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July, 2002
June 24 - Arrive in Costa Rica We've arrived in Costa Rica!!!
Got a few things done in wonderful San Jose and headed down for
Punta Uva!
June
25 - Get the Jeep Today was designated the day to get the
jeep back from customs in Limon. It is a good hour's drive back
up to Limon alonside kilometers of palm fringed beaches. We went
through the 5 hour process of retreiving the Jeep from customs,
but eventaully got it...and in good shape - it appeared. While
we were there, we checked out the area a little and found a charming
run down Caribbean town with a central pedestrian street at its
heart. The buildings are old, but add a lot of charm to this town.
Here, we can get most of our big groceries (every two weeks),
go banking, pay bills, order building supplies, etc. We left Limon
at the end of the day after nightfall - bad idea!
The
ride back down took 2 hours instead of the 1 to come up. This
is largely due to the numerous potholes in the middle of the road
- some huge. If you go too fast, you don't see them in time and
...arghhhhhhh!!! This of course, tested the Jeep's tolerability
to Costa Rican roads. More on that later...
June
26 - Back to Limon / Where's the container? We went back to
Limon to drop off the rental car...and did a little shopping and
tried to find our container. Well as it turns out, the container
situation has a 'problemito'. There is some discrepancy in the
paperwork regarding number of items...to their advantage...which
may delay the whole process by a week or two.
June
27 - The Jeep has a problem Yup! A little rattling here and
there and it got worse and worse. After driving for 2 days up
some rough terrian - I admit, we took it to THE town mechanic
to have a look. One of the radiator braces had snapped and some
of the suspension lift things had broken. In less than 24 hours,
he fixed everything like new and now it's solid as a rock - until
the next problem.
June
28-30 - Beach, new home, visit land, relax and get used to this
new life. The past few days have been spent in the Punta Uva
area. We moved into our rental home (see pics). It is actually
a pretty cool home...3 floors, a bedroom on each, with an open
kitchen and a nice open terrace where the living room is (see
pics). The weather has been heavy rain every night and nice sunshine
during the daytime. We've spent some time on the beach and took
a few pics (see pics).
We
also hiked up, back down, through a river, and back up to our
piece of land, from now on to be known as Big Tree - until we
get a better name! We are in the process of designing the road
that will take cars and trucks up to the plateau. Hopefully, bridge
and road construction begins in the next few days.
