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.

Labels: antigua, guatemala, photo, travel

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?

Labels: Costa Rica, land cruiser, passport, photo, repair, travel

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.

Labels: Costa Rica, dog, garden, monkey, photo, tamarindo

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...

Labels: monkey, photo, tamarindo, weather

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!

Labels: land cruiser, photo, repair

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.

Labels: beach, Costa Rica, day trip, dog, photo, weather

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.

Labels: 4wd, 4x4, Costa Rica, expedition, land cruiser, photo, repair, travel

We awoke early on the first of January... about 5:30, but after listening to fireworks, barking dogs, drunken revelry, and various other noises, 5:30 seemed very early.

We grabbed coffee, dog, and the camera and headed to Langosta Beach to welcome the first sunrise of 2010. We were lucky enough to watch the full moon disappear into the Pacific at about the same time, it was beautiful.

Steve caught what was almost certainly the first wave of the year in Langosta (and Sapo, too). Unless someone was full-moon surfing, that is. Which would have been a pretty cool idea, but probably not such a safe thing to do in Langy. The surf was decent and Steve enjoyed it. While he was doing that, Bb and the dog were doing yoga (and doga?) and playing with sticks and plastic bottles on a nearly-empty beach. It was an idyllic way to start the year.

After a nap, Bb had to do some jewelry work while Steve went next door to enjoy a rum and gingerale with the neighbors. Ginger beer would have been even better, but you gotta do what you can with what you've got, sometimes. It was a hot day- over 100 in the sun, but sitting in a breezy (windy!) patio in the shade talking with friends was just about perfect.

We finished off the day with a bbq and a few more glasses of cheer, then came home to sleep soundly, looking forward to the weekend (also, a great way to start a new year!).

Labels: 4wd, 4x4, beach, Costa Rica, dog, photo, tamarindo, weather

"Let's run down to the beach for a few minutes".

Seems like such an innocuous phrase.   An hour later, in mud up to my knees, hopelessly mired in who-knows-how-many feet of clay I found myself thinking, "Maybe we should have chosen a different route."

Mea Culpa.  There, that's out of the way.  Nobody to blame but myself.  I drove the truck into a mud pit, we lost traction, got stuck.

If you're satisfied with my admission of guilt, stop reading now, because I'm going to offer some excuses as to why I did what I did (and some thanks to those who participated with a smile and those who ultimately saved our bacon).

Before I go further, I'd like to share this image   <------
It was taken in the almost the exact spot where we got stuck last weekend.  The difference is that this image was taken back in the *wet season*, when you expect mud (notice the water, and thus, mud).

I drove over the same spot in the *dry season*, expecting that the mud would be less of a problem.   As it turns out, instead of muddy ground, it had turned into a clay pit without a bottom.  If you want to get into pottery, this is the stuff you want.  Nothing but slippery, slimy, clay.  Wonderful.  But not so much wonderful for driving a car on it.  No-sir-ree.  In fact, not so much good at all.

But I can't even blame the clay (completely) because while we were stuck there digging around trying to free ourselves it was brought to my attention by my long-suffering and utterly wonderful wife that there was a route through the middle of the clay muck that was a little bit higher and a lot firmer than the lower and softer goo through which I foolishly tried to drive.  I'm going to blame a lack of seeing clearly through the dirty windshield and the 8am sunshine, but probably it was a lack of taking sufficient time to really look at where I was going.

After spending some time with logs and sticks and shovels and mud and airing down tires (which isn't so easy to do when the tire is mostly underneath the mud), I accepted the obvious truth that we were good and mired.   Fortunately we were good and mired within a mile or two of home, and had cellphone coverage.   I called our pal Donny, who drove down and with minimal effort, pulled us out.  Amazing what a difference it makes to have a few tons of Land Cruiser tugging on a vehicle.   If I haven't said it recently:  the best recovery device is still.... another vehicle!

Quick side note:  Bb was pretty bummed that we were stuck, as she just wanted some beach time.  But within a few minutes, she and the pooch were playing fetch along a really pretty stretch of a nice little jungle road, enjoying cool morning breezes and the sights and sounds of nature.  I'm a fortunate fellow to have such a wonderful spouse.   The dog, incidentally, thought that the whole experience was peachy-keen.  "Play in the mud?  And a creek?"  "Okay!!"   "Wait, now we're going to the beach too?"   "Okay!!"   "Oh, back home for a shower and a swim in the pool?"  "Okay!!"

Oh, to be a dog. 

Once unstuck (thanks again, Donny), we proceeded down a different (grassy, not muddy) back route to get to Playa Avellanas.   It was a postcard-perfect day, we played with the dog, swam in the estuary, rolled in the surf, and washed away the mud and any worries that may have lingered.


I then spent an hour with a pressure washer trying to get most (not all) of the mud off of the bottom of the truck.  Wow.  Must have had 100lbs of that stuff gunked onto and into every possible nook and cranny below the body.  Impressive.

As it turns out, getting stuck where we were was a blessing:  the following day we went horseback riding along the same route and saw that there were at least two subsequent mudholes that would have been much more difficult to drive through and much more of a serious problem to get out of.  Not to mention that anyone coming to help would have had to negotiate the difficult spot in which we were stuck in order to get to the even-more-difficult holes later on.

Clearly the reason we got stuck where we did was an amazing act of prognostication on my part.





See: That's how good I am.

Labels: 4wd, 4x4, avellanas, day trip, dog, land cruiser, mud, photo, tamarindo