Costa Rica Update

I have been very busy trying to get everything set up here. I moved into a virtually empty house. The pugs are also adjusting to their new surroundings and the temperature. I bought a new portable air conditioning unit because 75 degrees in the house was not cool enough for Oscar. Two days ago, I attempted to get utilities turned on at the house, but couldn't because I didn't have my corporation papers. Ugh. So yesterday, I drove to our attorney's office an hour and a half away to pick them up and drop Barney off at the airport. This morning I went with my corporate papers and had the electric switched over, got a Costa Rica cell phone with wifi, ordered internet and satellite tv. The satellite tv will be hooked up tomorrow and the internet within the next week. It has been raining on and off here the past few days. Last night, a storm knocked out our power. Oscar was panting nonstop due to the a.c. being off so I gave him a cold bath and sat with him in the car with the a.c. on until he fell asleep. I think I will buy a generator today so this does not happen again. I also need to go buy a tv today and do some laundry as I no longer have any clean clothes. Buying a washer and dryer is also high on my to do list. The pets seem to be adjusting well to the new house. They especially like the large fenced yard. I have seen 3 scarlet macaws at the house this week as well as a large iguana but I'm still looking for the toucans. The weather here has been in the low 80's this week, which is cooler than I expected. Pura Vida! I will be posting more when I have internet hooked up at the house.

Costa Rica Driving Adventure Day 10: Somotillio, Nicaragua to My New Home in Jaco Beach Costa Rica !!!!

We were awoken early by horns beeping, doors slamming, people talking, etc. It happened at a constant pace starting at 6 AM. and resulted in near non-stop barking by the dogs. The last straw was the motorcycle revving its engine for 5 minutes, 2 feet outside my door at 7AM. Dean came up to my room and said "Kurt, lets get the Hell out of here". I agreed, as it was clear that there was no more sleep to be had at this place. I had fallen asleep in my clothes from the day before and just decided to not change and leave. The last 2 days I had 2 very short, cold showers and now I had this hotel that lacked all running water. I stink and I know it. Time to move on. As the sun was up and the rain was gone, I got a good look at our hotel and snapped a couple pics.

Yes, it was as luxurious as I had remembered from the night before. All of us felt a bit more relaxed in Nicaragua as it is rated as the safest country in Central America. Driving through Nicaragua felt like a time warp back to the late 1800's.

I have never seen so many people riding horse drawn carts, horses or just farm animals in general.  These were not the Amish but just regular people here in Nicaragua. Due to all of the obstacles in the roadways, if Nicaragua was a driving video game, it would be level 10. Nicaragua is also covered in trash but not to the point Honduras is. The people here are friendly. Bugsy decided to help me drive by sitting on the brake pedal.

Near Managua, the police pulled me over for passing in a no passing zone. There was one solid yellow line through the road so I don't know if this meant no passing or not. Anyway, the cop gave me a $20 ticket and told me to pay it at the national bank in Managua. However, such bank was now closed as it was noon on Saturday and wouldn't open until Monday. Until then, he would keep my driver's license. We all knew that at some point a bribe would be requested. We decided to sit on the side of the road and wait for the bribe conversation. We sat and sat and sat for over an hour. The two traffic cops then left. We were shocked. No bribe was requested. As I now had no license, Barney jumped into the driver's seat and we agreed that he would drive the rest of the way to Costa Rica. Two miles down the road, we were pulled over again by 2 different cops, to allegedly "Check our vehicle import papers". Amazingly, and coincidentally, the 2 cops that gave me the ticket reappeared and asked who was driving. When they were told it wasn't me, you could see the disappointment on their faces. Now the game became clear. They were hoping to catch me diving without a license in order to obtain a much larger bribe for a more serious charge. These guys should win an award for their acting skills. After the cop so kindly allowed me to pay him for the ticket ($20), my license was returned and we were off. This encounter brought back memories of the last time I was in Managua in 2008. I was then also pulled over and shaken down for a bribe. What a coincidence. Ten miles later we were again pulled over. This made the 3rd time in just over 10 miles. The cop tried to tell me I was swerving into the left lane. There was no center line on this road. It was complete b.s. The cop could sense that we were irritated and could probably tell we had just been through their little game. He let us go after a couple minutes. We were making good time and passed by San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua at 2:15.

We decided to keep going to the Costa Rica border. Almost home!!! While long, this border crossing was largely hassle free.

We got two helpers and finished here in 2:05. However, the bank to pay the pet import fees was closed and wouldn't open until Monday!!! Ugh! Our helper suggested we sneak them through the final inspection without stamps, so we did. Nobody asked to see the pet stamps upon exit and we were now in Costa Rica. However, we still had 3+ hours to Jaco. We stopped at Burger King in Liberia, which had wifi. We were now back in civilization. I ordered their new meal, a "Pescado Combo" and we were off after a 20 minute pit stop.  Due to heavy road construction the drive took a considerable amount of time. I decided to get a room instead of doing the key switch on our house so late. It was nice to finally be here. Hopefully, I will be into our new home tomorrow. It has been one heck of an experience making this trip. I am glad that I did this trip but I'm not sure I would ever want to do it again. Pura Vida!

Costa Rica Driving Adventure Day 9: San Salvador, El Salvador to Somotillo, Nicaragua

We started out thinking we had about 2 hours to drive from the war zone that is San Salvador to the border in Honduras. The drive through Honduras is only 80 miles, so the plan was to cross Honduras, enter Nicaragua and drive an hour to the historic city of Leon, Nicaragua for the night. We missed a turn leaving San Salvador and got lost for about an hour or so. Barney got out and asked for directions.

It then took an additional 3 1/2 hours to drive from San Salvador to the Honduras border. We were now 4 1/2 into the day and just arriving to Honduras. The drive through this eastern part of El Salvador was uneventful and we appreciated the nice roads through this part of the country. We got our papers stamped and quickly left the El Salvador side of the border. It took about 15 minutes. We still had to go through the Honduras side of the border. A man on the El Salvador side of the border told us to be careful at the Honduras side of the border as it was filled with thieves, drunks and drug addicts. It sounded pleasant.

The Honduras side was similar to the Guatemala border crossing with helpers swarming like bees to a beehive. These people don't take no for an answer and follow you until you are done, yelling, screaming and agitating you the entire time. The Honduras border crossing area and Honduras in general looked like a large trash dump.

Even the national flag at the border was in tatters.

Cows were walking through the border area unattended. Gretel started barking at them.

I got a helper because the crossing process here was very confusing. At one point, I asked the helper where the trash can was as I had a box of trash from the s.u.v.  He said, I will take it for you. He walked 5 feet and through it on the ground. It looked like thousands of other people did the same. There was a burned up car sitting there that looked like it hadn't been moved since the 1980's. There were no trash cans at all! This helper was a little different. He did everything he was supposed to and fast. However, he would also lie in order to get us to give him more money. For example: He told me I needed to pay a bribe to the border cops because I didn't have a front plate on the s.u.v. I told him that wasn't the law there and he dropped it. Also, he told me I could pay $15 to not have our bags searched in what would be a lengthy 2 hour process. I told him no. Anyway, there were about 5 of these scams. Besides this, the guy did his job and we were out of both sides of the border crossing in 1:15. During the 80 miles through Honduras we were treated to see mile after mile of trash and boring scenery. It appeared that Honduras had deforested this area and what was left was brown grass and occasional small trees. The houses we saw were 3rd world shacks. Shortly after we got into Honduras it started pouring. We joked that this would keep the cops inside so they couldn't shake us down for bribes. We were right and we were not stopped by any cops through this country. I was concerned about the cops here as I read a blog post from someone who made this drive who was stopped 14 times in this 80 mile stretch! About 1/2 way through Honduras, the storm got really bad with heavy rain and lightning.

We did not see and lights the rest of the way. We did however, still see Mormon missionaries.

When we got to the border crossing into Nicaragua, it was dark and raining heavily. There was no power at the border. We had no idea if the border was open or not and were kind of concerned as we would have had to back track 40 miles one way in heavy rain to find a hotel. The usual mob circled the car to help. One man told us the border was closed, but for $20, he would have his "friend" get us the necessary border crossing stamps. Frankly, we didn't know what to believe. Barney and I decided to look around to determine if the border was open. I use the term "look" loosely as it was pitch black and raining very hard. We entered the Aduana building and saw, much to our surprise, that it was open. It was being run with a total of 3 flashlights. The entire floor had 1/2 inch of water on it. We got a helper to get us the exit stamps for Honduras. He did his job. Then told me it would be $40 for the pets to exit Honduras. I knew this was a lie. An argument ensued. He insisted I pay him the $40 and a tip. I told him no, gave him my last $17 of Honduras Lempiras for a tip, shut the window and took off to the Nicaraguan side of the border. We have light! The Nicaraguan side had minimal light as it had a generator to run some lights. We got a helper here who took us through the process. It was still very dark and raining heavily. We got to the last step, which was to have the pet certificates stamped and then we were done. It was very hard finding the building for the pets. It had no light and was run with 1 flashlight. The normal building for approval of pets wasn't being used for some reason. The Aduana agent asked for the pet papers with the stamps from Honduras on them, which I gave to him. He then asked for 2 more copies of such paperwork, which I didn't have. I thought, no problem, we'll just make copies. Wrong! The only copy machine was on the Honduran side of the border and there was a power outage there. I then got the idea that I would try giving the Aduana agent 2 unstamped copies of the pet papers that I copied in Michigan before leaving. To my surprise, he accepted them and we were done here in 1:30. On the way out of the border area, we saw a friend we made named Jose. He and his wife were diving from Connecticut to Brazil for the World Cup. He told us that our helper on the Honduran side had reported us to the Honduran police who were now searching for us! Yikes! Time to haul ass out of here to Nicaragua. It was still pouring and very dark, so we decided t stop at the first town, 5 miles over the border for the night, Somotillo, Nicaragua. There was only one hotel in the town, the "Victoria Hotel", so we got 2 rooms there for the night. This hotel looked like it hadn't been updated since the Victorian Age. The last 2 nights, my room lacked hot water so I was looking forward to a nice, long warm shower. Nope, this place was a down grade! It had no running water at all! There was a large bucket of water and a bowl in the shower so you could scoop water and pour it into the toilet to "flush" it.

Forget internet, I don't think this town had internet at all. My a.c. unit tried to work and eventually got the room down into the mid 70's. Oscar was still hot and panted most of the night. The room was small and cramped and looked like a prison cell.

There was a bar over the "bathroom" entrance that was 5 feet high.

I hit my head on it no less than 8 times. We decided to get something to eat at the town's restaurant. It had no menu. We were told that we could have ribs, chicken or rice and beans. Give me option number 3 please. I order a rum and coke and was given an entire bottle of rum! This little guy joined us for dinner.

I ran out of cat food here so I ordered a chicken dinner for Bugsy to go. There was no finding cat food in this town. The plan for tomorrow is to drive to San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua, which is near the Costa Rica border for the night and cross into Costa Rica Sunday morning.

Costa Rica Driving Adventure Day 8: Mazatenango, Guatemala to San Salvador, El Salvador

It is hard to believe that I've been on the road for 8 days now. The time has flown by. I have found myself not really having any interest about what is going on in the U.S. I just don't care. Also, it feels weird using my Michigan address for everything and putting attorney as occupation on all of the official forms when I know I won't return to either. Mazatenango is REALLY a Guatemalan city. What I mean by that is it is not a tourist town. We didn't even see one tourist there at all. The people here are hard pressed to reach 5'5" and many are less than 5 foot tall. Notice how I look like a NBA player in this pic.

They are also super friendly. Anyway, we started out the day going to the market in Mazatenango, Guatemala.

On the way there, a lady was giving away free puppies.

I took quite a few pictures here because the scenery was pretty interesting. I bought a plate of fries for 60 cents and a bag of blackberries for 40 cents.

Dean was busy interviewing people for his documentary. He is a small time film maker. It was a bit difficult though as most Guatemalans don't speak English and Dean speaks limited Spanish. We left the market and drove the final 2 hours to the border. I was a bit concerned about another border crossing involving Guatemala after the experience yesterday. I swore not to get a helper. The process goes like this: Get permission to exit Guatemala for the vehicle, pets and yourself on the Guatemala side. Each is in a different, inconspicuous location. Against my better judgment, I got a helper. He was great!

The Guatemalan side was freaking slow. Seriously, how long does it take to stamp exit papers? We then crossed a bridge into El Salvador. The El Salvadorans run a tight ship at this border crossing.  It is very organized and not slow. It is also free. It was a big difference at this border crossing. It took a total of 1:40 to cross. I tried to exchange some dollars here for El Salvadoran currency but was told they were the same. Oops, stupid American. Several of the immigration workers were fascinated with the pugs.

One took a picture of Midas on his own camera and then took this one for me. This has been happening a lot to help us avoid scrutiny. We then drove 2 hours into San Salvador, El Salvador.

It took us quite awhile to find a hotel, because there really aren't any. After being turned down at 2 hotels for having dogs, I went into a 3rd one called "Good Luck Hotel".

The desk worker was an obvious gay person and acted kind of weird when I asked if dogs could stay there before he told me no. Later we noticed a gay bar very near the "Good Luck" and then we figured out that the Good Luck is a hook up joint for gays feeling frisky at the gay bar. Hence the name, "Good Luck". LOL Anyway, the 4th try was the charm and we got rooms at the Miramonte Hotel (Mountain view in English).

I have started carrying Gretel into the hotel when I ask about dogs as she is so small and not intimidating. It seems to be working and it has now worked 2 nights in a row on the first try. We went out to eat and get drinks at a place near the hotel. Things here are incredibly inexpensive. I would say close to 1/2 of U.S. prices. On the down side, it is a freaking war zone here.

There are large block walls with barbed wire on top everywhere. I have never seen so many people with shotguns and machine guns anywhere in my life. Even the security guards in convenience stores have automatic weapons.

Very few people are on the streets after dark. A guy at our hotel told us 10 people are murdered in San Salvador everyday. Yikes! Next we'll be driving the east half of El Salvador and crossing the border into Honduras, which is supposed to be similar to the Guatemala entry where we had issues. Ugh. Then we will drive the 80 miles across Honduras and do a second border crossing into Nicaragua. The Honduran cops are supposedly the most corrupt in Central America. I guess we will soon find out.

Costa Rica Driving Adventure Day 7: Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico to Manzatenango, Guatemala

We started the day thinking we had about 2 more hours to get to the Guatemala border. It turned out to be about 3 hours.

We ran into several people along the way that loved the pugs. They had apparently never seen a Chinese Pug dog before. It was pretty funny. I had detailed instructions that I printed off of the internet to explain how to cross the border. The first step was to cancel the Mexico vehicle permit at the Banjercito just north of Tapachula. We soon discovered that the Banjecito no longer exists. So we picked up a "helper" to help us get to the new Banjercito.

He took us right there, the only problem is that it was 30 miles in the direction we just came from away from the border. After spending about 30 minutes at the Banjercito, we drove back to the border crossing. This was a delay of about 1 1/2 hours. It now took us 4 1/2 hours just to get to the border. We decided to take our "helper" all the way to the border to help us out. Midas did not like him at all and barked at him. It was very ominous. Later, Midas was worn out from all of the turmoil.

When we got to the border, it was at a crowded little street that was in total chaos.

People were running everywhere to "help" you get through or to beg for food. Ugh. I paid our helper $90 to get the pet immigration stamps, the vehicle import sticker and the Guatemala passport stamp. After a few minutes he came back with Bugsy's import papers with a stamp.

Good, but where were the dogs import papers with stamps?. He messed it up and had to go back to fix it. This took another 10 minutes. About 20 minutes later he returned with my stamped passport. Good so far. Then he told me the vehicle import papers would cost another $350. I knew this was  lie as I had read on the internet that it was 160 Quetzales (about $25). After arguing with me for 10 minutes, I told him to go away. So, he had my $90 but the job was only partially complete. Little did I know that I still needed an import affidavit, vehicle import sticker, fumigation, car inspection and needed to make copies of all of the documents. I was going to tip him more if he finished the job, but he was only interested in lying and stealing by false pretenses. Helpers everywhere were eager to assist and swarmed like Chinese Pugs after a piece of meat is dropped on the floor. Each step required a substantial wait in line. Once at the front of each line, the process was slow.

After a very frustrating 3:15 we were finally finished. We had now spent 8 hours today just to drive a short distance and cross the border. I then bought Quetzales but was only given an exchange rate of 6:1, lame ( the real rate is 7.75:1)!

I tipped each of the other 3 helpers and we were on our way. This border crossing was aggravating as hell. I also discovered that Guatemalans are allowed to cut in front of you in line but you can't do the same. We then drove slowly through winding roads in Guatemala before we reached our hotel in Manzatenango, Guatemala. The hotel was cheap at only $27 per night and is exactly what I wanted in a hotel, FINALLY! We didn't have to smuggle the pets in and were able to park 10 feet from the hotel room. There was only one problem at this hotel, it didn't have hot water. I tried to take some scenery pictures today as the scenery is different than in Mexico, see below.

Off to El Salvador tomorrow.