Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom! My Mom still worries about me and does all that other Mom stuff that she’s supposed to do and I love her for it!

As you can see, I did get my Mom to Costa Rica this year! She’s at the top of a overlook in Montezuma. [...]

So a few months ago I mentioned a great view of the coast near Montezuma. I even showed the little path that led the way to it. Well now the little path looks like this:

It was just a tiny path that looked like this smaller image, but now it’s clearly [...]

You couldn’t walk 10 feet with out running into one of these guys tonight.

This is one of the bright colored crabs crawling around on the beach. You can see him pass a few smaller sand crabs…

Watch on YouTube in HD.

It’s a little out of focus the first few seconds, but [...]

This has got to be the biggest Iguana I’ve seen (up close) in Costa Rica in all my trips.

I thought I got him in a couple of good videos, but this is the only one where he really came out.

Click to play the Montezuma Iguana in HD.

A problem is that I’m [...]

So I had to show my Mom how to operate my digital SLR for this one. It came out pretty good. This is at the lower falls in Montezuma, Costa Rica.

I thought the colors stayed pretty good for converting this to an animated GIF, if you click the image for a [...]

I’ve got several clips of fire dancing for you! I’m in Montezuma and they did it tonight at a recycling festival. I haven’t seen it for a while, so I was pretty excited about it! I think the second one came out better since it’s tall so it’s a better zoomed in [...]

Of all the days I’ve ever been in Costa Rica I don’t think I’ve gotten up for a sunrise (and it’s probably over 80+ days over 10+ trips) . Beautiful! I might even try it again since it was a little cloudy today. But here’s a photo and a video clip…

Both [...]

I got some other traveler I’d been talking with to use my camera to video me jumping in at the upper falls in Montezuma. I’m guessing this is 30 feet(?) up, I worked out the people behind me are about 40 feet up (did some GPS based calculations a few trips ago), so [...]

Have a great Valentine’s Day everyone. You might not be with someone, but there’s still someone out there looking for you.

A couple in love on their honeymoon…*

At least I’m hoping there’s still someone out there looking for me…

* I have no idea if they’re on a honeymoon, but it’s what I choose to [...]

So the my blog host was acting up a few days ago, but it made me look around a little bit. Tried (again) to speed things up and make the pages load a little faster; I tried some stuff a month ago, but it might have slowed it down (but then I’ve been posting [...]

Okay, so maybe it’s not a super big secret, but it’s a really nice view; two views actually. When walking back down the hill from the upper waterfalls you walk right past it (see the end for specific details on finding it).

Looking south-west down the coast.

Before turning right to [...]

Trees is (are?) the challenge for today’s Photo Friday. I actually took more than a few photos of trees than usual so here’s a few of them.

This was a tree at the Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve.

Up the beach from Montezuma, north-east about an hour(?). I [...]

Before I went down to Costa Rica last month I knew they eclipse was going to happen and I knew the Moon was going to be full. But I forgot all about the fact that the do some horse rides down the beach in the moonlight; I knew that from the last trip and [...]

So I picked up a disposable waterproof Kodak camera before my trip to Costa Rica. I’ve been tempted to get a waterproof camera but couldn’t justify the cost.

The weird part was getting it developed. It’s been years since I got film developed. I can’t even remember the last time. When [...]

It was four years ago today that I was in Jaco with Mark and wanted to check out the Nicoya Peninsula. We heard the easiest way to get there was to take a taxi boat from the beach North of Jaco to a little town called Montezuma.

I think we were there about [...]

This is me jumping of a BIG rock at the lower falls in Montezuma Costa Rica. It’s not very high, but you really need to get out past the rocks below (and the water is WAY deep).

Watch in full screen HD!

My videographer (German tourist) shot a bit of the falls after, [...]

Just a quick pan of the upper falls in Montezuma. I’m thinking they’re about 40+ feet, but looking how tiny the people at the top looks I want to say it’s taller. Next trip I’m bringing a ball of string to drop over the edge and then I’m just measuring it…

The thumbnails is [...]

In Montezuma, Christmas at the beach is like any other day, it’s Pura Vida! Which means “pure life”…

You can watch this in HD.

I’m off to Christmas Dinner at Cafe Organico and will be listening to Aelias while I’m there…

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! I was down by the ocean this evening and the colors in the sky were looking great and I shot some video so I’m sharing my Christmas Eve with all of you…

It’s even prettier in HD.

Sadly, Montezuma is on the wrong side of the peninsula so this [...]

I always feel like these stacks of rocks are something the aliens left behind; you know, like they did with the pyramids.

When I went to the waterfalls in Montezuma, I saw the aliens had been very very busy…

Also viewable in HD (of course).

Actually, later I did notice a few people adding [...]

Just kind of beast crawling around making a lot of noise on the roof. At first I thought it was someone (I say “he” in the video) up there fixing a leak or something (it’d just been raining). But a little while later I spotted this. The video is a little slow [...]

I was looking at the Montezuma Beach web site the other day and I found the best map of Montezuma that I’ve ever seen. The town is mostly just those two blocks at the center of the top. Montezuma really isn’t that busy, it’s the names of all the places that [...]

It’s always a debate to how high the waterfalls in Montezuma are. It comes up almost every visit to the falls. So today I specifically took some readings with the GPS (location just isn’t longitude and latitude, it’s height too!) and came up with the following numbers –
Water level of first waterfall: 82 feet [...]

It just started to rain out. It’s really been looking like it’s wanted to for a few hours now, the waves have been pretty rough all day (I didn’t go into the ocean, even though I planned to) and there’s been cloud cover and extra humidity all day. I dashed into the Pizza Parlor in [...]

So here’s a few videos of the Fire Dancing in Montezuma that I put some photos up the other day. FYI, they’re both available in large HD versions if you follow the direct link and click the HD icon.

This one is a little dark but gives you some idea better definition of how the [...]

So it’s actually my second day in Montezuma, but it’s my first full day so I made the most of it. I picked up a sandwich first thing in the morning and I hiked up to the waterfalls and stayed for hours. It’s really hot today so I took 5 bottles of stuff to drink [...]

So I always love when I get to see some fire dancing in Montezuma. My first night was no disappointment.

All the photos should be clickable for larger versions. I’ll try and post some video later.

This is one of the shorts that I saw at the Montezuma International Film Festival. A very cool (stop animation) wall painted animation done on the walls of buildings on the streets of Buenos Aires.

Direct link to Muto at Vimeo. If you like it you can download [...]

It was kinda gloomy out and I didn’t want to hike far and get trapped in the rain. I saw a few people gathering for the bus so I asked what time the bus was, I was told 11:30 so I grabbed my stuff from the hotel and went back to the bus stop.

I’m [...]

Just some photos of some of my meals from the lower Nicoya Peninsula. I thought they looked and/or tasted nice.
Sesame Chicken (Chicken dipped in Lime and Honey and rolled in sesame). La Narango resurant in Montezuma, Costa Rica. $7.50-ish

Big breakfast from the Soda Monte Sol in Montezuma, Costa Rica (2200 colones, just under $4). [...]

So Cobano is a nearby town of Montezuma it’s about 7 km away. It’s kind of the centralized place for the bus transfers, a few more restaurants, way faster Internet and some larger stores. Also it’s the nearest bank, ATM, pharmacy, gas station, hardware store, appliances, bicycles, etc. Even with all that, [...]

So riding the bus in Costa Rica is cheap and it’ll take you anywhere. The problem is figuring out when the bus is going to be running.

In the bigger cities this doesn’t appear to be a problem, if you miss a bus another one will be by soon and if it’s not the right [...]

Just me getting into the water and climbing the big rock in the background and jumping into the water. Nothing ultra-exciting but should give an idea of the pool and jumping area…

I’m not the first person you see. I’m the guy who walks in front of the camera a few seconds into the [...]

Here’s part two of the video from the waterfall video from last Saturday (Nov. 22, 2008). This is the view from the top of the falls taken a few minutes after the first video. I’ve since learned that the waterfalls are named El Chorro (and the adjacent beach is called Cocolito).

Here’s the

Haven’t been doing much the last few days. I’ve been experiencing the other Montezuma so I’ve been under the weather. Here’s a few recent photos all from the Montezuma, Costa Rica area.

This was my view from where I sat and had my lunch.

One of the water outlets to the Pacific Ocean.

I always like [...]

So here’s a photo of me at the waterfalls North of Montezuma, Costa Rica. The walk to get there is to walk along the beach of the ocean (maybe this is technically the bay?). I’ve since learned that the waterfalls are named El Chorro (and the adjacent beach is called Cocolito).

Tags: [beach, Cocolito, Costa Rica, El Chorro, Montezuma, photo friday, Waterfall, Waterfalls]

Here’s a video of the fire dancing from the other day in Montezuma.

And (of course) the direct YouTube link.

So I’d really been looking forward to the fire dancing in Montezuma. I haven’t seen it done as much the last few trips and I knew it was on the schedule as entertainment for the Film Festival. It wasn’t the local group that I’ve seen do street shows before but they were excellent. [...]

If your display is set to 1024×768 or larger you should be seeing my new background. That’s a shot from Montezuma up by the waterfalls, I hike up there every day that I can when I’m in town….

Does it fit okay? Does it load to slow? It’s the first time using an [...]

Weather great!

Internet is extra awful (I guess an actually satellite the good places use are broken). So it’s computer labs sharing two dial-in phone lines.

Don’t expect much in terms of posts and photos the next few days. But scroll down because I did get a few things posted in the last 24 hours…

So I scheduled a shuttle bus (a large van) from San Jose to Montezuma. Last night I confirmed all the details:

8:20 pickup at my hotel. I guess they don’t pickup at all, but they pick up at mine.
I’m going to Montezuma
Approximate arrival time. She said 3 PM, which seemed really late, so I asked [...]

Here’s a very short movie of the Waterfall in Montezuma! Click for the higher quality Montezuma Waterfall version. But people always have problems with the movie files from my Dimage XT camera for some reason so here’s an YouTube version too…

I don’t have much more to say (other than it [...]

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 [...]

So Chico’s Bar and Resturant has the best Penne Pasta with Tomato Sauce and it come with a small bowl of parmesan cheese. They were too busy saturday night and the restaurant wasn’t open when I came by yesterday so I wanted to get a chance to eat this again.

Again? Yes, [...]

One of the bad things about Montezuma is it’s on the east side of the peninsula so you don’t get any sunsets. So last night I dashed over to Mal Pais to catch the sunset; remember when I say “dashed” it might mean 5 miles an hours over some of the treacherous roads. [...]

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 [...]

The weather was amazing all day. Sunny and warm but very humid. We didn’t get any afternoon rain at all.

But, regardless of the wonderful weather, the first thing I did this morning was find a new hotel, the other one wasn’t that great but I was too tired to look around any [...]

I left for the Airport before 6 am and didn’t get here until 7:15 pm (9:15 my time); that’s factoring car rental time and immigration and a short stop for lunch (no other real stops) so it was a long day. I ended up renting a car because it was cheaper to rent for [...]

Normally when I travel I like to stay put for a few days (at least a few days) and not keep repacking and moving to another place. I personally don’t find that very relaxing and that’s generally the point of vacationing, IMHO.

This past spring when we went to Costa Rica we (my friend Mark [...]

So Santa Teresa is supposed to be this beautiful place in Costa Rica (I’m referring to the town in the southern end of the Nicoya Peninsula) and while the beaches are beautiful (it is just sand on the ocean) so are a million other areas along the coast. The beaches are great for surfing [...]

So it’s a beautiful morning, went for a swim on the beach and it was dead, now the beach is getting busier. Nice little restaurant on the beach for breakfast, they only serve a limited breakfast/lunch menu and are only open from 7am-11am. That’s the life, assuming it’s their [...]

I originally posted a bad link to the second photo album. It’s now corrected.

Here’s another dozen photos (with descriptions). It’s mostly up by Montezuma Falls.

The photo to the right (click to enlarge) is me jumping through the falls (from climbing behind them). This photo actually makes it a [...]

So after a very long ride today we made it to Samara. It just starting raining (it’ll stop soon, it generally does) so we popped into this internet cafe. And here’s some info on Samara Beach (boring site). I really like the town so far, it’s like a big Montezuma, although the [...]

Well, we didn’t make it as far as we hoped. We made it to the sand castle festival in Manzanillo (that’s a different story) and tried to head up to Coyote (because someone mentioned it as a close town we could get to). We followed the “maps” and we were going the way [...]

So far I’ve only explored the southmost point of the Nicoya Peninsula and stayed in Montezuma. I want to explore more of the Pacific coast next trip (later this month).

I’m looking for tips on where to travel and places to stay. As requirements for places to stay go: walking to beach distance, hot [...]

So I’m using some Costa Rica photos to test the new free on-line edition of PhotoShop. It’s very cool, does more than what most desktop packages do, but while limited, I don’t need much more. They give you 2 GB of free storage. It’s got cool slideshows (full-scren if you like) but I’m [...]

I hiked back up the Montezuma Waterfalls Monday. I made good time since I remembered the route better this time. Some local Ticos were jumping from up high, the jumping wasn’t so dangerous as the climbing up the front of the waterfall, that was pretty amazing. Puts where I was jumping from [...]

So on my first night in Montezuma I was out on the beach in Montezuma watching the stars and it was perfectly clear. After a while I realized I hadn’t seen any shooting stars. I thought, “If I saw a shooting star, I’d wish that I could move down here”. At that [...]

Saturday, I did the (mostly easy) hike to the bottom of the main Montezuma Waterfalls. Then I did the even longer steeper climb to the top of falls and to see the other falls that are way up there. This is where we almost lost Mark (as in “over the [...]

So I hear it’s cold back in Michigan! I’m glad I’m getting my money’s worth from this vacation. I had to explain to a local it was freezing and he didn’t get I literally meant freezing until I clarified with “zero degrees Celsius”.

It’s definitely getting cooler on some of the evenings. I was [...]

The time you see on these posts aren’t necessarily when posted them. The time is closer to when I wrote them. Whenever I finally get access to the internet I can post them and they retain the original dates.

This also might get confusing since I may have typed something and not posted it [...]

It’s unbearably slow so this is all that I am posting at this time :(

Today was just a travel day. Packing, travel, checking in, unpacking, eating and picking up supplies. I’m in the same room as last time I was at the El Sano Banano, it’s the place with the awesome air conditioning. Here’s a street map of Montezuma, the map is kind [...]

I finally got the phones in Costa Rica to work again. I’m sure they worked before I just couldn’t get them to work last trip. The trick is to get to an AT&T operator, or at least that’s what I wanted since my calling card is AT&T. So from a phone you just [...]

I made it to Moctezuma. The taxi boat was much nicer than the last time.

I met two american surfers from opposite directions heading to the same destination (Snata Teresa). They were fun to chat with and made a beautiful ride even more fun.

I’m staying at the El Sano Banano, I got all settled into [...]

So I’m off to Montezuma this morning. You can see the ride by car would take forever. The water taxi, pretty much some guy on a boat that’ll hold about 8-10 people/luggage, will take about an hour. If experience holds, it’ll take longer since it’ll be way late. I [...]

These Chicken Nachos are delicious! I’m at the Restaurante Tabacon in Jaco, it’s right across the street from Planet Food (closed for years but still a landmark for giving directions). They come with everything, including sour creme, beans and guacamole (I did not get the latter two). [...]

Another photo-meme. Today the Thursday Photo Challenge is Wildlife so I’m using this White-Faced Monkey photo from Montezuma, Costa Rica.

If you look very close (just below/by the neck) you can see there is a (very tiny) baby on the back of the monkey!

Speaking of Costa Rica, here’s [...]

So almost everyone was giving us mediocre reviews of the volcano this trip, so we decided to skip it. Since we skipped it we were staying in Montezuma for another day and then going back to Jaco.

Staying in Montezuma (Costa Rica) resulted in us taking a tour to Tortuga Island. Every travel group [...]

So here’s the Montezuma Waterfall that we climbed way up into the hills to get to. We swam and (I) jumped into the pool there and then we climbed way farther up into the hills to get way above the waterfall (and there were a few more pools up there too) [...]

So we really liked Montezuma, I’ve never been in that peninsula in Costa Rica and I’ve always wanted to go there (I think it’s called the Nicoloyia Nicoya Peninsula). We just kept extending our stay a day here and there and ended up staying four nights. We’re really glad we stayed an extra [...]

So the hotel we are at (The El Sano Banano in Montezuma, CR) has a sister hotel (Ylang Ylang) down the beach (which you can only get to by walking, but they will transport your luggage) and we’re allowed to use their pool and hammocks, etc. [...]

So we’re staying at the The El Sano Banano and we keep adding days to our stay. It’s a great hotel in that it’s located right in the center of Montezuma and it’s got all the necessary requirements for a hotel. It’s got air conditioning which to me [...]

So we took a walk up to the lower waterfalls which were really small but were nice to swim in. It was just up the street and was pretty easy to get to. I’ll have pictures later, but the bandwidth here is very slow (it’s all dial-up).

Then [...]

So we’re in Montezuma (Costa Rica) now. A great little town on the peninsula (more on that later). We had just kinda given up on the night and were heading back. And there was a group dancing in the street so we started to watch. Then [...]

So we needed to stay another night at the Hotel Balcon del Mar and we had to transfer to another room. That was a little trickier than we thought it would be. Checkout is at Noon and checkin is at 2, no one seemed to have the ability to make sure [...]