Chris writes:
The Barcelo San Jose Hotel was an excellent hotel for our last night in Costa Rica and the breakfast room was the best yet this week and entirely different from the first night in ‘Eco Lodge’
We managed an upgrade to a superior suite and Mike in true dictator fashion took the triple sized bedroom with lounge, two bathrooms and kitchen .
Mike and Chris, through a connecting door, shared a small twin room with a bathroom the size of a telephone box. Having seen his advantage over us lesser mortals Mike was extremely gracious and granted his permission for us to use his facilities to supplement ours
His time spent understanding the political environment of Latin America and the every day practices of true political dictators came into being as he locked the connecting door and refused to open it until daylight!
Our views of Costa Rica:
We have seen both the Pacific and the Caribbean coasts, rain forest area (with rain) and Volcano areas (with clouds) . Roads are far better than when Chris was here before and many are better than U.K. B roads given the governmental budget cuts. Driving standards are fair and they just get on with it and expect you to drive like a F1 driver, “you stay on your line and I will get past on either side of you when I am ready, even if you are not”
Roads are busy though and a lack of an effective rail network or navigable river network means everything moves via road transport.
Foods are basic in most areas and limited, local beers and wines, which we didn’t sample too much of, were acceptable. The overweight people were friendly and service was reasonable.
However, the economy being basically a $ based economy converted to Colones is proving expensive in £ terms. But still worth a visit but you must stay on the move to see it all.
So over 1500 kms completed through our first warm up country. The Mitsubishi served us well even tough it was totally underpowered especially with 300 Kilos of British ‘meat’ and luggage on board.
If you have read our updates you will see we need to fly to Guatemala and we have just come through one of the most efficient airports (San Jose – Juan Santamaria)
Our quick flight north to Guatemala [yes we know we should be heading south to South America] gave us the opportunity to see the tops of our first Volcanos of Guatemala prior to landing at another International airport that makes some UK airports look like 3rd world.
Here we are met by Frankie Carlow [see the team detail page] where he has committed to lend us his trusty 2004 Range River that is a bit quirky including having a Big Ben style chime on the hour emit from we don’t know where.
Frankie took us to his Guatemala Country Club for lunch just to spoil us.
At the wheel of the Range Rover Chris and the team guided by Frankie experienced their first Guatemala traffic – and it is certainly colourful!
Then on to his fantastic house in Antigua Guatemala, a beautiful property nesting on the outskirts of Antigua in the shadows on Volcano Fuego which erupted recently.
Here Tutti his wife also joined us for a tour of the incredible ancient city, more of this when we return here on Sunday.
This sets us up perfectly for our Guatemala adventure where again we will travel to the Caribbean Coast after driving to Lake Atitlan and then master our first Boarder Crossing into El Salvador.
Our America’s Challenge Drive 