Remember the Pesty in the Westy? Well, for a couple of weeks Mike had been complaining of a smell in the van. Suspects included his shoes (which indeed carry a foul odor) and the rug (which had been wet more than once and maybe hadn´t dried out completely).
He kept asking if I could smell it while we were driving but I really couldn’t. He’d take his shoes off and huck them in back while driving and on several occasions he threatened to throw the rug out. This seemed a dramatic step when I thought we could just find a sunny spot and dry it out but good.
Then one night I leaned over the front driver’s seat and my stomach turned. This was the smell of rotting flesh. We moved things and searched for that errant piece of raw chicken that might have missed the trash bag but found nothing.
A day later when we were having the oil changed, Mike went on the hunt for the smell. Down the drain? No…..but in that area….and then, “Whoa, smell this” as he put his nose towards a knock-out in the door jam that opens to an empty space in the body of the van. (No thanks, I’ll believe you).
The knock-out matches one on the passenger side that serves as a passive vent, but on the driver’s side it is a dead-end cubby hole.
The guys changing the oil found the activity of flushing out the ‘raton’ more interesting than a standard oil change and everyone got in the act.
Luckily there is a small rubber stopper at the bottom of the chamber and with much effort they were able to flush out what was left of the Pesty in the Westy. First came fur and then came well-decayed flesh. With a solid application of Sani-Pine and an oil change, they sent us on our way.
We think this may be the same rodent we picked up in Utah and he’s been slowly decaying ever since. The process was hastened when we spent several days in some really wet highlands followed by some really dry beach time. And, thus, we hope, ends the Pesty in the Westy “tail”.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Team Westy Maintenance
So we were driving up this shelf road over a high mountain pass in a nasty, driving rain. It was one of those places with wind so strong the rain falls up instead of down. There is a place like this on Monarch Pass that my skier buddies will recognize.
And then, the oil warning buzzer sounded. Not much room to pull over, but we managed to tuck in. Mike checked the levels....all good, right where they should be.
We had just recently changed the oil and we had switched from synthetic to semi-synthetic. Was it that? Was the oil pump bad? Was it the beginning of the end? Bad engine=trip over.
And then the buzzer stopped. And then it started. And stopped.
We were close to San Isidro (Perez Zeledon to the locals) a mid-sized city we’d been through on earlier trips. It is the gate-way to Parque Nacional Chirripo and just an hour to Playa Dominical; for these reasons and it’s plethora of services, it’s a popular area for gringo retirees.
We set up a home base near Chirripo and started to attend to some issues that had been pending. In addition to the oil buzzer, we’d noticed that Chettie had lost a fair amount of weight so we sought out a good vet, something not known in some of the regions we had traveled. And, my hair was in need of some serious attention.
First, Mike consulted the Bentley and then online with the Samba. Samba legend, tencentlife, says assume the warning system is working and check the oil pressure. To be safe, we had the oil changed again….but the buzzer still sounded intermittently with no seeming rhyme or reason—sometimes in heat, sometimes in cold, under a load, or on flat ground.
We found a good VW mechanic and he and Mike tested the oil pressure. Fine. Best guess is that it is an electrical problem or a bad sender and not an oil pressure problem. It buys us a measure of peace of mind but the buzzer still sounds at odd times.
The vets at Los Alamos run a great clinic that was cleaner and more professional than some of the clinics I got my rabies shots in but that’s another story. They did some blood and fecal tests and determined that Chettie had hookworms. While we noticed she had lost weight the scale indicated since the start of our trip she had lost no less than 16 pounds. She was all ribs and hip bones.
She got an injection and almost immediately started putting weight back on. We’ve also noticed Mike has lost some weight, and hook worms are contagious to humans, so we’re keeping an eye on him. He says to cut him off when he hits 175 pounds—a weight he hasn’t seen since high school. Hey, who hasn’t wanted to drop a few pounds while still being able to eat cookies, chips and ice cream? We call it the hookworm diet. Kidding aside, we’ll keep an eye on him.
And I got a great haircut and color at a hip salon.
We stayed in the Chirripo valley for 4 nights and moved to another, less visited, valley just south of San Isidro for 3 more nights. Here, in one of those interesting twists of timing we met Marcos, a gregarious Costa Rican who immediately befriended us.
He invited us to his house for coffee and then to hike with him towards the south boundary of Parque Nacional Chirripo. We met some of his family, had coffee and orange bread with his wife and father-in-law and hiked to a hidden waterfall with his brother-in-law and nephew.
Marcos is a ring-leader, most happy when keeping many balls in the air. He is full of life and made us feel so welcomed. He understood when we told him we understand more when people speak slowly and we spent a whole day speaking Spanish in a way that helped our skills tremendously.
With all team members whole again and some good R&R under our belts we continued south east, still following the mountains and sleeping as high as possible. We stayed a couple of nights in the San Vito area and then made the border crossing into Panama.
We’ve been in Panama a little over a week. We spent some great time on both sides of Volcan Baru, camping first on a farm high on the less-developed western side and then at a German-run pension/hostel in the more tourist/gringo outpost of Boquete on the eastern side; both were beautiful in their own way. You can probably guess that we liked the western side better for its lack of tourists and more ‘real’ atmosphere.
We then made our way to Panama City and spent several days making arrangements to ship the van to Colombia. We found a nice, well located B&B/hostel with friendly staff and killer air-con to use as our home base while in Panama City and also spent some time being tourists visiting the Canal. We went to a vet and got all of Chettie’s papers updated and she is hookworm-free. Put Mike on the scale at the vet and his weight is holding steady.
We ship the van on Wednesday March 24th and will then fly (with Chettie) to Cartagena and pick up the vehicle on the 25th or 26th. Or at least that’s the plan. As always on a trip like this, there are many moving parts and plans can change for any number of reasons. Send us good thoughts as we work through this phase of our trip. We are really psyched to get to South America.
I am sorry about the lack of pictures....we´ve stayed in places that specifically say they have internet but in reality they have only heard of the internet.....and if there is a connection, posting pictures is clearly beyond the capabilities of the equipment. Our hotel in Panama City that we loved, says they have internet but it wasn´t working the whole time we were there.
And then, the oil warning buzzer sounded. Not much room to pull over, but we managed to tuck in. Mike checked the levels....all good, right where they should be.
We had just recently changed the oil and we had switched from synthetic to semi-synthetic. Was it that? Was the oil pump bad? Was it the beginning of the end? Bad engine=trip over.
And then the buzzer stopped. And then it started. And stopped.
We were close to San Isidro (Perez Zeledon to the locals) a mid-sized city we’d been through on earlier trips. It is the gate-way to Parque Nacional Chirripo and just an hour to Playa Dominical; for these reasons and it’s plethora of services, it’s a popular area for gringo retirees.
We set up a home base near Chirripo and started to attend to some issues that had been pending. In addition to the oil buzzer, we’d noticed that Chettie had lost a fair amount of weight so we sought out a good vet, something not known in some of the regions we had traveled. And, my hair was in need of some serious attention.
First, Mike consulted the Bentley and then online with the Samba. Samba legend, tencentlife, says assume the warning system is working and check the oil pressure. To be safe, we had the oil changed again….but the buzzer still sounded intermittently with no seeming rhyme or reason—sometimes in heat, sometimes in cold, under a load, or on flat ground.
We found a good VW mechanic and he and Mike tested the oil pressure. Fine. Best guess is that it is an electrical problem or a bad sender and not an oil pressure problem. It buys us a measure of peace of mind but the buzzer still sounds at odd times.
The vets at Los Alamos run a great clinic that was cleaner and more professional than some of the clinics I got my rabies shots in but that’s another story. They did some blood and fecal tests and determined that Chettie had hookworms. While we noticed she had lost weight the scale indicated since the start of our trip she had lost no less than 16 pounds. She was all ribs and hip bones.
She got an injection and almost immediately started putting weight back on. We’ve also noticed Mike has lost some weight, and hook worms are contagious to humans, so we’re keeping an eye on him. He says to cut him off when he hits 175 pounds—a weight he hasn’t seen since high school. Hey, who hasn’t wanted to drop a few pounds while still being able to eat cookies, chips and ice cream? We call it the hookworm diet. Kidding aside, we’ll keep an eye on him.
And I got a great haircut and color at a hip salon.
We stayed in the Chirripo valley for 4 nights and moved to another, less visited, valley just south of San Isidro for 3 more nights. Here, in one of those interesting twists of timing we met Marcos, a gregarious Costa Rican who immediately befriended us.
He invited us to his house for coffee and then to hike with him towards the south boundary of Parque Nacional Chirripo. We met some of his family, had coffee and orange bread with his wife and father-in-law and hiked to a hidden waterfall with his brother-in-law and nephew.
Marcos is a ring-leader, most happy when keeping many balls in the air. He is full of life and made us feel so welcomed. He understood when we told him we understand more when people speak slowly and we spent a whole day speaking Spanish in a way that helped our skills tremendously.
With all team members whole again and some good R&R under our belts we continued south east, still following the mountains and sleeping as high as possible. We stayed a couple of nights in the San Vito area and then made the border crossing into Panama.
We’ve been in Panama a little over a week. We spent some great time on both sides of Volcan Baru, camping first on a farm high on the less-developed western side and then at a German-run pension/hostel in the more tourist/gringo outpost of Boquete on the eastern side; both were beautiful in their own way. You can probably guess that we liked the western side better for its lack of tourists and more ‘real’ atmosphere.
We then made our way to Panama City and spent several days making arrangements to ship the van to Colombia. We found a nice, well located B&B/hostel with friendly staff and killer air-con to use as our home base while in Panama City and also spent some time being tourists visiting the Canal. We went to a vet and got all of Chettie’s papers updated and she is hookworm-free. Put Mike on the scale at the vet and his weight is holding steady.
We ship the van on Wednesday March 24th and will then fly (with Chettie) to Cartagena and pick up the vehicle on the 25th or 26th. Or at least that’s the plan. As always on a trip like this, there are many moving parts and plans can change for any number of reasons. Send us good thoughts as we work through this phase of our trip. We are really psyched to get to South America.
I am sorry about the lack of pictures....we´ve stayed in places that specifically say they have internet but in reality they have only heard of the internet.....and if there is a connection, posting pictures is clearly beyond the capabilities of the equipment. Our hotel in Panama City that we loved, says they have internet but it wasn´t working the whole time we were there.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Shaky Jake
The Vagabond Vendor
When I was in high school, I haunted a store called Shaky Jake’s. The story was that the Jake’s father was a rag dealer and his enterprising son culled the rags for usable clothing and sold it in a hip store in a hip neighborhood. It was my first introduction to the wonderful world of used clothing. The impression was so strong that I still prefer to shop used clothes stores than in malls.
My friend Anicka had a couple of naked parties while we were living in Salida and this was good fun too. The idea here is to clean out your closet and bring those items that still had lots of sass left in them but no longer worked for you to a party at which everyone piled their garb in different places. Jeans here, dresses there, tops over here and accessories in that room. Then, after a couple of drinks, you ‘shop’ through your friends stuff, getting naked when necessary, for new additions to your wardrobe. I always scored big at these events and just loved seeing someone else psyched about something I was ready to let go of.
It only occurred to me once we were on our journey how many articles of clothing I have with me came from the naked parties. A Dvorak Expeditions t-shirt, some Union Bay shorts that fit just right whether I’m 5 pounds up or 5 pounds down, a snappy cotton dress great for over your bathing suit or for flopping back and forth to the shower, a basic black v-neck t-shirt with just the right amount of stretch in it, a Royal Robbins quick drying travelers shirt…nearly half of the clothes I brought came from the naked parties, the other half came from some of my favorite used clothing stores: Boomerang and Free the Monkey.
So imagine my delight when poking around the tiny town of Bijagua we stumbled on a great, and I mean great, used clothes store! We are traveling with limited clothing with one or two things in each category: shorts, long pants, short sleeved shirts, t-shirts, etc. On a trip that will take us from tropics to tundra we need a little of everything.
And not everything I brought has earned its place in the closet. Some things are dangerously close to being jettisoned. And now, I have two new pair of capri length pants (key in hot countries where women in shorts stand out like the gringos they are) and Mike has 2 new pair of shorts and a pair of pants. Oh the little pleasures!
The Vagabond Vendor
When I was in high school, I haunted a store called Shaky Jake’s. The story was that the Jake’s father was a rag dealer and his enterprising son culled the rags for usable clothing and sold it in a hip store in a hip neighborhood. It was my first introduction to the wonderful world of used clothing. The impression was so strong that I still prefer to shop used clothes stores than in malls.
My friend Anicka had a couple of naked parties while we were living in Salida and this was good fun too. The idea here is to clean out your closet and bring those items that still had lots of sass left in them but no longer worked for you to a party at which everyone piled their garb in different places. Jeans here, dresses there, tops over here and accessories in that room. Then, after a couple of drinks, you ‘shop’ through your friends stuff, getting naked when necessary, for new additions to your wardrobe. I always scored big at these events and just loved seeing someone else psyched about something I was ready to let go of.
It only occurred to me once we were on our journey how many articles of clothing I have with me came from the naked parties. A Dvorak Expeditions t-shirt, some Union Bay shorts that fit just right whether I’m 5 pounds up or 5 pounds down, a snappy cotton dress great for over your bathing suit or for flopping back and forth to the shower, a basic black v-neck t-shirt with just the right amount of stretch in it, a Royal Robbins quick drying travelers shirt…nearly half of the clothes I brought came from the naked parties, the other half came from some of my favorite used clothing stores: Boomerang and Free the Monkey.
So imagine my delight when poking around the tiny town of Bijagua we stumbled on a great, and I mean great, used clothes store! We are traveling with limited clothing with one or two things in each category: shorts, long pants, short sleeved shirts, t-shirts, etc. On a trip that will take us from tropics to tundra we need a little of everything.
And not everything I brought has earned its place in the closet. Some things are dangerously close to being jettisoned. And now, I have two new pair of capri length pants (key in hot countries where women in shorts stand out like the gringos they are) and Mike has 2 new pair of shorts and a pair of pants. Oh the little pleasures!
Monday, March 8, 2010
How can you sum up a whole country? I´ve gotten you as far as the Honduras-Nicaragua border...and we are now Costa Rica
It’s not that they don’t have the internet in Nicaragua
We spent 3 weeks in Nicaragua Managua
Mike eying the Estanzuela Waterfall, under which we showered while camping there
Trish, Chettie and the girls at Chocoyero El Brujo Park
Then the pendulum swings and we seek out places where we can interact with fellow travelers. For us this has worked out to be at youth hostels, where the owners are open to letting us park on their property and use the showers. We meet other people and share info on great places to go. We find the change from speaking only Spanish to speaking only English at first welcomed but eventually tiresome and the pendulum swings again.
While Nicaragua
Ometepe from the ferry across Lago de Nicaragua (btw, on the ferry we met Patrick Murphy´s Law School roommate and his family. Small world.)
Well, we also have the looming task of vehicle shipping on our minds. There are a lot of details to work out on this and they are best done in person, on site. That may be from Puntarenas, Costa Rica, or more likely, Panama City and Colon, Panama.
So we opted to enter Costa Rica
Immediately upon entering Costa Rica
Along with the sense of prosperity comes a higher cost of living. Things are much more expensive here. But, there are more things to buy.
We continue to stay in outrageously beautiful places and our activities include hiking, scouting around towns to get a sense of place and people and getting Chettie her play time which usually involves a hike, a swim or some ball retrieving. Sometimes the main activity is relaxation;others we are busy with the tasks of life: grocery shopping, van maintenance, internet, etc. When we find a place that is chill we hang out for a few days.
Chettie with Volcan Tenorio from Bijagua CR
Burly Beast at Catarata Albergue campsite
Saturday, March 6, 2010
We had decided to cross Honduras in a day because of the political unrest there and their unfavorable opinion of the United States.
We got ourselves ready for a big day of travel and left for the border between El Salvador and Honduras at 6:30am. El Amatillo is the city on the El Salvador side. We arrived by 9am (early enough) and were suddenly thrust into border-crossing madness. We were in a line of traffic, dwarfed by huge semi-trailers. It was overwhelming.
We opted to hire a tramitadore to facilitate the crossing. We are not really sure his services helped or were worth the money we paid. Perhaps we would still be sitting there had we not hired him. Perhaps we would have paid even more to the border officials for the vehicle, the dog and us to enter Honduras. Perhaps it`s best that we’ll never know.
But, in two and a half hours we were in. It takes three hours to drive border to border across the part of Honduras that necks down to its Pacific coastline. We were stopped no less than four times at police check points.
Each time we were asked for our license and papers for the car…and then for our triangles. We had read about this from other travelers who had done the trip: Get emergency triangles as some officials seem to really think this is important. We even held them in our hands in an auto parts store in California, but they were heavy and cumbersome and expensive for what they were and we opted out. Ha. We were wishing for those triangles.
Of the four stops, three ‘officers’ tried to extort money from us for not having triangles. We took advice from the same travelers who had recommended we get them and played dumb. `Lo siento, no entiendo` (I’m sorry, I don’t understand).
After trying for a few minutes to tell us we were in BIG trouble for not having them, the first officer said “Five dollars; Coca Cola” apparently hoping to get something for his efforts.
At the second stop after pretending not to understand, I just said “Gracias” with a big smile and the officer gave us our paperwork back apparently giving up.
The last stop was the most difficult and our charade of not understanding was proving less effective. The officer drew triangles in the dust on our mirror and (in Spanish) asked what we would do if we got a flat tire (when you would certainly need your road side triangles). Mike hit the emergency flasher (oops, we really did understand) which ironically enough is marked by a triangle. Not good enough. The officer stopped a trucker coming from the opposite direction and asked for his triangles in order to show them to us. “Ooooh, triangles. Nope, we don’t have those”. Smile.
He tried to tell us we had to pay a fine of $35 for each triangle we were lacking and go back to the last town to pay the fine at the bank. “Oh, we’ll go to the next town and pay”; “Noooo, you have to go back”.
I even tried to offer him a soda (we had no coke with us, sorry, Fresca would have to do) but he did not want my bribe. And then after maybe 20 minutes, he let out a big sigh, gave us our paperwork back and sent us on our way. Maybe he should have taken my offer after all.
We stopped in the next town and bought two folding triangles for 5 bucks as we were starting to wonder if we’d get across Honduras without landing in jail for not having them. With triangles in hand we set off for the next check point, but alas, there were no more check points and we arrived at the border with Nicaragua with newly purchased triangles and no one to share them with.
The border crossing between Honduras and Nicaragua was muy tranquilo compared with the one between El Salvador and Honduras that we had done earlier that day. We were the only people there and the officials actually hung out by our van, yes, making friends with Chettie and marveling at our casa rodante. With little effort we were in Nicaragua and on our way to more adventure.
One day, a week or so later we came upon a traffic stop at which we were asked for our triangles and our fire extinguisher. We were quite proud to show that we were in compliance on both counts and we were quickly on our way.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
My last entry was from Suchitoto, El Salvador, a cute little arts town on a very big, man-made lake. The location on the lake seems to be secondary to the charm of the town and the art scene.
We met some of the people who are starting to make the tourist thing happen there, from tour operators to internet café owners and restaurateurs. They all love the community in which they live and want to make sharing it with the world a positive experience for both tourist and resident. This is no easy task, but so far they are doing an admirable job.
From here we visited the town of Cinquera, a strong-hold of the FMLN during their civil war and stayed with the family of subsistence farmers who were very enthusiastic to share their way of life with us. Their property had a great view of the lake and we were invited to take a spin on their very home-made zipline. They also gave us a great demonstration on how their trapiche (sugarcane press) works. They involved us in the daily task of working the press and invited us to sample the final product.
Leaving Suchitoto we went to Alegria, named the best place to live in El Salvador in 2009. We agreed. A small mountain community with a clean, inviting parque central and, again, the beginnings of tourist infrastructure including a tiny museum and a fledgling tourist office. Our campsite was right on the shore of the Laguna de Alegria, a pretty green lake inside of a long extinct volcano. It was far more stylin’ than I anticipated. We liked it so much we came back and camped there the next night, too.
We stayed a couple of nights but again found that the beach isn’t the best place for two mountain folk traveling in a van with a dog.
So…..we retreated to the mountains once again, this time to Perquin. This was another strong-hold of the FMLN during the civil war and there is a great museum on the war here. Our guide was in the war and he pointed himself out in a photograph as he took us through the museum. He told us that things were indeed better for the people today. He also told us he held no bad feelings against the US for their part in the war, explaining that in Civil War brothers fight against brothers and that many people he knew had fled to the US during the war.
We had a nifty little campsite here with our own private waterfall and as with any travel accommodations, it colors the way you feel about a place.
We really covered El Salvador end to end and top to bottom, but still I was a little sad to close it out and move on as I so loved the country and the people.
Next we headed to Nicaragua, but not before crossing Honduras in a day. No pictures, but I´ll post the play-by-play soon.
We met some of the people who are starting to make the tourist thing happen there, from tour operators to internet café owners and restaurateurs. They all love the community in which they live and want to make sharing it with the world a positive experience for both tourist and resident. This is no easy task, but so far they are doing an admirable job.
Van in front of parque central from Artex Cafe
From here we visited the town of Cinquera, a strong-hold of the FMLN during their civil war and stayed with the family of subsistence farmers who were very enthusiastic to share their way of life with us. Their property had a great view of the lake and we were invited to take a spin on their very home-made zipline. They also gave us a great demonstration on how their trapiche (sugarcane press) works. They involved us in the daily task of working the press and invited us to sample the final product.
Trish about to take a spin on the zipline
Uncle Santo readying the press (We have great movies of this activity but there is no way I can load them at this time)
Leaving Suchitoto we went to Alegria, named the best place to live in El Salvador in 2009. We agreed. A small mountain community with a clean, inviting parque central and, again, the beginnings of tourist infrastructure including a tiny museum and a fledgling tourist office. Our campsite was right on the shore of the Laguna de Alegria, a pretty green lake inside of a long extinct volcano. It was far more stylin’ than I anticipated. We liked it so much we came back and camped there the next night, too.
Our campsite on Laguna de Algeria
Mike holding court with the local youth in Alegria
Then it was time to dip our toes in the ocean again. This time we went to El Cuco and found a spot to camp right on the beach. I mean right on the beach. The high-tide mark was just 5 feet from our slider. We were assured that was as high as the tide would go, but let me tell you, we stayed up till the tide began to recede just to be sure.
We stayed a couple of nights but again found that the beach isn’t the best place for two mountain folk traveling in a van with a dog.
So…..we retreated to the mountains once again, this time to Perquin. This was another strong-hold of the FMLN during the civil war and there is a great museum on the war here. Our guide was in the war and he pointed himself out in a photograph as he took us through the museum. He told us that things were indeed better for the people today. He also told us he held no bad feelings against the US for their part in the war, explaining that in Civil War brothers fight against brothers and that many people he knew had fled to the US during the war.
Roadside politics
We had a nifty little campsite here with our own private waterfall and as with any travel accommodations, it colors the way you feel about a place.
We really covered El Salvador end to end and top to bottom, but still I was a little sad to close it out and move on as I so loved the country and the people.
Next we headed to Nicaragua, but not before crossing Honduras in a day. No pictures, but I´ll post the play-by-play soon.
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