The Nomads

this little girl was 'cooling off'" with the hose!

No Travel Day

Samara, Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica
Temp: 40 degrees C
Sunny and Very Humid

Thunderstorms and rain all through the night again!

Of at first light to the internet café for another round of “chase the wild goose!”

I think we were too eager , got there an hour before the place opened and sat around waiting.

While going through what has now become a routine I asked the owner if he could get a call through to the Costa Rican embassy for me. He agreed to try on his personal cell for a fee and I gave him the numbers… It wasn’t long before he informed me the numbers were wrong. I showed him the numbers on the website and he insisted there was a number missing in the middle! He tells me that the country changed the way calls were being routed over six months ago and that all calls within Costa Rica now require a 2 in front of the last seven digits…. He dials the number with the necessary 2 included and BINGO! Straight in to the Embassy receptionist! I was ready to bow down and kiss his feet!

“Sure we can do that for you, address to me personally and I will look after it till you get here, Give me your email address and I’ll instantly send you the name and mailing address for the FedEx”…

Within a minute it was all arranged, now I had to get the address to Pat and hope it would get out before the weekend or else we would still have a week stuck waiting….

That done we breathed a big sigh of relief and went off to get money from the bank for the trip to San Jose. It only took an hour and a half of paperwork to get two hundred and fifty dollars and changed to Colones. Yippee!!

Back to the internet café to check for a reply from Pat as to when to expect delivery….got confirmation that he received my email. I think pat is rapidly losing patience with all my demands. I know how he feels!

Ecstatic that things were now in the works we decided to celebrate with real double burgers and fries and Margaritas and Locando Sunsets!!

Kilometers - Daytrip: 0 km total: 12,680
Gas: $ 0
Lodging: Hotel El Locando $45

This 1/2 inch translucent creature was chasing a bug under the waves as we walked along the beach. The wave would come in, they would disappear, the wave would recede, and the chase would continue. It was the funniest thing to watch!

No Travel Day
Samara, Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica
Temp: 40 degrees C
Sunny

Thunderstorms and rain all through the night!

We were up early at 6:30 am and went for a walk along the beach. The sun was already high in the sky and it was HOT !

By the time we got back we were in a full sweat, had showers and headed for the internet and phones to try and get through to the embassy for a FedEx delivery contact. Hours of frustration without any luck and many expensive international calls to automated systems and answering machines later, I decided to give up for the day and went swimming with Susie. This quixotic attempt to replace my lost registration has turned into a Kafkaesque nightmare that I never can wake up from. We can’t go anywhere and we can’t afford to stay and wait! And the accumulated cost of futile phone calls and internet has escalated into the hundreds!

To top it all off, the rainy season has caught up with us in the worst part of the trip because of the delay and the mosquitoes and other insects are now becoming a very real problem. Its one thing to travel in rain and bug season by car, quite another by motorbike! It’s getting absolutely imperative that we get this problem resolved Immediately but I am at my wits end with no solution in sight.

I decided to treat myself to a few hours of stress relief and rented a board to have a second go at surfing. It’s amazing how physical exertion and pain can take you quantum light years away from your worst hassles! For the next while all I could manage to worry about was whether I could breath without inhaling the entire pacific, and avoid that monstrous board attached to my leg and milling around with me in the maytag! What great fun! but after less than two hours, my bruised ribs were screaming “Stop!”. I think I overdid it yesterday, didn’t realize how banged-up I was from my first day. Can’t wait to try this again tomorrow….

Rain off and on through the afternoon…

By late afternoon I was back at the internet verifying phone numbers and trying to find an embassy contact person in Costa Rica again. Headed down to buy more international calling cards and try to call the numbers for Costa Rica and Canada again. No luck! I must have looked pretty despondent because a twenty something European blonde came over and asked me where I was trying to call. I explained my situation, she assured me she was intimately acquainted with the arcane workings of the Costa Rican automated, card activated pay-phone system and offered to do the calls for me. About forty five minutes later, after more investments in calling cards and numerous checks on the numbers from the internet, she shrugged, apologized for not being much help, shook her head and went on her way after I told her I was immensely grateful for her valiant efforts.

I went home for something to eat and then headed back to the internet to see if I had copied any of the numbers wrong….Nope!

The blonde showed up with her boyfriend and asked about the numbers and I again assured her what I had written was accurate , incredulous, she googled to check for herself; yup! Those were the numbers…… shrugs all round…..

So as it stands now, no answers to email from the embassy, no way to contact the Costa Rican consulate, no way to contact the 24/7 emergency phone for Canadians abroad (recording says “this service is not available outside the US”).

Finally, one good piece of news. Patrick has after much running around, managed to get a registration for me but needs to know where I want him to FedEx the cursed thing!

I should add here that I had made inquiries at the post offices and with local retailers and business people as to whether they were able to receive FedEx anywhere and got anything from looks of disbelief to outright laughter! One Australian expat who owns a surf and eco tour business said I might manage that through the embassy or one of the larger American hotels in San Jose, that was my best bet….so first thing tomorrow I’m going back to the internet café to try to find and contact “large American hotels” in San Jose and see if they will accept and keep secure a FedEx for me. Will I have to be a registered guest for this service? Their prices are all through the roof! Costa Rica is the most expensive country in Central America….and if I have to wait two or three days when we get there I’ll be near bankrupt!

What an odyssey!

Damn!
What happened to “Vacation Mode”??????

Back to the room for a sandwich and an early night.

Kilometers - Daytrip: 0 km total: 12,680
Gas: $ 0
Lodging: Hotel El Locando $45