Global Convoy

Villa Paula in the village of Tijeras is a well known stopping off place for travelers going to or coming from Costa Rica so here we are. There are two Dutch couples, a Spaniard, a Briton living in Costa Rica, and a Finnish couple we met briefly as well as the magic school bus above run by a couple of characters. Joel, below is from Minnesota but lives with his British girlfriend Becca,

…and the occasion for the photo was their departure from the campground. 

Their journey to South America was interrupted by the Panamanian blockades and protests that slowed our own journey but now they are gone from this campsite  and expect to load their school bus on a car carrier to Colombia later this week. It’s unlikely we’ll see them again as they have to move much faster than us retirees of leisure. Notice the youngsters traveling in perfect safety through countries most Americans classify as dangerous.  

Joel was struggling with a failing alternator when we arrived and he finally had to solve the problem by buying and installing a new one. Fortunately for them it worked; unfortunately for us they had to leave. 

Joel and Becca organize adventure journeys by gathering numbers of travelers to join them for segments of their trips as a low cost way to see the world. Becca gave Layne a full tour of the bus. Their desire to get to Colombia was fueled by their plan to regroup with their passengers for the holidays in South America. 

https://www.globalconvoy.com/

We have had a few interesting conversations with Rudi from the Netherlands as well as Kasper, also Dutch, both experienced travelers with children, full of stories about North Africa and Europe and hints for us approaching South America. They make our modest needs as a couple with an uncomplicated dog look easy to handle. 

We had the briefest encounter with Aline and Essa a young couple from Suomi Finland though we hope to catch up with them on the PanAmerican in South America. They told stories of meeting officials who had never heard of their country and the struggle to make themselves recognized. Finland? Where’s that? 

I was wandering around doing chores, figuring out the complex trash recycling system for a start when I noticed the signboard Kati and Nelson, the Panamanian owners, had put up. I realized with a start we are more than half way down the road to Ushuaia even though we started from our northernmost point of Fort Kent Maine, not Alaska. 

Only 4500 miles to go in a straight line. But we never drive in straight lines. 

Panama

The road from Costa Rica runs out and you are in Panama. Just like that. If you look in the photo above the Costa Rican flag is in front of the Panamanian border building, the one with the arched roof. There are no border police or barricades between one country and the other. It’s a mess. But it works! 

When you leave Costa Rica you pay $8 per person online or $9 to a business that will give you a receipt. “Impuesto de Salida” means exit tax. You pay in Colones or dollars and not even a smile. Boy let’s move on across the street. Find your way around and give the receipt to Immigration and they stamp you out. Customs suspended our import permit so if we need to we can re-enter Costa Rica within 90 days. The agriculture guy looked at our permit and said Rusty was good to go. Jolly good. 

First buy car insurance, 30 days for $25 flat fee. Panama uses the US dollar so this is the local currency. Oh and the time changed here, we were now standing an hour later in Eastern Standard Time. 

Isn’t this weird? A bus area with people just milling around inside Panama. The building with the red white and blue squares is the customs and immigration building.  We could have just walked off into Panama. We didn’t though! We need papers to ship GANNET2 and ourselves to Colombia. 

We stood at the customs window for a while as they typed out our 30 day permit line by line.  A Ram Promaster is not a common vehicle around here but she found it in her files. We got our permit. Then cans Rusty. Panama is notorious for being difficult to import animals. During the US Canal Zone era they had a four month quarantine so things are better now for dogs entering by land. 

Our papers from the vet in San Vito worked like a charm. The clerk asked for $25 and we said nothing but handed over the money. “Now the vet inspection,” he said. Our hearts sank. Rusty still has a big bald spot on his bum from his tussle with fire ants. We feared we might get some grief about that. He went out and came back alone. “The vet’s not around,” he said. And with that we fast walked back to GANNET2 . No one inspected Rusty sitting in the air conditioned van. 

A customs inspector checked our van. He peered in the back doors and asked for a tip. I played dumb and that was that. No inspection of our fridge or anything. Fair enough. 

Finally we had to do immigration. He checked our van papers and said nothing about any dog. We thanked him and split. Modern travelers like to put stickers on everything they pass. We met Moonrise Odyssey in Mexico and they drove this far with lots of engine trouble and quit driving. They shipped the truck home and are touring Vietnam. But their stickers still here. 

This place is chaos but don’t let it worry you. We were done in less than two hours. One final panic when the animal health department flagged us down and we thought: what now? Rusty??  No it was just the usual fumigation. $6 and we were done. Like these motorcycles from Britain. They got hand sprayed while we drove through the shed and were in Panama. 

I want to mention in passing a conversation we had with some travelers as we all waited for our papers. There is an easy way to smuggle your dog into Panama around here because the border is completely porous. People from Costa Rica apparently do it all the time to save the $150 fee (which was $25 for us apparently). I was glad for the information if I ever need it but we have to have Rusty legal for our exit by plane to Colombia. Besides I’m not very good at breaking rules. And I’m not explaining here in public how it’s done. 

This border crossing had been on our minds and I do wish we had traveled Costa Rica properly first but it all went well, and rather faster than we expected. Next time…

We expected for sure to be inspected at the police checkpoint half a mile from the border. Nope, we must look innocent as they waved us through with a bored look on their faces. Police all the way from Texas have shown zero interest in hassling us or demanding bribes or any of the other horror stories. Go figure. 

The PanAmerican Highway is a four lane bouncy cement roadway close to the border. Eventually it turns into smooth asphalt and that was lovely, with no speed bumps and no potholes. A steady 50 mph, the speed limit, made for an easy drive. 

Everything is slightly different here of course but the best thing we saw was the local price for regular gasoline. It’s 91 cents a liter which multiplied by 3.78 makes $3:44 a US gallon. Much better than $5:25 charged in Costa Rica. 

We stopped at a fruit stand of course. Rusty got his first sniff in Panama and Layne came back with corn cobs for dinner. 

Villa Paula half an hour down the road has electricity, laundry, swimming pool and dollar beers on the honor system. Oh and a bunch of travelers, more than we’ve seen in weeks. 

$10 a night? Sign me up, this is decidedly cheaper than Costa Rica. Costa Where? 

Change Of Plans

You have to be flexible if you are an overland traveler, and more so if you have a dog. It’s not Rusty's fault exactly but it kind of is as Panama has strict entry requirements for pets and so…

We had read in iOverlander about Dr Castro who has a reputation for making paperwork easy. He struck me as a James Herriot figure, the literary English vet, with a farm practice as well as dealing with “mascotas” (pets). One reason we arrived at “oh dawn thirty” was to catch him before he starts on his daily farm rounds. His son speaks English, and is his office manager which may be helpful to travelers. 

His office is located in the tiny mountain town of San Vito where we slept the night before under blankets at 3500 feet. He is personable and very easy to work with and he took all the stress out of getting Rusty ready to enter the most complex, pet unfriendly country in Central America. We stressed too much thinking about dealing with officials in Nicaragua and they were nothing but nice when we met them, so we hope for the same entering Panama. 

Dr Castro is a brilliant vet but best of all he knows the Costa Rican government officials. A process that can take up to ten days to be approved was ready in thirty minutes. He told us the papers are good for five days but we have to go by the Pacific Coast crossing as they won’t cause problems. If we go by our preferred route on the Caribbean we may not get through as they may not recognize these papers. Not having any reason to doubt him and not having any way of knowing better I wrote this as we set off from his office to the border 30 miles away. 

The road from San Vito to Paso Canoas is nothing short of spectacular with steep descents and winding curves that flow and dip as though molten.

Costa Rican road builders take their cue from the Romans and roads here aren’t designed the gently fold around obstacles. There’s a mountain? Go up it.

There’s a plunging canyon? Go straight down it. We spend our time in manual first gear reflexively leaning back as our Promaster takes on the aspect of a ship sinking into the abyss bow first.

Photos don’t show the grades but when it was 20% I had both hands on the wheel…











Entry on iOverlander:

Coming down the mountain the brakes were warming  up and because we had been at the vet’s door promptly at 7:30 for Rusty and his papers, I was hungry and ready for breakfast.  Layne found us a lovely spot and I walked up to see if they served breakfast to non residents. They did and they also have an electric car charging station. The guest chalets have astonishing views so bring your Bolt to Casa Linda Vista next time you’re passing…

I was going to go for a Tico breakfast of rice and beans and so forth but Layne started making noises about the American breakfast and yes, it was delicious. We gave the brakes time to cool off as we sipped coffee and enjoyed the view. 

And I cobbled together this post. Onwards to Paso Canoas and let’s see what difficulties Panamanian customs give us. 

The Paquera to Puntarenas Ferry

Saturday was an odd day of travel through Costa Rica, a country whose residents are called Ticos and whose motto is “Pura Vida!” (Pure Life), a phrase that is supposed to evoke sensations of happiness brimming over at the pleasure of being in Costa Rica, land of the happy upbeat cheerful joyous Ticos.  

If you wander the pages of Instagram, a place where photos are collected and shown you will find travelers describing places they have visited as “paradise” a term so overused it has lost its meaning. 

Apparently travel is supposed to induce wonder and envy in the viewer, my journey is better than yours, so when I see that I seek out the classic photos and the creative photos, the interesting photos usually of times past that Instagram will post if you ask it to.

When I first started posting photos of Key West online people used to ask me for travel and vacation advice and they got mad when I suggested they seek out Trip Advisor or a travel agent (this web page has been around a long time). I just liked to post photos, of the good and the bad of Key West. I think most of the pictures were quite bad and you can see them on this page as they are still here online to show what a crappy digital phone I was using in 2007.

So I am supposed to describe this journey of ours as a voyage into “paradise” because that is what is expected of us in this digital world of ours. I would rather tell a story about what a pain in the ass life on the road can be than pretend it’s all paradise all the time. That word does get annoying with overuse doesn’t it? 

We took the ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya to Puntarenas yesterday and the experience was a giant pain in the paradisiacal ass. I’ve taken ferries all over the world and Costa Rica stands out as the most mystifying complex process in the world. My Saturday was a complex muddle of misunderstandings and a general lack of information that makes your struggle to get your boring old Saturday chores done look like paradise from here. Yes I know, this is heaven on earth and I have no right to grumble. But Costa Rica brings out the bafflement in me. This place can be an absolute madhouse. 

I tried to buy a ticket online. I’m not sure why the Paquera Puntarenas ferry refused me an online reservation but the web page refused to go to the payment page. I tried for two days on and off and I had no luck. This meant we had to hope the 9am ferry Saturday wasn’t full (more than 170 cars lining up? It seemed unlikely) but it also meant we had to pay cash and with plans to move on to Panama next week, calculating how many Colones we need this final week is getting tricky as we can’t use Costa Rican currency in the dollar economy of Panama. 

We stopped in Paquera to buy some fruits and vegetables and to pick up cash at the ATM and to get gas for GANNET2 that we might drive uninterrupted off the ferry in Puntarenas. The first bank didn’t accept our First State Bank of the Florida Keys debit card. Why? Because in paradise banks only take either Visa or Mastercard but not both. And there’s no way of telling which takes which until you’ve tried them. Nuts? I think so. At eight am we arrived at the terminal. 

No one was there to greet us so I stopped and went to ask an idling cop nearby what I was supposed to do. I startled a motorcyclist by wishing him a great weekend of riding and got back to the van to be greeted by a ferry employee who yelled at me I was holding up traffic. I told him if he had been doing his job I wouldn’t have had to ask where to drive and weirdly he calmed right down. Perhaps he expected a gringo to be cowed instead of answering back.  He looked inside the van and gave us a laminated card. “This keeps your place in line” he said. Off we drove to the ticket office. 

It turns out you need the laminated card to show to the ticket issuer what kind of vehicle you have. GANNET2 is “liviano”which means lightweight. Because we have no seating in the back (much to their surprise!) we aren’t a minibus but a car in ferry language! If I’d paid online I’d have overpaid as I thought we were a minibus. However I got in line without any idea what to do with the card. Round one: I had to go back to the car to retrieve it. And get back inline. 

Round Two saw the ticket paid in cash, $27 for two people and a lightweight car.  Jolly good. I got the  receipts back to the car and we had one car ticket and one person ticket only. Much swearing. I could have sworn I said loudly and clearly two people. Back I went inline. My mistake (again) the vehicle ticket includes one driver. Jolly good, back to the car for more waiting. 

As we started to load we noticed passengers being required to get out of the car and walk with the foot passengers…hmm. Layne got her stuff together and took the original of the passenger ticket to present to the collector at the ramp. Wrong! The ticket collector had to have the copy naturally not the ticket marked “original.” Back she came…Round Three. 

I drove on in the fullness of time and was directed to the upper deck to park behind a small truck. Small sedans and SUVs were sent below, directed to drive down a terrifyingly steep ramp into the bowels of the ship.

This process may look familiar if you have taken a Washington State Ferry as I believe these ships are surplus ferries who did service in that part of the world. 

It all went very smoothly because the crew have obviously had some practice at loading cars. Rusty got open windows, a roof vent with the fan and our two other fans blowing in the cabin on GANNET2. He slept through the whole crossing as an hour later we found him still comfortably in his bed with sleepy eyes. 

Personally I’d rather have done the trip with him as we did on our ferry ride from mainland Mexico to Baja but rules is rules. The TMC ferry ride described:

https://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-baja-ferry.html?m=0

There was a snack bar with insipid pastries and junk food so we were glad Layne had come across a bakery in Paquera with some robust chicken empanadas which we ate on the drive to the terminal. The indoor seating arrangements had a weird feeling of sitting in a pew in church. I skipped the air conditioning to stand outside. 

The ship left the dock precisely on time at 9am. Brilliant. This is Costa Rican precision on display. They are grumpy old coots but things seem to work. 

Time to settle down and get bored for the next hour. 

My handy dandy speed app on my iPhone said we were doing 10mph or 9 knots or 17 kmh if you are continental. 

There wasn’t much to see but here it is:

The regular riders immediately bagged the shady seats in the best spots. I was happy to wander with my camera as I had plenty of sitting to do later. 

The ten am from Puntarenas. I think they run daily from 4:30am to midnight. 

The smaller Playa Naranjo ferry. We rode these ferries 25 years ago when we sailed through these waters with two dogs! 

Me looking gormless in Portobelo Panama in 1999. 

Our boat Miki G, a 34 foot Gemini catamaran which we sailed from San Francisco to Key West. The Gulf of Nicoya was a welcome calm anchorage on the journey. 

Travel is much simpler by van. Which may or may not be a good thing but I am lazy by nature. 

I have no idea who these people were or what they were doing or where they were going. 

They were having fun and they had a dog so they can’t be all bad. Their boat is what a Santa Cruz friend of mine called dismissively a “hovel-craft” of which you can see many fine examples in harbors around the US with people existing inside them. Not so much in Costa Rica but there is this one! 

Land ho!

Puntarenas means “Sandy Point” because the town is a peninsula built on a sand spit. Behind the city is the channel you see here backed by mangroves.  

The town itself is a dull but useful provincial capital with all services but no charm. Nevertheless everyone was suddenly in a hurry to flee the boat. 

And just like that we were released into the city speedily and efficiently. I was ready for lunch. 

Layne had read reviews of a “Soda” in the town of Jacó an hour south of here so we were driving to Jacó (“hack-OH”) for lunch. A soda in Costa Rica is an economical local eatery, not something to drink. 

Another word I learned driving the Puntarenas beach road was “toldos” (awnings) which means below “ we rent awnings” for people looking to have a shady Saturday picnic on the waterfront. 

Like I said Puntarenas is just another undistinguished Costa Rican  town. Unremarkable, tidy, trash free with solid homes, no street dogs and about as much color as a US suburb. You come to Costa Rica for the national parks…where dogs aren’t allowed. 

I do enjoy driving and I find this open ended wandering to be stimulating and fun.  Not every day is great and there’s nothing wrong I believe in noticing the bad and the good. But just because paradise this is not, doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing.  The road for me is just people living their lives and they may not have the time or inclination  for here today gone tomorrow travelers. We paid 38 US cents (200 colones) for this absurd expressway toll. Another Costa Rican oddity. 

I rather enjoy slipping by on the periphery of strangers lives. I know I am supposed to want to explore the reality of other peoples’ being in detail but sometimes you just want to be apart and not be in paradise.  This is just me looking as I go and trying not to varnish and polish the crap that comes my way. Tomorrow may be paradise but don’t believe all the fascination you may find online. You might find it completely different in your real life if you want to see it for yourself. Does this look like an expressway to you? Me neither. Lucky the toll was so insignificant! Bloody Costa Rica…

¡Pura Vida!