You see Colombian police everywhere on the side of the road. Every couple of long driving days we end up being pulled over. Normally they ask us where we’re going and where we are from. Sometimes they ask us for documents, but many times they just ask how we’re doing, shake our hands, and let us continue along our way. I guess we look like nice Canadian kids.

What is the best part about touristy towns/cities? The food and drink! 

We rolled into Sogamoso looking for a little rest and relaxation after our time hiking in El Cocuy.  We camped at Finca San Pedro and it was exactly what we were looking for. 

The town of El Cocuy is where we prepped for our visit to El Cocuy National Park.  There is more to this town than first meets the eye.  When we first showed up, our main focus was checking in at the hotel, getting secure parking sorted out, and walking for more than 5 minutes without being out of breath.  We were essentially arriving from being at sea level (we were at the coast two days earlier), and El Cocuy is situated at 9,000 feet, which became painfully obvious when everything we did resulted in being out of breath.

From the Colombian coast our plan was to head south, and then east to El Cocuy National Park.  We needed to get some kilometres under our belts for no other reason but hitting the open road.  We had felt trapped by the shipping process and we were finally free in South America.  Little did we know that these first few days were a preview of the long driving days to come in Colombia.

From the mountainous coffee region of La Tagua we headed north to the coastal town of Taganga.  The small tourist town lies in a beautiful bay full of fishing boats and people of all ages looking to take a dip in the cool waters to attempt to lower their body temperature due to the intense heat.

Panama City, where a 5 km drive takes two hours.  The stop and go traffic in 34C temperatures wasn’t really easy on us or on the truck. This time it showed the truck’s weak link when we finally made it out of traffic, hit a hill, and I heard the engine revs climb as the clutch slipped like mad in second gear.

Eventually it was time to free our truck from the shipping container.  Once again, the process was relatively straightforward.  All we had to do was follow the to-do list provided by our shipping agent Tea.  Unfortunately, there are always things that don’t go as planned…

Our introduction to Panama City began with the wrong GPS point entered for our hostel. This was after a six-hour driving day. By the time we arrived at the El Machico Hostel we had driven around the general area about a dozen times attempting to navigate the one-way streets of the Marbella neighborhood of Panama City.

On the first leg of our trip we had 20,000km of trouble-free driving, but after we picked the truck up from storage in Costa Rica we realized that some of the rubber components needed to be replaced.

Hiking is one of Boquete’s main attractions, with many tours and guides providing mountain and jungle excursions for visitors.  Normally we avoid paying for a guide if it isn’t required, but the Lonely Planet guide for this area was a bit lacking when it came to information on solo trekking.

We arrived at Jungla for our volunteering gig and the owner, Dorothy, immediately handed us Tyra, a two month old baby howler monkey, and a bottle.  All right, it looks like we’re feeding a howler monkey today!

As the truck was now in order and our hotel room was becoming much too comfortable, we set off for the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica.  Who could resist the tropical beaches, warm breezes, and fresh seafood?

Just as Ashley was mentioning how well our flights from Vancouver to Houston to Costa Rica were going, our connecting flight from Houston to Costa Rica was cancelled.  I guess Volcan Turrialba had other plans for us when it erupted and cancelled 13 flights due to the ash it spewed onto the San Jose airport runway.

It took us about two days or so to do a full clean out of Little Red, including washing all of our dishes and utensils, vacuuming out the cab and the tent, packing up the stuff that would stay, and organizing the stuff we would take with us on the plane back to Vancouver.

The Nicoya Peninsula.  Possibly one of the greatest drives of the trip.  Fast dirt roads give way to water crossings and then turn into slow technical trails.  Then you repeat.  The scenery alternates between lush, bright green fields filled with cows and stunning beaches with turquoise waters and crashing waves.

We get it Northern Costa Rica, you’re beautiful. You have lush green rainforest, white sand beaches, bright blue oceans, and deep red sunsets.

YES!  FINALLY!! We ran into the notorious “crooked cops” we had heard so much about throughout our travels in Mexico and Central America!  Before and during our travels we had been warned about Mexico and Honduras in particular, but to this point (6+ months on the road) had sailed through without any problems.

“When we get to Leon we should go volcano boarding in Cerro Negro!” Ash said to me.

As usual, I was only half-listening, but responded with the standard, “Sounds good…”, not really understanding what I was agreeing to.

After leaving Somoto we made our way to the town of Esteli in search of information about a possible Nicaraguan homestay.  We stopped in at Hostel Luna’s affiliate tour company, Treehuggers Tourism Office, which provided us with a list of families residing in Reserva Natural Miraflor.