Reports From the Field

Niels Cruz (centre), The President of the Costa Rica 4x4 Club, also the ARB Distributor of Costa Rica, who will be showing us all the highlights and offroad sectors in Costa Rica in his Mercedes G-Wagen 300 (nicknamed "The Taxi") with 1$ on the left and myself on the right.

1$ and myself were in Cartagena, Colombia to effect the shipment of our 6 trucks left in storage in Cartagena after our South America 2 4x4 World Explorer Overland Expedition which ended on the 22nd December 2008. That expedition started in Lima, Peru on the 18th November 2008, traversing Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, entering Venezuela and then back into Colombia via Maracaibo, Santa Marta and ended in Cartagena, Colombia.

The trucks are being shipped to Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, then inland hauled to San Jose, Ecatrans Bonded Warehouse awaiting for us to return to San Jose to clear them out for the Central America & Mexico sector of the World Explorer series.

This will take us from San Jose, Costa Rica to Nicaragua, Honduras, Gautemala, Belize, Mexico and ending in Los Angeles, California on the 14th June 2009.

1$ reversing The Hippo, MAX 1441 Mitsubishi Space Wagon into the 40 feet container for shipment to Costa Rica. 1$ did most of the lashing down of the 6 trucks, into 3 x 40 feet containers. I was really amazed, as it only took him less than 2 hours to get the 3 containers ready. Guess how much we saved by doing it ourselves. USD 250 per truck x 6 trucks = USD 1500 !!!

The Central America is on a very tight budget as the current Global Economic Slowdown has led to 10 particpants cancelling their entries, which has left a tremendous strain on even covering total costs for the event.

2nd Recce Log Update - 23 Feb 2009

Our 4x4 Overland Expedition series titled World Explorer - Central America & Mexico, needed this second recce for the millions of action items, route checks, travel agents, campsites checks, hotel visits, service centres, customs entry formalities, immigration formalities, etc, etc, etc, x 1000 to the countries the event was to traverse.
(The first recce was done in June 2008 took 25 days. I flew into Los Angeles via Taipei to Mexico City. Then to Guatemala City, San Jose, Costa Rica.)

For this second recce, 1$ and I flew via Los Angeles to Cartagena, Colombia to arrange the shipment of our trucks which we left behind after the last leg of our South American series, covering Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.

We stuff the trucks on the 20th February with Ratchet Tie Downs which we brought from KL and effeciently did the stuffing into the containers in 2 hours (record time). The shipment is being handled by Aviatur Logistics, who has a big office at Cartagena. The General Manager, Senora Alba was a real darling, as she passed all the papers through Colombian Customs in 3 hours flat.

It was done the shipping physical work and then head to office for the documentations and payment. Surprisingly all was done again in much quicker time then expected. So we settled the shipping procedure and prepared to leave Cartegena to San Jose Costa Rica. Not before dealing with the discussions with beautiful and energetic Laura from Aviatur Tourism, Bogota for the next Central America & Mexico arrangements and plannings. There goes another solid three hours on very fruitful meeting. Meanwhile we need also to get the air-ticket for 1$ to fly in to San Jose with me, as original plan that he has to stay back in Cartagena to complete the shipping procedures. All settle by late afternoon and we planned to have a parting dinner with Laura as we would fly out to San Jose the next day. It was pleasant evening to had a seafood dinner and continued to smooth bars.

Saturday our flight was to fly out at 5.00 pm, so we had some internet works and also to return our hired cell phone in the morning. In fact had a short time to nick for shopping for the loved ones at home. So we are again at Cartagena airport, checking in, for once again to leave this vibrant, fun and energetic city with many memories. The security at this airport even will check all the contents of our baggage before we leave. Got a very "tranquilo" Copa Airlines counter lady who actually gave a best seat on the both flights from Cartegena to Panama and transit from here to San Jose. We had the exit door seat which has a great leg room.

Arrived at Panama, no smoking lounge what so ever in any where. So waited for 3 hours to get our connecting flight to San Jose. As Malaysians do need visa to enter Costa Rica but if we have a valid American Visas, then it will be okay to come in to Costa Rica. It was a very fast clearance both Immigration and Customs. In fact we got a 30 days stay. So the next thing to do is to get a car. We headed straight to many car rental outlets that is at the Airport. Couple of these rental companies that we first visited could not have their cars driven out of Costa Rica, but as this is a recce trip we definitely need to drive all the way north into Managua, Nicaragua. Finally found this Alamo car rental that has this facilities. We got a great guy at the counter who was kind enough to give us all the information we need. Infact he gave us a good deal for hiring a car for more than 1 week. We paid USD 48 per day inclusive collision waiver, insurance and multiple driver. It was good deal. Also we got a Toyota Yaris 2009 model with only mileage of 3000kms.

Once we had our own wheels, we headed to Holiday Inn the rest place at San Jose. With me reading the map with even the car's roof light was on, and 1$ was on the pilot seat. We made it quite easily to hotel in 30 minutes at a distance of 20kms. Got checked in, throw our luggage in to the rooms, we headed straight to Hotel's restaurant that is opened 24 hrs. Had a good dinner and off to bed.

The next day is Sunday, everything is practically is closed. So decided to get familiarise with the road conditions and to get our bearings right on the directions from Holiday Inn, our hotel for the event starts. Took a nice drive 50 kms away from San Jose to Port Limon, where our vehicles was shipped in from Cartegena. Had a coffee by the road side and the roads must say it look very much like our own country. The terrain, green and weather was very simirlar. Much will not even believe that this is away from Malaysia. Then we also drove 50kms away from this city towards Puenta Blanca. Here we saw a lot of vehicles coming back from the weekend back to San Jose. So the traffic was heavy when we turned back to get to our hotel. Many motorcycles, BMW GS, RT, Harley bikes, Hondas and etc were also seen travelling in small groups and convoys. Wished that we had our GS too. So got back to hotel, and we started to walk about the city, passed few parks, beautiful architectures of Spain inheritance and had a snap dinner before calling the night. Tomorrow is Monday, so our work meeting with people will start.