Return to Curubandé

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I set off from Jaco with a simple plan and executed it to near perfection. I wanted to camp again at El Sol Verde because of the great facilities and the friendly village where it's located. I had also planned to kill some time in Liberia on the internet but the place I knew was closed and I couldn't find another.

I picked up a local girl at the beginning of the 10 kilometer dirt and gravel road that leads to Curubandé because I knew that bus service was infrequent and that she was probably counting on somebody giving her a ride. We conversed as best we could but I have an especially hard time understanding Spanish when I can't hear it over the din of my poor car's suspension screaming for mercy. She was a 22 year-old security guard working at the international airport in Liberia. This, I gathered, was not the lucrative gubment union gig that the folks working for the TSA have because she worked long hours for dreadfully low pay. I suppose that the working conditions might be better if she does not have to probe the nether regions to search for explosives but I did not ask about that because I didn't know enough words. I should have paid better attention when Yo was explaining things.

I had to share the campsite this time around. A couple from Belgium was there in a Range Rover that they shipped from Europe to Halifax (that's a city in Nova Scotia which is in Canada for those of you who are geographically challenged). They had thus far been on an extensive tour of North America and were on their way to Panama where they planned to ship their rig to South America. We exchanged tips on good camping spots and few war stories about driving challenges. We agreed that the fiasco of crossing borders in Central America was the only really unpleasant business that we had to endure.

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