Costa Ballena - Osa Peninsula April 5-15, 2010

As living part time internationally has always been a part of our retirement plan, the Southern zone of Costa Rica has recently come on our radar through International Living magazine. Our most serious international property searches to date have been in Southern France, Languedoc and Provence, and this is still high on our list. We also spent several weeks in Nicaragua in 2007, but found it without enough culture and things to do, a bit too Third World.

Costa Rica had become much too expensive in last 10 years so I hadn't even thought much about it until recently. The Southern zone had been undeveloped because of mainly of poor roads and infrastructure. The coastal highway has been completed (cutting the drive time from San Jose from 5 to 3 hours)and a new international airport was approved for Palmar; so development is on the rise. A major developer Ventanas del Pacifico www.ventanadelpacific.com
in Ojochal has built almost 100 homes and sold twice as many lots to be built on.

The mountains come right down to the coast and all the lots are into the mountain sides with either ocean and mountain views or both. At elevations of up 2,000 feet the vistas were stunning and homes could be built for $100/sq. ft.

Janice and I spent 3 days at the Ventanas guest house and spent about 2 full days visiting both completed homes and available lots in their 6+ phases.

SUV's are a must as the development roads are unpaved and quite steep.

The lots range in price from $40-150K depending on both size and views. We were primarily interested in full ocean view lots and found 2 that we really liked at $90k and $130K.

They unfortunately were about 12 km. south of Ojochal which required the drive whenever you want to shop or go to restaurants. Ojochal and the Uvita area was quite unique and each day the area grew on us. The expats have blended nicely into the "Tica" culture and lifestyle and the number of outstanding international gourmet restaurants was amazing. We are still considering buying a lot, but would want to make another trip. The weather was extremely humid and hot and if this was the norm we're not sure this is for us.

What a Start!

Jan and I flew to Tampa on Saturday 21 November and stayed with our friends Bill and Janet in Clearwater for a couple days. Picked up the rig on Monday and were blown away at the practically new condition of the 2005 King Ranch truck and 2006 Host camper. The truck had 5,000 miles and not a nick or blemish inside or out. The leather seats in a King Ranch are really special and the smell of new leather permeated the truck. The owner gave us a quick run through and we took off heading North to spend Thanksgiving with our family in Philadelphia.

Of course a couple hours up the road we stopped at a Wal-Mart to stock up on plates, silverware, sheets, pillows and all the other necessities. Our intention was to camp out 2 nights on the way up. As the rain began and darkness set in about 5:30, we were into southern Georgia when the truck lights started dimming and engine dying. Couldn't have been a worse spot to break down on I95 as there was significant construction and the shoulder was almost non-existent. After a couple of hours with countless tractor trailers whizzing by, a tow truck showed up. Turns out they needed a larger tow truck to haul our rig. That took another hour or so and then they needed to disconnect the differential to safely tow with out the engine running!! That old Southern boy was great! Had it disconnected and hooked up in about 45 minutes. Fortunately there was a Ford dealership at the exit we just passed a few miles back so we had to go up 7-8 miles to next exit and come back.

Jan and I were stuffed into the front seat with Billy Joe and he was a character and made the experience tolerable. We dropped the rig off at the dealership (it was about 10:30 by now) and checked into a motel near by. The whole ordeal took about 4 1/2 hours and boy did that bed feel great. It was a new motel and I think cost about $49.95 which was a deal. Probably cheaper than a camp site.

First thing in the morning I spoke to the service manager and he got the truck right in. Long story, short, the alternator went bad. You're probably thinking how could a truck with only 5,000 miles have the alternator go bad......... Well not using a vehicle is not always good and having it sit around, rather than using it, can believe or not, cause premature "death". This unexpected delay was even further costly as just across the street was a large Outlet Store shopping center which brought smiles to Janice!! Living on an island causes a form of shopping depravity the women have trouble dealing with. Now she was able to get her "fix".

While she was shopping I wandered into the dealership showroom and in no time was in the business manager's office buying an extended warrantly for the truck. It covered just about everything for 48 months/48,000 miles and cost about $2,200. Figured this would get us through our Celebration Retirement Tour beginning next year. We were back on the road by about 2:30 and had hoped to get to Northern Va. in 6-7 hours.

Smooth sailing for about 3 hours when traffic came to a stand still somewhere in North Carolina. We inched along for about 2 hours and finally came to the next exit where it seemed everyone was getting off. It was about 8:30 and we discovered that an overpass bridge had collapsed on 95. Quickly got a room for overnight.

On the road by 9:30 and proceeded smoothly until about 15 miles south of D.C. when I smelled something burning! Of course your defence system kicks in along with a bit of adrenaline. Yes it's got to be someone in front that causing the oder(we were now in bumper to bumper traffic as it the day before Thansgiving!) and within minutes I see the smoke coming from our left front wheel well!! Again the emergency lane was about 9 feet wide and I need about 8 feet. I was cruising fearlessly for about a mile when I finally exited looking for a place to pull over. The Lord was surely with us as within a 1/2 mile there was a great turnoff with plenty of room to park. Sure enough somthing in the wheel/brake system was smoking!! In the interim time since our last break down we learned that our AAA membership didn't cover our truck camper rig setup so we signed up along the road with the Good Sam Club which had roadside RV service. Our new Ford extended warranty also had roadside coverage. We were having trouble getting a tow service; Jan and I were working both our cell phones which were BOTH running out of power and we couldn't find our chargers. Before we knew it two tow trucks showed up almost at the same time. The first one hooked us up and towed to a closeby large Ford dealership. Again we were treated so great and they immediately got us in, within an hour diagnosed the brake calipher had frozen and burned lines out with some computer sensors and who knows what else. They couldn't fix for 2 days because of holiday. Again the Lord blessed us; there was an Enterprise Car rental in the dealership. We got a nice Ford SUV and headed out to Philly at about 5:30. Guess what--our warranty covered everything including the car rental.

I won't bore you with the trip to Philly since compared to everything else it was a cake walk. Had to drive back to pick up the rig on Monday and drive up to New England. It was fun taking it over on the ferry over to the Vineyard and finally getting it home.

Probably the only humorous thing about this debacle was we so so excited to use the camper overnight and we ended having to spend both nights in motels!!

If anyone can beat this "tale of woe", please let me know.

John Steinbach's Rocinante in "Travels with Charlie". Probably one of the very first truck campers ever!

Eureka!!

Well we finally did it. For the last 4-5 months have been following a wonderful used 2005 King Ranch F-350 Ford truck with a 2006 Host 11 1/2' dual slide Yellowstone camper offered originally on Ebay. The owner pulled it off Ebay and I talked to them back in June. Called back several weeks ago and it was still available; the owner hadn't been real agressive in selling it.

We had originally thought we'd buy a Class A RV of about 35', but after seeing the roominess and amenities of truck campers with slide out sides, we were sold. You get to a camping site and remove the campers and now have the convenience of using the truck without the encumbrance of the camper. Exactly what we wanted and the 2005 truck only had 5500 miles on it !!! Our good friend in Clearwater drove over last week to inspect it with his son. Their report was glowing. Long story short, I called and negotiated a good and fair price.

Jan and I will fly down to Tampa Thanksgiving week and drive it back to the Vineyard. Actually we'll stop over in Philadelphia to have T-Day with our 90 and 92 year old Moms, and my sister Janet and brother-in-law Tom. This is a huge step toward our dream.......much sooner than I thought just 2 weeks ago.



Here's some pictures.

Planning Stages

Janice and I are, 57 and 63 years young, living on Martha's Vineyard and planning the next stage of our lives together. This is just the first step by starting this blog so we can document our travels and stay in touch with our kids, Johanna and Donald, other family and friends. We've traveled extensively around the world and realized there is so much to the USA, the greatest country on the Earth, that we hadn't seen. The Grand Canyon, Old Faithful, Napa Valley and San Francisco, Alaska and so many fabulous National Parks. Not to mention South of the Border.

Our plan is to take off sometime around September 2011 for the JW Retirement Celebration Tour in a large and well-outfitted, self-sustainable truck camper to travel North America, Mexico and hopefully Central America. How long? I'm saying 6-12 months. Janice is not saying much to this question at this point. Hoping to buy our rig in the next 6 months to gain experience in RVing and boondocking.

We'll probably post occasionally to relate our progress and even our lives on this special island.