The Highs And Lows of Travel and Frustrating Internet Connections!

The last few weeks have evoked some serious emotions as would be expected when on a trip of this magnitude. There have been tears, there has been laughter and smiles, there has been reconnections with old friends and connections with new friends. There has been new places, new sights, new animals that we have never seen before. There has been problems and there have been problems solved. All in all, just what traveling is all about.

We left the caribbean coast and headed inland to where one of my oldest friends (she is not old, just that we have been friends for a LONG time) lives with her Costa Rican husband. We stayed the weekend and then some in Tres Rios, just west of San Jose with Allison and David Quiros. It was so great to reconnect with Allison after many years of having our lives drift apart. We once spent a week in Scotland together when we only 13 and 15 years old. My grandparents took us on a train to London and let us loose to roam about the city on our own, something we both are amazed ever happened. This trip we played Ultimate frisbee with some teachers at the international school Allison teaches with, and after nearly 2 hours I was definitely feeling the effects of six months in a van! Sunday was spent taking over the world in a 4 hour game of Risk, Andrew eventually triumphed after Allison and I became bored with never ending battles to the death.
Monday we sourced out some parts for Kumu and installed a new emergency brake. Ours has never worked, and we figured as we were heading towards the Andes, it may be an asset to have as we have crossed paths with two couples who have had their brakes fail on this trip!
We said Adios to Allison and David, and I left feeling as though I had regained a lost friend and realized that sometimes no matter how much time has past, when you get together with real friends it is like no time has gone by at all.
As we headed into the mountains we needed to cross to get to the coast, Andrew quietly mentioned that perhaps our brakes were not quite as good as they should be. To make a really long story short, four days, a couple hundred dollars, two new brake pads, one new master brake cylinder, one complete loss of brakes, three different garages and 7 times bleeding the brakes later, we emerged victorious.
During the brake debacle we met Mike... from Okatoks, he graciously lent us some land to park on at his incredible house overlooking the Costa Rican hills. Unlucky for Mike, a landslide had occurred during the rainy season and left a huge precipice dangerously close to his house. He was down from Canada trying to come up with a way to solidify the landscape so his dream home wouldn't slide down into the abyss. We shared some beer and some stories, realized we knew a few of the same people, and realized how small the world really is. The next day we spent the morning filling and huffing sandbags over the edge of the precipice in order to make somewhat of a retaining wall. I know we didn't make much of a dent, but hey, we gotta help out our fellow Canucks. Good luck to Mike for getting a tough situation dealt with!
New brakes and good feelings we headed towards the Osa Peninsula and Cape Matapalo. Matapalo is possibly as close to ideal paradise as we have come on this trip. Caribbean blue waters with a solid surfable wave, combined with blue skies and flocks of brilliant scarlet macaws circling overhead. We camped in tranquility on the beach with no one around to tell us otherwise. Its definitely a hidden gem of Costa Rica and I would recommend it to everyone!
Leaving the Cape we began to feel the pressures of our imminent shipping date to Colombia and ended up passing up the chance to surf the epic wave at Pavones to spend a couple more days in Panama. We had been in Costa Rica for over three weeks and we were looking forward to getting back to a cheaper country! (Not to mention I was itching to get a camera!)
I managed to pick up the newer version of my stolen sony camera. It was really hard to hand over the money for the same camera (well I guess it wasnt that hard, as it was actually Andrew's visa) but i know that the money I spent on a decent camera will come back to me in the memories it saves for me.
I had planned to upload a couple new pictures from the camera, but I have officially found the slowest internet connection in all of Central America, so it will have to wait till next time.
Also, we made it to the Costa Rica Volkswagen Club blog! Check it out

http://camperscombisccr.blogspot.com/2011/02/viajeros-canadienses.html