My wife Maddalena and I enjoy trips that give us a different experience, the feeling of a completely different sensation, culture and/or environment. For these dispatches we are excited to share both of our photographic perspectives.
For this trip we decided to head back to Pavones and its people. We fell in love with Pavones, Santa Clara and Punta Banco after having seen, stopped and camped at every possible beach from the border of Nicaragua all the way down to Panama on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica during two trips at the end of the 90’s. Back then we rented 1980’s Range Rovers, so when I found this 1977 Land Rover Series 3 things fell into place.
The truck had undergone a pretty intense off the frame restoration until the beginning of this year and somehow the owner trusted me to take his baby out on a good challenge. I was personally ecstatic, since this kind of Land Rover was and still is my dream truck and to me is fully associated with adventure.
“Mind the little play in the non power steering and the 4th gear has a tendency of jumping out, just drive with the hand on the shift stick. I spend my whole life being passed by other cars and trucks! When you love the car you just accept it’s habits,” he said and gave me the keys.
The beauty of the coastal road is the access to beaches just off the side of the road. Playa Hermosa just north of Uvita let us connect with the Pacific and get back in the mood. The water is just of this perfect temperature…
Though the coastal road through the Palm plantations is paved by now, it used to be wash board and potholes for more then 40 km, the Pan American Highway still looks like a semi abandoned country road south of Palma Norte. Development has not really gotten serious down here and it feels like the rainforest comes right up to the road.
Being passed by 18 wheeler tanker trucks, due to the 60km/h maximum speed produced by our 62 hp Diesel can be humbling and exciting, but yes, I love this truck already. While stocking up on some last supplies in Rio Claro dusk set in and we knew the adventure is about to get more serious.
“Do not drive the road from Golfito to Pavones after dark…”, well, we are in for it now and sure enough the end of the rainy season decided to display once again its intimidating strength of short bursts of torrential rainfall. The first 20km of rough dirt road took its toll on the electrical system… sure enough out of everything that could fail, the headlight switch burned out… leaving us with parking lights for the last 20km of potholes, rain, fogged up windows and solid darkness. We got more then we were asking for…
photography by Jorg Badura and Maddalena Gracis