Tag Archives: beach

My New Digital Camera is NOT Waterproof

This is a problem!!!

Someone else dropped something into the river and I made a grab for it an my camera fell out of my pocket. I meant to only leave it in that pocket for a minute when I thought the water might reach my pants pocket and I forgot to move it back. I’m am so bummed…

The lens was closed, it was under water for just a few seconds, I wiped it off with a dry towel immediately and pulled out the battery. Needless to say I didn’t take any more pictures, I had a few from today of the ocean and monkeys but I bet those are fine. I hope the monkey shots are, I got a monkey (with a baby on it’s back) that managed to snatch a shaker of parmesan from a restaurant and were eating it up in a tree!

Now the camera, the chip and the battery are in a zip lock bag with some dry rice (to soak up the extra moisture). I’ll leave it for a day or so and see how it is. Kitty litter is supposed to work well too, but I didn’t need a 25 pound bag of it in my tiny room.

It’s a great camera, I’d definitely recommend the Canon SD1100 with image stabilization. It’s been in my sights for ages and I recently found a great on-line deal for it from Dell (that’s where I bought my SLR Canon camera too).

I’ll definitely be adding the WP-DC22 Waterproof Case to my wishlist (assuming the camera still works). It’s good for 40 meters underwater (130 feet) and is supposed to also be great for “beach, rain and on the ski slopes”.

Later: Oops, the waterproof case is more expen$ive than the camera was!!!

Tamarindo, Costa Rica

So I like this town, it’s a tourist town so it’s missing some of the remoteness of some of the other towns, but it’s got every thing you might need. Lots of restaurants and hotels, a beach with surfing so it’s a got something for everyone. The beach could be bigger, especially since the tide comes up pretty high but I’ve never been very far up or down the coast from to see what else there is, maybe the next trip.

Since it’s a tourist town, it’s got lots of parking so it’s generally not a problem parking right where you want to be. This is a big bonus if there’s a huge downpour (or you’re really sick).

A lot of the people in Costa Rica scoff at Tamirindo because it is a big tourist town (especially the smaller towns on the coast some of them are just rude about it) but it’s completely different from the smaller towns so (to me) it shouldn’t be compared, you might as well as compare it to New York City; but if you’re looking for surfing NYC isn’t the place and if you’re looking for theatre Tamarindo isn’t the place, so the question is “what is it that you are looking for?” and this might be it…

Here’s the Tamarindo Photo Album I put together. I’m trying this with the MobileMe service, so if it doesn’t view very well for you let me know and I’ll put it in the old format. Photo.Me.FormatNotice the buttons at the bottom of the photos for Grid, Mosaic, Carousel or Slideshow; be sure to check out how they work.

So I had an “opportunity” to check out the Hospital in Costa Rica …

So except for the last trip I’ve never had any “stomach issues” and on that trip it was very minor and passed in few days (no pun intended). This trip the same thing happened for a few days and by Friday I was feeling fine. But then Saturday came…

I think it was the water in something I ate or drank, I don’t drink the water or take ice, but there are vegetables and juices and all sorts of stuff with water. It could have been the bottle of water I purchased from a street vendor on Thursday, the cellophane on the bottle seemed a little loose but the cap seemed sealed but it had crossed my mind enough to check and it seemed fine (but it’s still in my head).

Feel free to skip the rest of this blog post, I avoid getting graphic but it does have a bit on my experience with the health care here in Costa Rica.
Continue reading

I hate Switching Hotels but I love the Hotel Domus Kahuna

DomuskahunaI love the Domus Kahuna unfortunately they were full when I came to Tamarindo a few days ago. It’s this small cute place a block from the main strip (it’s behind the Voodoo Lounge?) and we only found it by accident last trip (we pulled into the “driveway” to turn around and thought we’d check). Last time we had this tiny two bedroom with living room/kitchenette, I’ve just got a plain room this time but it’s perfect and it’s more than 1/2 off what I’ve paid the last few days. No view of the ocean but it’s only 150 meters to town and the beach and that’s better. I think it comes with a minimal breakfast (at least it did last time) and the free WiFi leaks into the room.

If you’ve been to / heading to Tamirindo, it’s the last turn before you get to the circle at the end of “the strip”; go up one block and hang a left and it’s shortly on your right (careful, the road is awful as soon as you turn off the strip). Continue reading

Beautiful Day in Tamarindo!

Sorry, I’ve been off-line lately, I haven’t had ‘net access or felt well enough to do it (I’ve been really really sick the last few days), but I’m feeling much much better today. I’ll give you the scoop on my experiences with the CR medical system later.

I’m in Tamarindo the next few days, I couldn’t get the little hotel that I liked from last trip, Domus Kahuna, but I grabbed a room at the Best Western Vista Villas since I didn’t feel well enough to go looking for a room (wanted a safe bet); I’d normally avoid the US chains when in Costa Rica. Turns out my room has a view of the ocean and so does the pool/returant area (which also has WiFi), it’s a little bit of a hike down to the water but it’s a great view :)

This is looking like one of the top weather days this trip so far! I think I just need to take it easy for a little bit still. So I’ll drive into town and pick up a few things and then head down and check out the beach.

Catching the Paquera Ferry

So I heard that the ferry from Paquera to Puntarenas was at 12:30 PM and but I also heard 1 PM so I decided I should get there by 12:30 just in case. The ride was taking me a little bit longer than I thought but I knew (unless it was full) I was going to make it. I went a few kilometers past Paquera and I was the only one on the road (everyone had been rushing past me) which made me decide that I went too far so I turned around. A few minutes later I realized I hadn’t gone too far in the first place and that it was too late for the 12:30 boat (the next was at 3 or 4 PM).

So I decided to go there and make sure I knew exactly where it was and get my ticket; then I’d go get lunch and see if there was and Internet access back in town. But when I got to the dock the ferry was still there!!! They must have just recently changed the time to 1 PM since I was one of the last cars on (I had gotten the 1 PM tine from a person, the 12:30 was from a June-December 2008 free travel booklet).

Had I realized that the Paquera Ferry was a location option in my awesome new GPS I’d have gotten there with no problem!! Duh!

FerrypaqueraSo this is how they work the queue, you get in line and they give you a “pass” that says there is room for you and you can get out of the car, buy the ticket and get back in the car (I think it was $13 for me and the car a little more than I thought it would be). When they went up to the car in front of me they must have told him to go around the vehicle in front of him so he starts to back up towards me (my car is parked and off at this point) and I’m beeping the horn like crazy (he had so much room) and he hits the brakes but he still hits me at least it was really slow and there was no damage. It turns out he wasn’t that great of a driver (at least not a stick) he had a heck of a time getting situated on the ferry.

It was the smaller ferry (the other one is way nicer and bigger) but it’s not very busy so there is lots of room in the people area (the car area is packed). It was drizzling on and off but there is (sort of) a cover up top so I’m up there, but I’m really happy it’s not a stormy ride. Looks like there might be sunshine for the end of the ferry ride!

I should get to the San Jose area in daylight so that’s a big plus, maybe even to the hotel. BTW, my hotel is in the GPS so I should not have any problem! I haven’t used the GPS for city driving yet so I can’t wait to try that.

I took some photos, I’ll try to get them posted tomorrow, the batteries are dying on the laptop…

Much Nicer Day

It was a much nicer day today! It was mostly sunny but drizzly on and off but looked stormy so I didn’t want to walk up the the waterfall (a real hike) and get caught in a storm; later I hear the water that you walk next to (through at some parts) were pretty wild so some people turned around and came back, which must have been all the rain from yesterday/last night.

I got to spend some time at walking the beach and relaxing. It was nice to not be running around too much. I just walked for a while and read and talked to some people that I’ve run into more than a few times this trip. I started to go farther up the beach but it started to rain again and since there was a (fancy) hotel on the beach so I popped in there for a deliciou$ lunch (and stayed out of the rain).

I did try to catch the sunset but it just got cloudier and cloudier as I got closer so that was a bust. But on the way I did pick up a couple of guys from Argentina on the road and gave them a lift for a few kilometers they were interesting and spoke great english. Just to be clear, they were from Argentina, not on the road from Argentina

It’s pouring out now but that’s okay since I’m inside and have nothing else to do but grab some dinner and sleep. If it’s nice I’d like to get up early so I can play in Montezuma more before I head to San Jose tomorrow.

Tuesday Morning in Montezuma

It was raining so hard this morning it woke me up but I think part of that was due to the noisy roof of where I’m at. It’s beautiful outside now and the early rain will help keep all the dust down. I want to go for a ride and it’s so much nicer with the windows down but the dust really ruins the ride.

I just had breakfast in an open air restaurant down by the water. It’s a nice place but they’re really slow on the service at this place but that let me monopolize their table a little more :)

I’m going to head over to Cabano (a central town in the lower part of the peninsula) and run some errands and then over to a restaurant on the beach in Manzanillo for dinner and catch the sunset. Continue reading