach and vague directions towards Arenal. The beach gave us a good location to test out his newly repaired differential lockers (they work!) and also a nice primer on how to drive in sand.

All said, their visit was closer to eight days than two or three, but they were wonderful guests and we certainly can't blame them that the Cruiser needed a little more mechanical work than anyone had anticipated. I would be happy to host them again any time, though I must admit that we are looking forward to getting our daily schedule back towards a more normal state of affairs. I should point out-- Nicolas did an amazing job of supplying us with Nicaraguan beer and Rum. I'm sure we put a serious dent into what must have been his libations stash. Nadia was 100% smiles and a dish-washing-dervish, which is always welcome in our perpetually just-shy-of-clean kitchen.

As an extra bonus, now when I follow Nicolas' website around the world, I'll get the added happy feeling of knowing the author and knowing that I was able to give back a little of the generosity that I have been fortunate to receive in the past. I only wish that we could have spent a little more time driving around this beautiful area instead of wrenching on his truck. Oh,well... next time.