SEPTEMBER 21
Finally made it across the Nogales border into Mexico! You can't imagine all of the ridiculous hoops you have to jump through as a transmigrante with medical equipment. We are now in Hermacillo Mexico with another broken down van problem. Very nice here. Much much nicer than Nogales.
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SEPTEMBER 23
Survived another day traveling through Mexico as a gringo. Got as far as Los Mochis today
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SEPTEMBER 30
Finally through Mexico!!! Mexico is not dangerous for rampant drug cartels or dead of the night traffic stops by thieves. These things do happen but they are mostly isolated on the border with the States. Mexico is dangerous because of its bureaucracy, expensive toll roads, ridiculous over abundance of speed bumbs, and pot holes.
Is it safe to drive at night? Pretty much, yes. The biggest danger are the livestock that wanders all over the highways at night, or backing your trailer off a cliff ( I did that two nights ago, very memorable).
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OCTOBER 8
We made it at last to Costa Rica and boy do I have some amazing adventures to tell!!!! This morning I am at a hotel in Liberia waiting for my companions to put it in high gear so we can go find our families. To be so close yet so far. Lastnight Dannan and I only knew the city the girls were staying in. No directions. W...e drove the streets of the small town until 1am hoping against hope to find the girls. No luck.
The worts of all the Central American countries to drive through? Honduras hands down. I don't ever want to go back there. Extremely corrupt. For the 100 miles you drive to pass through the country you get charged close to $300 by customs. Then there super crooked police force has at least 10 check points set up along ...the way to pull over all tourist cars for imagined minor traffic violations. That is one corrupt little place that will be struck down by fire
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OCTOBER 10
We will be moving into a beautiful luxury cabin tomorrow. Total miracle!
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OCTOBER 18
Today was crap day. Lastnight the twins had diahrrea and threw up 4 times. This morning the ranch horse ate our laundry ditergent and crapped next to the washing machine. Then Leah and James both took off their diapers and pooed in the loft. It was a huge pile. After being sleep deprived for 4 nights it was more than I... could handle. Rachael kicked me out of the house. Now my stomach is cramping.
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OCTOBER 24
3rd Sunday in Costa Rica. Things are going much smoother. Dannan and I are in process of setting up the dental lab and the women and children settling into a daily pattern with some sort of sanity. If I thought we drew attention in the States with 7 little children imagine it in a foreign country amid a sea of short brown people who at most have only two children.
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OCTOBER 28
Just as we are finishing the lab lastnight I drilled an anchor hole in the floor that went through the exact center of a strangely placed pvc water line. An inch either way and I would have missed it and never known. As our luck would have it we had a 10 foot fountain of water dumping gallons of water into our nearly complete workspace.
As Dannan ran to search for the shut off valve for the water out in the street I placed a finger over the spouting hole. Bad, bad idea. I watched the surrounding tile begin to crack, seep and bubble upward like a massive zit ready to explod...e. It just so happens that we had parked our car right over our shut off valve and we couldn't find the keys!!! What seemed a wet eternity later, but was only a few seconds, we found the keys, moved the car and shut off the water. Out of money, so close to done, and we now had a water line to repair and 20 gallons of water to clean out of the office not to mention a heroic effort to save the lab equipment on the floor of the office in soggy cardboard boxes. I thought I knew how to operate in crisis mode, but I was wrong.
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