Off to Costa Rica (Or Not)

Off to Costa Rica (Or Not)

Thursday-Not Off to Costa Rica

Well, after a leisurely morning, my friend Lenny picked us up and off to the airport we went. Boarding passes in place; we used curbside bag check and went for a quick lunch before heading to our gate.

Upon arrival at our gate, the podium announced that we had to get another passport check before boarding. Stand in line some more for this formality. Oops, Mary Lou can’t go because her passport expires February 15^th. We tell the gal at the podium that we’ll be back on the 4^th-well before the passport expires. The gal explains that Costa Rica has this not well publicized requirement that all visitors must have a passport that will remain valid for at least 90 days after the visit. So, no Costa Rica today! They rebook us for tomorrow and explain that we can go to Tucson and get an expedited passport replacement but it is by appointment only.

Mary Lou quickly calls and after going through about a million automated menus finally gets an appointment for 9 the next morning. Our bags are pulled off the flight and we take a taxi home.

Friday-Off to Costa Rica-Maybe

For those of you who are geographically challenged let me proffer that Tucson is about 120 miles from Phoenix. We left for Tucson at 6:30 Friday morning and found the Passport office at 8:40. Fortunately, they took Mary Lou right in and since she had filled out all her paperwork in advance, they told her that the passport would take 45 minutes to an hour to complete. We wait and wait, all the time getting more and more antsy. Finally at 10:15AM, the passport was delivered into Mary Lou’s hands and off we raced, back to the Phoenix airport. We abandoned the car in long term parking and raced (slowly by bus) to the terminal, then cut in front of some nice people to get to the front of the baggage check line to recheck the bags, raced to the security checkpoint, sneaked through the first class line, and raced to the gate just in time for boarding our 1:14 PM flight.

Note: Everyone knows that I love racing but this is JUST NOT what I have in mind when I think about racing.

Well, we’re finally off to Costa Rica! What else can happen? Stay tuned. You haven’t heard anything yet. A long day turns into a longer night!

Later,

The Geezer

Closeout of Mexico (almost) and on to Costa Rica

Well, the lawyer said that it would be cost prohibitive to try to get the Tahoe back and that there was not even much chance of success. He further suggested that while the car problem is considered a civil matter  (i.e. not a criminal matter) in Mexico, that to be on the safe side, I should not travel to Mexico for the next five years. After five years, the case would go away. Of course, Mary Lou has no such restrictions since she was not involved in the “illegal importation of goods into Mexico” (i.e. the car). 

The Mexico story is pretty much over for us for now although I have a friend who lives in Querétaro who insisted that I send him all the documents and that he will see if there is anything that can be done. I sent him the documents but have no hope that he can do anything. Thanks for trying José Antonio.

So, today we’re off to Costa Rica. Plans are to do some rubber rafting, zip lining, see some volcanos, hike in the cloud forests, go to the beach and some other stuff.

Should be very restful and relaxing! More tomorrow or the next day.

Ken

El Pato Muerto

OK, that’s the final name for the Tahoe. For those of you who don’t want to translate, it means “The Dead Duck”.

We entered Mexico on Friday, the 13^th in high spirits and ready for adventure. We both thought it a bit funny that there was no document or vehicle check as we entered at Agua Prieta but on we went. What I never saw in any of my research or heard anyone talk about on their blogs is that a special vehicle permit is required if you are going to drive to the interior of Mexico. Of course, I had driven inside Mexico many times without getting any permits. As it turns out, the 1^st 18 miles of the “Frontier”, all of Baja and most of Sonora are exempt from this requirement. Of course, that is precisely where I had driven my car in the past. A big mistake on my part.

Note to self: Never “ASSUME” you know enough about a subject. You don’t!

About 90 miles south of the border, we came upon a customs checkpoint where we were asked for our permits. Total confusion on our part. What permits? So, for the next 4+ hours we sat there while what seemed like reams of documents were filled out, witnessed, signed by everyone and copied. The customs agents spoke almost no English and, of course, our conversational Spanish was insufficient for good communication. Mary Lou had an inspiration and brought in the English/Spanish dictionary and that helped get us through. The bottom line is that we were handed a 24 page document and told that the Tahoe had to stay there but we were free to go but that we had to appear at what is called an “aduana” at Las Palomas on Monday. (Naturally, just like the government bureaucracy in any other country, they are closed on the weekends).

Note to self: Don’t plan border crossings on the weekends if permits are required.

Of course, we were out in the middle of the boonies with a bunch of luggage and no wheels. So, how to get to a town? One of the customs agents explained, with some difficulty, that we could take a bus south to Nuevo Casas Grandes and then catch a bus north to Las Palomas at the border. He was kind enough to flag a bus down for us and we took a 40 minute SRO ride to the next town. When we arrived at the bus station, we learned that the next bus to Las Palomas would not be until 2:00 AM. However, a young man pointed out that there was another bus company next door and we rushed over only to find that the next bus to Las Palomas was just pulling out of the lot and could not be stopped.

After consulting the schedule, we bought tickets for a bus at 7:20 PM and since we had a couple of hours to kill, we wandered off in search of a restaurant. A few blocks later, we found a sea food restaurant and Mary Lou had some kind of shrimp soup that she said was very good. True to form, of course, I had a delicious Indio beer.

So, our bus departed at 7:20 PM and off we went to Las Palomas. WRONG!  

Note to self: If you are going to book a bus ticket in any Spanish speaking country, have a map at the ready so there is no confusion about the destination!

As it turns out, the bus didn’t exactly go to Las Palomas. Rather it went to a point about 20 miles south of Las Palomas called Las Trios. If the bus driver had not forgotten about us, we would have been dumped off in the middle of nowhere at 10 at night. BUT, the driver forgot us and we wound up in Juarez at midnight! The driver was very apologetic about missing our stop but informed us that it was much safer to come to the murder capital of Mexico than to get off at Las Trios! So, what to do? Naturally, grab a taxi and make a run for the border! That’s just what we did! We walked right through customs and immigration and jumped right into another taxi on the US side and off to an airport hotel we went! Ah, a good night’s sleep after a tough day of travel!

Next morning: 2 plane tickets back to Phoenix.

Mary Lou was an absolute rock throughout all of this. She was calm, rational, helpful and had good ideas. Not only that, but she didn’t seem too mad at me for screwing up! I couldn’t resist snapping her picture below at the El Paso airport.

But wait! The fun’s not over. Sunday afternoon, we jump back in the car and drive to Deming New Mexico (a short 5 hour hop) because we have to appear in Las Palomas on Monday morning. On Monday morning, we dutifully trek to Las Palomas, cross the border yet again and proceed 20 feet to what is called an “aduana” still naively thinking that we would pay a penalty, get a permit and retrieve our vehicle. WRONG AGAIN!

Note to self: See that “ASSUME” thing further up. You must be a slow learner.

Now the catch 22 thing starts up again. The folks in the aduana speak almost no English but they tell us that we must get a backdated permit at the “banjercito” across the street. Off we go. Nope, the banjercito cannot issue a backdated permit. Back to the aduana office. At that point, we offer to pay any fines and “other fees” as required to get the backdated permit. To their credit and somewhat to my surprise, they didn’t bite on the other fees gambit nor did they provide any help. Their only suggestion was to get a lawyer. OK, so are there lawyers in Las Palomas? Of course not, the closest lawyers are in Juarez.

Back to Deming to see if we can find a lawyer there. Alas, no luck there either. Back to Phoenix-another easy 5 hour drive. Last resort: Off to the Mexican Consulate here in Phoenix. No help except to advise us that only the aduana can clear up this problem.

So what to do? First, we have decided that the Tahoe is gone for good. It just is not worth the time and money to go through the Mexican legal system where we might lose the car anyway. The Tahoe was old and not worth much of anything anyway.

We have contacted a lawyer here in Phoenix who is licensed to practice law in Mexico. We will meet with him in a day or two to make sure there will be no further problems if we don’t pay the fines and/or penalties.

Needless to say, this (mis)adventure has radically altered our plans. Our South America trip will not start in September as planned but is not canceled. I just need some time to find another suitable vehicle. Also, after some discussion, we have decided to ship the vehicle directly to Ecuador and skip all of Central America except for Panama and Costa Rica. We’ll fly there and then hop over to Ecuador from there.

Some lessons learned and some observations:

We need to be much more fluent in Spanish. Toward that end, I will continue to take course work to improve.

Neither of us ever felt that we were in any danger while in Mexico. The authorities that we dealt with were very polite, and some of them were even helpful. There was absolutely no solicitation of any kind of a bribe anywhere.

All the non-government people that we dealt with were very polite and went out of their way to be helpful. One lady even walked us to the taxi stand in Juarez. This reconfirms my prior experiences of travel inside Mexico. The people are, by and large, great.

Travel by bus turned out to be a pretty good experience. The busses were clean, comfortable and even had in-transit movies. It looks to be a pretty good way to get around the country. Just be sure of your destination!

This was not the adventure that we had in mind when we planned it but it was, nevertheless, an adventure. We survived it quite nicely and walked away wiser for it. So now, instead of spending two more weeks in Mexico, we’ve decided to go to Costa Rica for a week.

More from Costa Rica later,

Ken

Finally Underway

Either on Time or a Day Early Depending on How You Look at It.

Greetings from the beautiful Hotel Gadsden in downtown Douglas Arizona. More about the hotel in a minute.

OK, I got the days mixed up and thought we were not leaving until Friday until I checked all the hotel reservations late last night and realized that we needed to leave today! Not too much a problem except that the Tahoe (still no name selected) went back in the shop this morning because that pesky check engine light came back on again. Fortunately, it was just a loose wire and we got it back before noon.

After some frantic packing, laundry washing, last minute shopping and a very long computer update of the GPS system, we threw everything but the kitchen sink in the back of the Tahoe (still no name) and off we went. Mary Lou was alternating between shaking her head at my “senior moment” and just snickering when she thought I wasn’t looking. (I’ll get even as soon as I have something to report about her.)

In any event, here we are at the historic Hotel Gadsden. The place was built in 1907 as a Grand Hotel. It was the finest hotel between El Paso and the West Coast and attracted a very high level clientele. Pictured below is the hotel today looking much as it looked when it was rebuilt after a huge fire in 1928 that destroyed all the upper floors.

The lobby is very ornate with lots of marble and granite. The supports columns have 24 Karat gold gilding at the tops. The grand staircase is pictured below. In 1917, during one of his raids into the US, Pancho Villa rode his horse up the grand staircase, around the mezzanine and back down again before departing. 

At the divide on the grand staircase is a stuffed mountain lion shot by the daughter of the hotel owner. Can anyone guess from the picture below which one I’d rather have after me?

Across the border and into Mexico first thing in the morning. On to Chihuahua!

Hasta Manaña,

Ken

Help Name the Vehicle

Mary Lou and I will be driving a 2000 Chevy Tahoe on our Mexico and South America  tours. This SUV, pictured below, was donated by my daughter and son-in-law (Daedra & Danny). Muchas gracias! The SUV has 178,000 miles on it but Danny has kept it in very good mechanical condition. I drove a 7800 mile lap around the US this past October with nary a hint of a problem. So, it’s off to Mexico with it. However, being 12 years old, it does have some visible wear and tear. Not the most beautiful vehicle on the road!

Here’s the dilemma! We’ve been following some other blogs written by people who are taking very similar journeys to the one we will be taking. It seems that there is a tradition of the vehicles having been given some cool names. Some of the names are Sprinter (Highly ironic since this couple is taking 2½ years to do the same trip that we’re doing in 6-7 months), Red Beard (a 1971 Volkswagen microbus) and some others.

Try as we might, neither Mary Lou nor I have been able to come up with a really cool name for our vehicle. I thought of “La Ruptura pato” or “El patito feo” but we are both very open to any other suggestions. So please use a little imagination, and help us name this beast. Your reward will be a hearty “thank you” and a drink the next time I see you! With inducement like that, I’m sure you’ll jump right on it.

Note: Several people have told me that there is some difficulty in posting comments to the blog. After looking at it, I agree that it is not really very clear.

What you need to do is to go to the bottom of the post where it lists the number of comments. Click on the comments number and the comments dialog box will come up. You can then type in your comment after which you will get some of those goofy looking anti-spam letters that you have to type in. 

Happy Trails,

Ken

FAQ’s (at least of me) About Foreign Travel

Why go to Mexico or South America? It is too dangerous what with all the drug stuff going on.

Well, it’s true that there is some bad stuff going on-especially in some of the border towns in Mexico. However, having said that, foreigners are not generally the targets in these instances. Experienced travelers exercise good common sense and know enough to stay away from areas where there is a higher likelihood of having some problem. We have modified our route to avoid one troublesome area and we will exercise caution and not wander the cities at night or display theft bait items etc. Still, some kind of incident could happen. But folks, realize that some kind of incident could happen anywhere in the US. It could just as easily happen in the parking lot of your local mall. I just refuse to live in fear. If you’re going to do that, you may as well stay at home and turn your house into a fortress!

Why not just travel in the US? There are plenty of things to see here.

I have been fortunate enough to have traveled in all 50 states in the US. I have seen a lot. Yet there is still much to see. In the past year alone, I spent 2 weeks traveling through the Grand Canyon in a dory, 2 weeks touring all over California, went to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York (and tasted grape pie for the first time in my life), toured Williamsburg Virginia and the surrounding areas of Jamestown and Yorktown as well as spending time in Ohio, Michigan, Alabama, New Mexico and Nevada. And I will continue to travel in the US from time to time.

Today however, I find foreign travel more interesting and more challenging. Why? The scenery, culture, food, people as well the outlook on life is as different from ours as night and day many times. I find it very refreshing to exchange views with other people from around the world and to learn about and immerse myself in the culture. It certainly has changed my perspective. It’s just a great learning experience. Note: The one overriding thing that I have learned, however, is that people are just people. Most people are kind, good natured and willing to help if you need it. Of course, in every culture there are always a few stinkers. But we have our share as well.

You’re too old to be traveling all over the world.

First and foremost seniors need to keep our minds and bodies engaged and busy. If you sit in a rocking chair, my opinion is that you won’t last very long. Travel keeps you engaged-especially foreign travel. You are constantly seeing new things, having new experiences and having to exercise your senses BECAUSE IT IS DIFFERENT. That level of stimulation is certainly good to keep your mind occupied and engaged. Besides, it gets one outside his comfort zone-another sure way to stimulate and sharpen the senses.

I have a very good friend and mentor, Guy Miller, who will be 86 years old in January. He travels quite extensively and last year at 85 went out and got his passport because he is planning trips to England, Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica! Way to go Guy! I’m only 67 so I’ve got a lot of new explorations yet to do just to keep up with Guy!

                                 

                                          Guy in Death Valley-Temperature 111.

Now, I would not necessarily recommend the type of adventure travel that Mary Lou and I are going to do for everyone but there are certainly many accompanied tours available for seniors who are less well traveled or a bit less adventurous at heart.

What about the food?

Sampling the local cuisine is part of the adventure. I’ve had some really great dishes and some that were not so good. I’m pretty careful about where I eat, drinking only bottled water, not eating anything raw, and not consuming dairy products when I travel in third world countries. Note: I take some exceptions to those things in Mexico. I do eat certain dairy products and drink the water in the major cities. In all my international travels, I’ve only been sick once and that was from sampling some Jackfruit in India that even most locals wouldn’t touch.

                           Refreshments at a Roadside stop in South India.

What happens if you become ill? What about all those exotic diseases you can get in third world countries?

If you are in reasonable health, travel in foreign countries is not really a problem. Almost all cities, even in third world countries, have pretty good medical facilities in case of an emergency. We are taking shots for hepatitis A & B, Typhoid Fever, and Yellow Fever. The only one required is the Yellow Fever inoculation. In addition, we will carry a small supply of over the counter medications as well as a prescription medication in case of Malaria. It is unlikely that any of it will be needed but it is always best to be prepared.

OK, so now I have answered the most frequently asked questions. No adventure is entirely risk free but with some advanced preparation and a generous dose of common sense, those risks can be lessened and managed. We’ll all see how the big adventure goes. Stay tuned. It begins on 12 January!

Peace and Prosperity,

Ken

My Travel Partner

I am fortunate to have a great travel partner for our upcoming trips to Mexico and to South America. Mary Lou and I have been friends for many years and have shared quite a few adventures together. We have many traits that we share in common. Both of us are retired and have the time (and within reason, the finances) to travel. We both have a great sense of adventure, are flexible enough to accommodate each other’s interests and needs, and above all else, we share a deep natural curiosity about what’s beyond the next hill. In short, we like to go, see, do.

Our differences also help balance us. I tend to be rather impulsive and an incurable adrenaline junkie. Mary Lou, on the other hand, is more careful about risk and much more inclined to research and plan in advance for any trip. This turns out to be a good combination. I dream up adventures and persuade Mary Lou to do it and then she contributes research and planning. It gives her comfort while giving my crazy ideas some structure (as well as a dose of reality).  Pretty Cool!