Adventures in Costa Rica

[DadaDragonheart]

I figure if I don't start writing this stuff down I'm eventually going to forget a lot of the details so I'm going to [attempt] to journal my adventures here and I invite you all to join in the journey.

Since these are my journals here are a few ground rules:

1. I'm not doing this for you, or views, to become an influencer, or to benefit my image. I expect this to be super honest and a little raw. That being said, I am 2 sentences in, so we'll see
2. I reserve the right to ************** curse, but I'll keep in under control <--- hahaha censorship will keep you safe!
3. I reserve the right to my opinion. See something you don't like? Read elsewhere or keep it to yourself. It's the internet FFS, no shortage of material
4. I will try my best to keep the adventures separate from the build. For the build, refer to this thread: [reserved URL]
5. Emojis will likely be plentiful ?

Well I have like 4 months of back-logging to write through, so I'll start at the top and hope to catch up to present day as time permits.
Table of Contents

• Post 1: Logistics - Why & how Costa Rica?
• Post 2: Car shopping... & it died within 1hr of purchase ?
• Post 3: Let the journey begin!
• Post 4: ....?
• Post 5: ....?

How we got here:
It's been loosely in the works for years, but my wife & I wanted to escape the toxic US culture. The chance to live in a place that focuses on its people and the environment while distancing ourselves from the rampant commercialism and selfishness was the baseline for our recipe to a new life. For a dozen reasons, all signs pointed us to Costa Rica. What the hell, let's recap!

1. Focus on the environment - 99% renewable power, 30+% of the country is national preserves & parks, tourism (particularly eco- & surf-) are the big money makers down here. C'mon, who doesn't love sea turtles?! (answer: **************** who can't stop using single-use plastic )
2. Focus on the people - Nationalized healthcare for all citizens, immigrants can move here & start a business but can't take jobs from the locals
3. Fix-it culture - Ain't no Amazon.com down here. If your ******** breaks then you fix it or find someone that can.
4. Ease/Cost of immigration - Some countries will let you become citizens if you donate like $1.2million while others require large investments, like a property purchase of $400-800k. Costa Rica is cheap as hell by comparison.
5. Foreign language - The linguistic experiences is as much for me as it is for my kid. Gotta expand thosehorizons!
6. Beaches & tropics - I spent a few yrs in Hawaii as a kid and I have never been able to shake the draw to the tropics and the beach! Not to mention the surf here is great.
7. All of the above also kind of leans into a more chill mindset. "Tico time" (locals are called Ticos) is like... yeah, whenever. No rush.

Ok, decision made, oh ********, now what?! (Can you tell I like lists yet?)

1. Figure out what/how to pack (aka priorities)
2. Renew passports
3. Line up places to stay
4. Buy a car
5. Buy a surfboard
6. Live that life!

We'd been to CR before, but we need more time under our belt before we settle on a long-term place of residence. Fire up AirBnB and find those dream spots. Queue wifey! But if we're going to be home-hopping for 3-12 months everything we kept had to be a) self-transportable in an airport and b) all fit inside of a single car. Ultimately, we needed to figure out how to downsize from a 3BR house to a car. Think of it like a forced journey of minimalism.
Queue early 2021... We had a couple of yard-sales, found safe homes for the bearded dragons & leopard tortoise, rented our house out, and then.....spent 5 months at relatives houses while we waited for passport renewals ? Seriously, ******. It said 8-12 weeks and ended up being about 24weeks. While it sucked, it was excellent practice and affirmation that slowing down your pace of life is a game changer for your mental health. Still, bouncing between your parents and your in-law's for 5 months is pretty rough.

6+ hours on hold with the US Passport agency... then 3 more weeks, then... Passports!!

Up next: buying a car! P.s. it was hard as hell and still bit us in ass.

 

[DadaDragonheart]

Disclosure, I'm jacking a lot of this content from a post on overlandbound but I don't think it's quite the right forum for me. But it's all my words.

The requirements: As described above, we had to be able to fit everything we brought in/on our our rig, so it had to be large. Coming from a Prius 2, this was a big change. We didn't want some shiny rig that we would be all butt-hurt about every time it got scratched and didn't want to parade around like rich d-bags in a g-wagon (even if we could afford it, which we can't). Last time we were in Costa Rica we got stuck in deep, thick mud in a rented Outlander and had to rely on the kindness of strangers & we knew that we needed something substantially more capable if we were going to make this our home. E.g., no Rav4's or Sante Fe's.

The market: The car market in CR is very expensive. To give you a sense of the market here are a few rigs we looked at:

• '88 XJ Cherokee - 300km, 4" lift + overlanding accessories: $6000
• '92 XJ Cherokee - 200km, 4" lift + winch (jury-rigged suspension) $6500
• '98 4 Runner - 200km, bone stock 6cyl $8500
• '85 LC80 - 300km, lifted, $11,000
• '88 XJ Cherokee - 150km, gorgeous inside & out $12,000
• '02 Prado J120 - 250km, stock, $16,000
• '06 Hilux - 220km, stock $16,000
• '12 VW Amarok - 280km, stock, $18,000

The other option is to import a vehicle. However, if you want to import something to CR, there are high import taxes (for now) that increase with the age of the vehicle. For example, importing a '00 LX 470 would cost around $8000. While it seems like a good deal on the surface, many aspects to this vehicle that are not locally supported such as the v8 gas engine (the LC100s down here are turbo diesels) and the Lexus specific air suspension.
The final note I'll add to this category are tax implications. It became advantageous to spend less than $10k USD on a vehicle, which is tough down here.
After months of research and planning, I had my sights set on a full-sized Montero. Not only are they spacious with a robust heritage, they are extremely plentiful down here which makes parts cheaper and easier to find. Can you believe my wife shot down the Kia Bongo?! I think it woulda been sweet, but I digress.

Where we landed: So ultimately, this is she. La Joya de la Montañas (the jewel of the mountains), 3.8 v6 limited, 70k mi and runs quiet AF. I couldn't find any gen2s with rear lockers or low miles and gen3 diesels were all over $12k+. It was between this and another 03 Montero but this one had less miles, ran quieter, and seemed like a down-to-earth purchase from a local guy instead of a pristinely detailed rig with a louder engine that was surely hiding its flaws.

The troubles: Welp! The troubles begin within an hour of purchase. We went to a nearby mall to pick up a carseat and as we were exiting the parking garage the rig continually stalled. I messaged the guy we bought it from and when he arrived 30mins later the problem was not showing itself. He sat shotgun as we went to his local mechanic and they could find nothing wrong, no codes or anything. While I'm grateful the stalling issue has not presented itself since, I'm not convinced the issue is resolved and we had little choice but to soldier on. Practically every day since we've uncovered issue after issue. I thought I had chosen a better vehicle, I thought I had sussed it out better, but I guess this is what you get when buying a 'budget' rig with limited mechanical experience. It's becoming more obvious this rig had some damage to the front and underbody and who knows what else. So here's what we've identified so far:

1. Flashing Center Diff Light - Codes 34 & 35
   1. Took apart the actuator and it was rusty & muddy as hell. the metal ring was broken, sitting inside the sleeve. Cleaned it all up as best I could and now we're just showing codes 34, solenoid issues. Youtube has been extremely helpful on this front so I need to pick up a multimeter and check to see if any of the solenoids are dead
2. Gas leak
   1. We are leaking fuel and it smells strongly of gas. Turns out the problem is worse when it's hot or when we're parked facing up a hill. Queue this post (and thanks!) Gen 3 leaking fuel
   2. There are some clean spots where it seems there were maybe brackets supporting the gas tank. Turns out it was missing the plastic gas tank cover.
3. No heat through vents
   1. Heat's not a big deal in costa rica, but the windscreen gets all effed after running AC, so it's still important!
4. CV boots are ripped up
5. Dome light works intermittently
6. tires (& spare) are near end of life. This seems like a prime opportunity to go for wheel and suspension upgrades but I'm struggling to find out where to get these items in CR. It turns out we had 3 different sizes of tires on!?! ******.
7. Battery carriage bolts are long enough they are effing up the hood insulation
8. air box - has a few snapped clips. probably worth replacing with a junk yard unit when we go for a snorkel
9. Minor stuff - broken air vents in the dash, cracked radio bezel, cracked side view mirror, rear seat folding latch keeps popping off, scratched up drivetrain.

 

[DadaDragonheart]

reserved #2 - early journey and lots of trips to mechanics. In CR the mechanics are not that interested in taking your money.... "no everything looks good!". "Uh what about this torn CV boot?"

 

[DadaDragonheart]

reserved #3 - OK, here's where the fun begins... but also troubles continue.... more stories to come
...

 

[DadaDragonheart]

reserved #4

 

[DadaDragonheart]

reserved #5