We are back in Costa Rica to contiune this beautiful road trip North, destination Canada! Direct flight, 12hr, 2 zanex, 5 movies, 10mins sleep. Arrive in San Jose and nice to feel familiar with it, as much as its not our favourite place by far, we have a mission to complete. A mission to get franky back on the road that has taken the best part of 3 months to prep. This time we knew what we were in for.

New hostel in a nice part of town, free breakfast starts the first day and a reunion with our Tico friend and Costa Rica Fixer, Esteban. He also knows the deal and we were all ready for the paper pushing nonsense to get our keys back. Straight to our customs guy, Terrance to start the process. He gave a reluctant smile as we walked in but it turned genuine when I pulled out the folder with an Original Title in my name and photocopies of everything even vaguely related, he sends us on our way with confidence this could be done in a day. Next stop the storage warehouse, they hate us and us them.

Overcharged previously and a pain in the arse to deal with. We need 1 document signed as proof the van was in storage. An hour later with the 3 of us standing to attention at the bosses desk in a 6x6ft sauna of an office we win the first battle. Again to the government insurance company, quick half hour turn around gets the van insurance and we're away. Back to Terrance at customs. We're flying, its 1pm, we hand over our docs to get the TIP (basically a vehicle visa), Terrance comes out shaking his head and we all know its bad news. The insurance has the wrong rego! Noone saw it coming, all look at each other, 'almost! Here we go again!!'

Back in the car, suitably knows as the hulk, we fly across town. Esteban is back in 'bad boys' mode, we are up against it now. Insurance office see us coming, shake their heads. Not a simple fix for no good reason, we leave it with them and go grab lunch. Subway try to refuse making a sandwich sin carné, classic. Back to the insurance, zero progress so Esteban gets his business face on and an hour later we are back across town. So much traffic the hulk jumped the central reservation, pulled a U-y and good as power slid into the customs office half hour before close to find everyone at coffee break! Terrance got us arcoss the line asap but now it was 3.45pm.

We walk into the storage warehouse at 4.15pm like we mean it. The guy at the desk good as laughs at us, gives a flat emotionless no then slaps down a bill twice as much as we owe. Jelly and Estaban argue the case as distraction so i can sneak a look at Franky, he's there, guarded by a huge dog but he's there and he wants out.

We all gave a massive sigh, it had been a long day. 'Almost!', and head for a cold beer.

JB