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COSTA RICA RAINFOREST, VOLCANOES AND THE WORLD'S GREATEST BIODIVERSITY
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Welcome to Costa Rica ...
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The Costa Rican numberplate
Costa Rican money, the Colon (C) (incidentally named after Christopher Colombus - Christobal Colon in Spanish), which comes in the form of 10c, 20c, 50c, 100c, 500c 1000c, 2000c, 5000c and 10000c denominations.
At 2007 exchange rates, 1000c = £1. |
OUR CHARIOT
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MOUNT ARENAL
Alexis's parents, Andrew and Pennie who joined us for a fantastic 2 weeks around Costa Rica
We all did some zip lining when we whished down between platforms on lines suspended 200m above the rainforest below and the volcano exploding in the distance.
Mount Arenal has been erupting since the 1950s and lava can be seen spewing out of the top at night time and hot rocks bounce down the side of the volcano. |
MANUEL ANTONIO
One of the most improtant sea level nature reserves in Costa Rica where most of the animals found in these photos can be seen.. |
MONTE VERDE
Dining in a Tree!
Monte Verde is one of the few remaining preserved cloudforests in the world. It is run independantly by a group of biologists wanting to preserve the unique environment. They are in the process of buying a corridor of forest all the way down to the coast. The Monte Verde cloudforest was home to the golden frog which became extinct in 1989, just a year after biologists decided to study the species.
The area surrounding the cloudforest is run by the Armish who farm and make dairy products. They have been pressurizing the cloudforest with their farming practises.
Costa Rica is famous for its smooth sweet coffee. |
The El Avion restaurant is made from a Fairchild C-123 which was a part of one of the biggest scandals in the mid 1980's. It was involved in the Nicaraguan Contra Affair when it was shot down in southern Nicaragua. It was disassembled and shipped down to Manuel Antonio where is it now a bar within the restaurant |
Costa Rican desert - Tres Leches (three milks) - a cake soaked in milk, condensed milk and evaporated milk
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FREE THE BEAST
Puerto Caldera... a bad port for overlanders and bureaucratic nightmares!
Waiting, waiting, waiting. We spent a month at Hotel Costa del Sol in Mata de Limon next to Puerto Caldera whilst we waited for Costa Rican customs authorities to reach a decision on how to deal with releasing the Beast.
Their decision was that the Beast had been abandoned after we left it at the port for 15 days and was now the property of Costa Rica unless we paid import taxes to release the car. We would therefore have a Costa Rican car that we cannot officially drive in Costa Rica as it is illegal to import a right hand drive car into the country.
David Jacobs of CWA and...
...Floris Menting of CWA and Roberto Jiminez (PANDI) helped to keep our morale above suicidal and lent us a lot of moral support as well as legal help to get the Beast out. Thanks guys!
Greg's Beast rescue outfit
The Beast making a fast get away - straight to the mechanics!
Our position in the restaurant at Hotel Costa del Sol, Puerto Caldera for nearly 2 months!
Muchos Gracias para todo... el hombres de Hotel Costa del Sol in Mata Limon, Puerto Caldera |
VANDALISM AND THEFT IN THE PORT
Whilst the Beast was parked at the port we had the lock for the petrol cap broken off... we thought it was to steal the petrol but it was actually worse than that, it was to put diesel in the petrol tank as they thought that there was no diesel in the petrol tank!
Whilst the car was in transit/at the port we had our electric internal/external thermometer and some other personal items stolen and the rear step was broken when they dragged the car! |
REPAIRS
A bit of sludge in the gearbox!
One 'holier than the Vatican' base to our fuel tank. When we discovered that diesel had been put into our petrol tank, we asked that our mechanics to drain out the diesel-petrol mix and discovered that there was a few holes in the base of the tank (due to the removal of all the protective sludge accumulated over 30 years!)
One new bottom to the fuel tank ready for being shipped out of Costa Rica to the States .... |
SHIPPING HOME
The boys of Oscar Rodriguez Reyes Shipping agency who worked really hard to get the car out of customs... and then put it back into customs!
.. after a bad turn of events we decided that the Beastly Adventure, sadly must come to an end after draining all our resources over two months as well as our patience with bureaucracy and paperwork!
A tied down Beast We decided to ship the Beast home (after having driven approcimately 20km in the whole of central america!)... first we tried to ship to Southampton with Maersk Line but we were told that all old cars need a dangerous goods license (too dangerous to be imported!!!) to transport around the world so we ended up shipping the Beast to Rotterdam in the Netherlands with Hapag Lloyd.... here we go again with more customs workers!
The end of the Beastly Adventure - a 40ft container bound for Puerto Limon and then sailing the seven seas for Europe. |
COSTA RICAN WILDLIFE Costa Rica is estimated to have 5% of the world's biodiversity.
White faced Capuchin Monkey
Iguana
Centaur Iguana with juveniles
The symbol of Costa Rica - the red eyed tree frog
Costa Rican Tree Frogs, many of which are on the verge of extinction due to a mould and decreased leaf litter due to global warming
Crocs
Hummingbirds
The grey fox or Zorro
A mass of insects
A rhinocerous grasshopper
A giant moth
Tiny fungi
Greg has some new jewellry
A Motmot
The elusive Resplendant Quetzal - the national bird of Guatemala which lives only in Advocado trees and 90% of its diet is advocado - you can see why it is on the verge of extinction!
A poster of the Queztal
Tiny tree frogs
A Coatimundi (a relative of the racoon)
A cheeky racoon
Crabs! The crabs who all make a mass exodus to the sea to mate on one moonlit night a year. |
