July was long and mostly boring. So this blog will be short and I’ll do my very best to make it a little interesting ;). The reason why it was mostly boring is because the van was in the garage for 2.5 weeks to replace the head gasket and other parts. For those who find all the “tech talk” interesting; Kilian will be writing an article about it, so stay tuned!
At the beginning of July we drove from the Nicoya peninsula to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. On our way there we happened to meet up with other overlanders, Richie, Abigail and their daughter Zoe (meataroundtheworld) who’ve been travelling for some years as well and who we’ve met several times along the way. We told them about our stuff getting stolen and they offered their help as their family would be coming to Costa Rica soon and they could bring our new bank cards with them. We gladly accepted their help as this would be much safer than having them send.




The next day we visited San Jose. We saw the beautiful National theatre which reminded us of the baroque buildings we’ve seen in Austria. The bank and post office are also housed in well decorated buildings. We strolled along the central market and the modern shopping streets and had delicious cakes for lunch. After a busy day in the city we drove to a restaurant called La Selva just outside of the city where overlanders are welcome to stay in the gardens. And just as we wanted to go to dinner there, guess who also decided to spend the night here…. So we enjoyed some good food with Richie, Abigail and Zoe.


The next day we left for Turrialba, a mountainous area where we hoped to be able to go for a few hikes. Well, we went on one hike and were then quite literally flushed out of the area due to enormous amounts of rain. It took 5 days for our hiking shoes to dry… It turned out a tropical storm in another region was causing this extreme rainfall.




So we drove back to San Jose to spend another night at la Selva. Which turned out to be a good thing because the next day lots of white smoke was coming from the exhaust. Contrary to Vatican, this is not a good sign. So we stayed a bit longer at La Selva and on Thursday we got a diagnosis for the car at a recommended garage. The diagnosis meant the car would be in the garage for at least a week and possible longer. So we started looking for some nice but cheap accommodation, not easy near a capital in an already expensive country. But we found an affordable cabana just outside Alajuela, a smaller city next to San Jose. We checked in there on Saturday and on Monday the 11th Kilian drove the van to the garage. He came back by bike with a big bag. Inside was a unicorn pinata for my birthday! It turned out to be great fun but also difficult to crack the pinata! The broom handle I used broke before the pinata did!




The cabana was situated in a very green area on a big plot of private land. So we took Binkie for walks. Unfortunately on one of those walks he was very suddenly attacked by one the residential cats. The fight was very short as I was close by and Binkie didn’t seem hurt. But two days later we had to take him to the vet because he now had an abscess in his tail from a bite wound. Nothing serious but it did mean Binkie would have to wear a collar for some weeks. Needless to say he wasn’t happy about that.


Meanwhile the repair of the car would take another full week. By now we were getting bored. The cabana was nice but there wasn’t that much to do. In the second week we were there we received our new bank cards and also the new registration card for the van. So we took a bus to Alajuela and went to dinner which we really enjoyed. We had been very careful with spending money as getting cash from Western Union is very expensive, 10% goes to them. On the 26th of July the van was finally ready so we picked up the van. However the online payment took a few days to get through so we couldn’t really leave the area until the 30th of July when we drove to Limon and spend a few nights at the beach, enjoying our newfound freedom!

Hoi Marcia nu al de problemen weer zijn opgelost kunnen jullie weer verder.
gr.M
A bit late but: Congratulations with your birthday! A lot important things happened, in a mostly boring July. How is Binky now? And you are back on track, to new places to discover. Van repaired and with bank cards. Looking forward to new blogs ?
Thank you. Binkie is fine now. We are happy with the bank cards, but still waiting for the driver’s licenses.
Balen van de problemen met de camper. Gelukkig is alles weer gemaakt. Heeft de camper in de tussentijd nog ‘n APK keuring gehad? Geniet ze! Lieve groetjes Gerry ??
Er is hier geen keuringsstation, de APK keuring doen we dus zelf. Dat is trouwens meer dan wat je kunt verwachten in Central America… groetjes!