Posts for September, 2010

We spent some time at a mall this morning getting another months supply of our various medications. All without prescription and for about the same price to us as in the USA - but with no insurance company contribution!!

Our goal today was to see some of the Pacific coast beaches of Costa Rica and see if we could understand what makes this country such a tourist attraction. Hence we headed south west from Liberia towards the Nicoya Peninsula. In turn we visited the beach towns of El Coco, Junquillal, and Samara. Along the way we had some navigational adventures and got to try the Tiger's 4x4 capabilities. One thing we discovered was that Costa Rican coastal minor roads become a quite interesting challenge during the wet season. The weather was grey and raining off and on all day so the beaches were not shown at their best. Even so we could see their attraction. The beach towns were humble, and a bit funky - or some would say with character - with generally low to mid budget accommodation. We did see some up market hotels and gated communities but these were away from the traditional towns on their own land.

This morning it was raining and the heavy clouds convinced us that it would rain all day so there seemed no point hanging around the coast. So we headed for the border. This turned out to be a good decision as heavy rain persisted almost all the way to the Costa Rica/Nicaraguan border.

We were on the road by 7:30 this morning pleased to leave our curbside camping spot and have the vehicle air conditioner going.

We spent the day planning our route through Honduras and Mexico back to the US.

Our drive got off to a rocky start today as we were pulled over by a police officer who insisted that we had committed an infringement by not driving in the curb side lane of a multi lane road. We spent perhaps 20 minutes debating this with him - he in Spanish and we in English insisting that we understood no Spanish. Eventually we (should I say Nina) proved more dogged and he gave up and waved us on.

The morning was a pleasant drive through hilly country with small pine forests dotting the hill sides. We took a short side excursion to the small village of Yuscaran noted in the guide book as a good example of a colonial mining town. It was perched on the side of a hill and had narrow cobblestone streets that made driving into the central square a bouncy affair.

The 70 km drive into Copan this morning showed lots of evidence of the impact of recent rains on the roads. We passed many landslides and there were many places where the road surface had been torn up by water.

Our plan today was to visit the town of Jocotenango which is next to Antigua. We had been given the names of a family there by some friends in Washington. We thought this would be an easy excursion to fill in a bit of the day as we wanted to have two days camping at Amatitlan.

This morning, on the road west (CA-2) towards the Mexican border, we got some great views of the volcanoes for which Guatemala is famous. The sky was clear and the mountains mostly free of mist.

We had a long drive today, along highway 200 on good 4 lane road to La Ventosa, and then on highway 185 a generally bad pot-holed road with lots of topes, to Acayucan and finally to Catmaco through a heavy rain storm.

It rained heavily over night adding to the rain that this area has already experienced. We traveled coastal highway 180 this morning to the Vera Cruz bypass. For some of its length this road runs along a narrow sliver of land between the gulf on one side and lakes and wetlands on the other. Signs of recent flooding were everywhere with debris on the road surface, in places water from the lakes still lapping over the road and many houses still partly under water. Initially we were not sure that the road was open so we kept track of a number of Vera Crus bound buses and when they did not take the turnoff that bypassed the suspect section of road we knew we were ok.

This morning we broke one of our long standing driving rules for Latin America - don't drive at night. We were up and on the road, in the rain and dark, at 5:15 am in the hope of making the border that day and to get through Tampico before the days traffic got into full swing. Our timing was good, as we crossed the impressive bridge on the southern edge of Tampico as the sky was just beginning to lighten.

We spent the day on chores, mostly getting a service for the vehicle.

We headed East today towards Orlando, FL. What a change/shock it is to be back traveling on US roads. It's almost boring. Good roads, 4 lanes, no crazy drivers and shops everywhere. Also camping grounds that have water, electricity, dump and propane can be bought at almost every stop.

Boy is Texas flat. We traveled along the gulf coast today and much of the way the land was flat flat flat with no trees. We could see from one horizon to the other. From time to time the road got close enough to the coast for us to see the waters of the gulf. Nice beach side communities and some nice parks. Also some impressive bridges.

The country today was still flat but now the highway is a corridor in the forest. We spent much of the day on I-10 so that traffic was much heavier than yesterday.

This morning we visited the factory that makes Tabasco pepper sauce at Avery Island Louisiana. Founded in the 1860's by a member of the McIlHenny family, the company is still a family owned business. There is only one factory in the world and this is it. It produces 700,000 bottles of sauce per day (4 days a week). The sauce is made from capsicum peppers that are grown on the island and also in Central and South America and the sauce is shipped to over 100 different countries. The McIlHenny's sure seem to have a head for business and an understanding of the law of supply and demand. The first 2 oz bottles made in 1864 sold for $1 each !!. We did not think much of the pepper sauce flavored ice cream but did like their new sweet and sour sauce.

The day started with a drive along the coast into the city of Biloxi, Mississippi. The coast was quite beautiful, long stretches of white sand beaches that were easily accessible as there were no buildings between the road and the beach. We later discovered that this 27 miles section of beach is entirely man-made. All that lovely sand was originally trucked in - only in America!!

Today was a pleasant drive through coastal scenery. More spectacular long bridges over water ways, miles of pine forests and some long stretches of road right next to the water. It really is a pretty, and affluent, part of the world.

It was an easy drive into Orlando. Initially it was a little foggy as we drove along more flat highway through oak and pine forests and then through beautiful horse farms.

We spent the day at Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure. This is the park that houses Harry Potter World which was our major motivation for visiting the parks in the first place.

We went back to Harry Potter world for a few hours this morning. Nina wanted to visit some of the other exhibits and I spent my time riding the various roller coasters.

I am cheating and combining three days into one entry.

We left Orlando heading north today. Along the way we stopped for a brief visit to the coastal town of St Augustine. This was a bit of a surprise, or maybe it is our poor understanding of American history. Founded by the Spanish over 50 years before the pilgrims landed in the Mayflower, its original purpose was as a base from which the Spanish could attack a French settlement a little farther north. There is an old fort, some remnants of a colonial town which has been turned into a sort of mini theme park, and some older colonial churches. In all, a nice little town. For us it simply served to underscore the profound influence the Spanish had on the new world, here is yet another place in the Americas that was being visited by the Spanish as early as 1513. Simply amazing.

You know that when the title of a days entry is about the weather that the day was devoid of noteworthy things to talk about.

We had been planning this visit for months. There are a number of things on our Tiger motor home that need fixing or freshening up after our journey, so this visit was to discuss with the Tiger folks what could be done.

More signs of fall today and at the campground tonight there were lots of leaves, though the trees are not yet looking bare.