www.walkabout2408.com - The adventure so far...

[walkabout2408]

RouteAroundSantaBarbaraNP-Honduras.JPG
Todays exploratory drive around the Santa Barbara National park, with Ramon and Bobby from D&D Brewery. 70Km and 7 hours, plus a very nice lunch in Santa Barbara town. Couldn't have completed the last section back to the road without Bobby's excellent Spanish. As road works blocked our intended route and we had to blox round through smaller back roads between villages. The route was 80% off road on dirt tracks, with stunning views of the cloud forest and surrounding valley. During which we climbing two 1300m passes and sampled some very fresh coffee. Straight of the mountain.

[walkabout2408]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_NPLjCMDOU
Here is a link to a little video of me crossing a river on the way between surf spots in Nicaragua. It then got a lot worse as the road disappeared into Jungle tracks. But eventually I made it through. Next day I woke up to the view along the beach. Plus the following nights sunset.
PB140047.jpgSmallDSCF8890.jpg

[REDrum]

Nice bumping into you at the CR boarder today. Hope you made it thru as smooth as we did: 2:07 hours!!!! Forgot to give you our CR phone number and some camping tips down in Mal Pais. PM me if you need anything.

Cheers,
Niall

[walkabout2408]

Great to see you too. I took at little longer 2.5 hours. There was a lot of running back and worth. But eventually got there.

I'm currently in Tamarindo kayak surfing. Will be moving onto another surf spot south tomorrow. I don't have a CR mobile number.

Any camping/travel tips are always welcome.

Cheers, David

[walkabout2408]

Just to let you know I have been putting the flat days (no surf) to good use and have been catching up with added photo's to my website.
Scroll down the left hand menu to see all the latest galleries at the bottom.
Enjoy, David

http://www.walkabout2408.com/America...PhotoPage.html

[walkabout2408]

Hi there,

Ok well my plans for firming up for shipping from Colon, Panama to Cartagena, Columbia. I am aiming for the Sunday 13th January 2013 sailing. That means I will do paperwork in Panama city Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th. Load the container on Wednesday 9th. I then plan to catch the sail boat departing Portabelo on Thursday 10th to Columbia.

If there is anyone out there car/van/bikes who want to share a 40" container please let me know ASAP.

Regards David

[walkabout2408]

Here are links to a coupe of videos of my latest adventures in Costa Rica.

Deep river crossing, whilst taking a back route through the Nicola Peninsular
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29dg3fPKTws

After enjoying the morning zip lining through the tree, I decided to sign up for the Bungee Jump as well! Why not.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJkNucuvGfs&feature=plcp

Happy travels, David

[walkabout2408]

2012 an Epic year

When I look back, I can't believe all the places I have been and the things I have seen over this past year. I have stood on the Arctic Ocean, paddled 480 miles down the Teslin and Yukon Rivers, hiked in the Grand Cayon, surfed pacific waves, dived subterranean caves and stood on actives Volcano's. I have been in snowy mountains at -8C and camped in Deserts at +40C.
I have seen wild bears, wolves, moose, whales, dolphins and countless other creatures. Half of which I had only seen on TV before. I have taken thousands of photo's and still I want to see more...

All this time I have been accompanied by my trusty Land Rover, Goliath. Which has been both transport and home for the past 34,000+ miles of overland travel. Through snow and ice and over mountains and deserts. All this time not breaking down once to the point where it would not move. Granted it has needed plenty of maintenance and had things break and wear out. But never to the point where it could not be fixed and soldier on. I have been recently reading one of Helen McCarthers books. When she talks about knowing every sounds and movement of here boat. I can empathise with her. I know ever inch of my Land Rover, every suspension squeak, every engine grumble and every lumbering sway. We have come through a few scrapes and near misses. Spinning through 180 degrees and leaving a narrow mountain road backwards, due to diesel leaking under the rear wheels, was one of the more scary incidents. Lucky for Goliath and me we came to rest 2 meters before the giant red wood tree! This is all in addition to carrying me safely across length and breadth of Asia last year. It looks after me and I look after it.

During the countless hours of driving my mind has wandered to say the least. From thinking of people I used to go to school with and wondering where they have got to in the world. To thinking of past decisions I have made on my way through life and considered how different the present would be had I made other choices. Not to say I regret any of the choices I have made, but to understand how vastly different life to date could have been. The overall out come is a clarity of thought and an inner peace to know I'm making the best of life and doing and experiencing things I enjoy. I am happy! And there is still so much more to see and do... so on the adventure goes.

Some people travel to find themselves. For some reason I have always been blessed with knowing who I am. I have undertaken many adventures which have pushed body and mind hard to confirm my character, and thankfully to dated have not been disappointed. This builds confidence in ones abilities to take on challenges, over come problems and put things into perspective, where others would be daunted. I think this helps to enjoy the simple things in life. A comfy bed, a warm meal and good company. Its not to say there is not room for improvement and I believe I grow as a person the more I travel. Hopefully a better person. I have certainly become more understanding, considerate and calm over the years. When compared to my hot headed youth and some times polarised views. That is probably one of the greatest joys I find in travel and that is to understand people, places and the world at large better. You might not like you see some days. But from even the negative experiences you can draw knowledge and be better prepared. As a good friends says “we do not travel places to see things, but to see things differently”

I have certainly been marvelling at what our small blue and green planted has to offer. I have never failed to be surprised by both its complexities and its similarities.

People often ask how do I afford this travelling life style. Do I work along the way? Unfortunately there is no secret recipe. The answer is no, I just work bloody hard in between trips.

It has been quite some walkabout so far at 59,000 mile over 20 months!
So I look forward to watch adventures 2013 holds.

4 news video's on you tube to check out
https://www.youtube.com/user/davidpriddis?feature=mhee

Plus I have building a photo gallery of the best trip photo's on Flickr. Check it out at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidpriddis/

And of course there is the website www.walkabout2408.com

PS: Have now found someone to ship with from Panama, so all good there.

[walkabout2408]

OK today proved a good test of patience.

Things went wrong right off the bat. The planned rendezvous with the shipping agent at 08:45 didn't happen. But my fellow container buddy Gabriel and family where thankfully there. So by 09:30 we decided to find our own way to the DIJ office for inspection. After a lot of wrong turns, u-turns and zig zagging because of road works we finally arrived at the correct office for inspection. Now an hour late! We manned to convince them to still inspect us. Which after photo copies of all the major documents where handed over, took all of 2 minutes. We were then told to collect the permit from the office on the other side of the road at 14:00. So we returned to the hostel, had some lunch and then drove back out to the office. Road works put pay to being able to pull up out side. So we went on a tour around half the city to get off the free way, back to street level and find a back route to the office. There we parked and entered the building. First having to obtain visitor badges, then have our passport checked and finally we were allowed to proceed to the office we needed. There we handed over another set of photo copies of all major documents, then filled in more forms. This pile of documents was then set down in front of a computer and the details entered. Then handed over to a back office clerk who went off to do something else with them. On returning the documents, we filled out another form and signed it. This all resulted is us finally being given our vehicle export permits. The process in the office had taken 1 hour and 36 pieces of paper which resulted in 2 pieces of A4, printed on 1 side! At least we didn't have to pay anything for it.

So tomorrow we drive to Colon port to do yet more paper work then load the cars into a container. Hopefully this goes a lot smoother.

David

[walkabout2408]

Loading in Port Colon went fine. Another hour of waiting around in a customs office to get our paper work and passports stamped. Plus 5 sets of photo copies of all the vehicle doc's and passport.

Catching the sail boat to Columbia and the conditions on the boat are another story I'll update you all on later.

In Cartagena it took 3 full days of running around between various offices with all the paper work and around 400USD each (800USD for 40" container x 2 cars) to clear customs and port authorities. I'm working on writing up the full detailed process for shipping the container and all costs. Will post it in the planning section of the forum.

Now happily back out on the road and heading SW through Columbia. Currently in Bogota and moving on tomorrow.

David