The long and winding waterfalls.

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 we decided to hike it up to the bigger falls. This really was a hike but worth it. The falls were at least a hundred feet high (I'll see if I can get a real number) and there was pond to swim and jump into from the surrounding rocks. You could also climb up on the rocks and get behind the falls and jump out through them. It's really hard to swim around since the falls are generating current and huge amounts of spray and the closer you get you can feel the pressure(?) of the water impacting on the pond as you (try to) breathe.

It was a blast! I jumped off the rocks a few times and through the water fall multiple times too (Mark did no jumping). One of the thumbnails links to a photo of me diving in from top the rocks (not all the way up!) click for larger images of all the photos.

The we decided to climb up to the top of the waterfalls This was more of a mountain climbing expedition, it was tricky navigating the “trails” and twice I thought I'd lost Mark but he managed to hang on and we continued our quest. Once we we got to the top it turns out we were way above the falls. So then I had to go down two more levels to the top of the falls and then I was at the top, so if anyone took pictures of the falls at the time I was standing right there where the water came over the edge.

Getting back was another quest, some of it was much harder but it was shorter (and mostly downhill) so we did (eventually)make it back home alive!

Things to look for in a hotel when traveling in a foreign country.

As we know standards of living varying from place to place and so must our expectations as we travel. Most of these issues don't apply when staying at a hugh hotel chain, but it never hurts to ask...

They Danced with Fire in the Streets!!!

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 they started using some sticks and some chains with weights and then they lit them on fire. And then they danced around some more. It was very very cool, eventually the crowd was huge. I did run up and get the video camera but I'll have to put that up later (if it came out).

The pictures are clickable to get larger images.

Connecting from Costa Rica

So wireless Internet connections are limited around here (all of Costa RIca). There are computers at Internet cafes (all over) but most don't have wireless (WiFi), actually I haven't seen any cafes with that yet (just a few restaurants). Some are willing to let me plug in my laptop (which is almost as easy as wireless) but many don't understand the concept. I want to do it this was because I type and pick photos before I ever go to the cafe, I don't want to sit at the cafe, I just do it when I have a few minutes here and a few minutes here and there (99% of what you read and see is picked and typed already). Then when I get to the cafe I hit send and I just have to wait a few minutes to send/recieve e-mails and post items (photos take longer).

FYI, Internet is way cheap everywhere here, about 20 colones a minute which is about $2.40 an hour. Some are very slow though...

Leaving Jaco

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 the room we were transferring to was cleaned first and our old room cleaned after we moved. It finally worked out, we just didn't bother to checkout so when the room was ready we moved. (It worked for us at least).

So we got moved from the new wing of the hotel to the old wing. (Just to give you some perspective on the hotel there is probably only 50-60 rooms in the whole place and it's shaped like an “L”) The old wing definitely needs to be renovated. It's not awful it's just not as shiny as the new wing. But I'll come back, the location and setup works well for me.

So in a few minutes we're off to taxi a “Taxi Boat” up the coast to Montezuma, which is on the peninsula on the north pacific side of Costa Rica. I've wanted to go to this area for a while now! See the image on how we'll cut across the ocean to get there. The boat is an hour instead of the many (treacherous) hours driving up the coast, and probably more scenic :)

New Year's Eve

So it was crazy here on New Year's Eve. People all over the beach: camping, parked on the sand, surfing, anything you can think of. Way more people than I've ever seen and it just got crazy as the night went on. There didn't seem to be an organized fireworks, just everyone was launching there own from all over the place. It was all totally unsafe. The one (blurry) picture shows people, cars, music and fireworks all on the beach. It was crazy!

A lot of the restaurants were closed, having private parties and the rest were full. Some of the bars were totally packed (generally the ones that were normally dead) and one was flowing out into the streets.

We just hung out with the beach madness and watched all the fireworks and (of course) people watched. I went back out later and road the scooter around to see what was going on, but other than a few hot spots, it had died down (a bit) by about one-thirty am. But I could still hear music and fireworks while I was in bed. A lot of people we still on the beach in the morning but it had all cleared out by noon. It looked like great surfing for the people that hung around today though...

I have two photos here and I'll post more on my Flicker page.

Too Much Sun

So I got too much sun on my arms today! Two hours on the scooter today (we had until 11 am to return them) and they look a little baked. I'm not sure why that happened today and not earlier :(

I think I'm going to find some cooling/soothing lotion more sooner than later....

Scooting to Quepos

So we got the Scooters, they pretty much just looked like mopeds. We got there a little late and then the guys weren't even there! We had have the security give us the number to call from the store next door. We couldn't tell him to call since for some reason he didn't seem to understand we wanted the guys from the rental place. Duh?!? And then of course it's like renting a car, so it takes forever. So we actually didn't get going until 11...

On the way south we took a trip towards a beach and found a cool hotel right on the ocean. I'll post more on that later. I'll be staying there next time (or maybe later this trip).

But we kept heading south and eventually made it to Quepos, it was about 70 km south. It was pretty deserted, we had a Coca-Cola and wandered around a bit, popped into some stores (got nothing) and then we had lunch. It was really really deserted. I've been there twice before and and it just seemed to be kinda busy both times. At the same time they were clearing setting up for a New Year's party in the streets (stage and all). I really wish I had gotten a good photo of some of the rickety bridges we had to drive on. One lane and some pretty big gaps on the driving surface, which was railroad tracks (rails) mounted perpendicular to the way you were driving (yes, I mean the metal railroad tracks/rails, not the big wooden ties.

Then we had the ride home, which was really great except it was getting dark and all we had were sunglasses for eye protection. So that was a little tricky. The bugs didn't make it any easier. Sometimes they were so thick I wanted to laugh but I didn't want to open my mouth.

But we made it back. We were very happy to see the city lights verses the darkness of the highway.

On the upside. We found a 15% off coupon for the rentals attached to one of the tourista maps. Plus, we were going to return them at night since we didn't want them out during the festivities but we found a great place to park them. We actually parker them in the hotel where the were still doing some construction. We were happy since they weren't on the street and they were happy since they had an extra parking spot. Now we can ride them on the first since we'll have until 11am to return them!

Most of the photos in this post are from Quepos, Costa Rica. I'll have much more photos later...

So tired...

Walked about a million miles today. Ate and drank lots too. It was a great day! It was actually a bit cloudy so it really cut down on the sun beating down on you, it was still pretty hot though.

The time I came to Jaco on the last day we rented scooters/mopeds for a few hours and it was pretty cheap and it was nice and cool to have the breeze of driving them around. The plan was to do that a lot this trip, but no one seems to do that any more. A few places have them but it's lot more per hour (it seems like last time we thought it was incredibly cheap). One of the car rental places has some and it's only $39 for the whole day, which might not seem like much but when you consider a car is only $55-$65 a day it's a bit (especially since we need two). So the plan for tomorrow is to get them for the whole day and travel all around.

I promise to take lots of pictures tomorrow and post them sometime in the next few days! I just haven't seen that much that I haven't seen before so I don't think to snap any.

The Hotel Balcon del Mar in Jaco, Costa Rica

So here's a few shots from the balcony of our hotel, the wet stuff in the background is the Pacific (click the thumbnails for a larger photo). I really like the Hotel Balcon del Mar, it's got everything I need. We've actually got a two bedroom apartment so there's lots of room and I like that. The pocket camerea I used for these photos wasn't wide-angle enough to photograph the room, I'll try the other camera later.

Well, it's not perfect, it could have WiFi (wireless internet), an elevator (Mark says there are 63 steps to our floor) and a better English speaking person. I can make it pretty difficult for people with all the questions I like to ask, imagine if they don't speak English?!? On a side note, I was a little disappointed about the included breakfast this trip, it used to be made to order but now it's a buffet (not made my way).

Today I was trying to figure out where to go when we leave here, I thought since I like the hotel I'd try to figure out where the people who own it might have other hotels. That conversation didn't get me very far. Wouldn't it make sense to have a list of other hotels that they have in there “chain”? They could keep it in the hotel room for you to look at and think “hey, maybe I'll stay there some time...”, but of course no such list exists. If I tell them where I'm going the can tell me what's close though :)

So far today, went in the Pacific Ocean a few times. Went for a wander and picked up a few things, checked out some car rental places (everyone is out until the 1st or 2nd). I'm typing this at a little restaurant that gave me a huge sandwich of BBQ chicken with pineapple and onion on a pita, it was delicious!!! The restaurant is “Caliche's Wishbone” and it's on the strip in Jaco (between Pops and Planet Food).

We Made It!!!

We're here, were safe and everything is great! We tried to rent a car but nothing available that we could drop off in Jaco (well, there was a $325 SUV, but I wanted a $60 car) so we took a two hour cab ride. Got dropped off at the hotel and just caught the sunset and then we checked in.

Hit an ATM (although we panicked for a second when the first bank didn't like either of our cards but the next banco was fine) and got 100,000.00 colones from the machine (about $190.00). Got some dinner and stuff (soda, juice, water, gatorade) for the hotel room . On the way back we saw some internet places so I'm heading out to see if I can connect my computer (to post this messages) and stop at a pay phone to call Mom to say I'm alive!

FYI - Did if you are leaving the country your bank or credit card company will make a note in their file if you let them know? Then they don't think any of it is suspicious activity. We did this, so I knew it shouldn't be that!...

Almost there!

So while our seats were a little tight for the trip to the layover (in Charlotte, NC) the seats from there to Costa Rica are great! We got emergency row with awesome leg room, I can't even reach the seats in front of us. Plus, there was were only room for two seats so there wasn't even anyone next to us on the four hour flight.

I'm really, really tired though. Had to get up around 4 AM to get to the airport by 6 for a 7 AM flight. Wasn't able to sleep at all on the flight but I'll bet I'll sleep well tonight.

We're spending the first few days in Jaco but not sure for the rest of the trip. Anyone have any suggestions?

We should be landing in about 25 minutes...

Blogging from Costa Rica

I really don't know what kind of Internet access I'll have while I“m traveling. I'll be writing on the laptop and postdate/time will reflect when I wrote them but who knows when I'll get to post them (since I'll need a place that will let me hook up my laptop).

To make things more confusing, I may have written some posts on the laptop that weren't posted. But may get access to a computer somewhere else and write up something quick. As a result some earlier posts, may be posted later but will still be dated earlier (and as a result listed earlier farther down the list).

Living Abroad in Costa Rica

So in preparation for my trip I picked up Living Abroad in Costa Rica by Erin Van Rheenen. I've said many times I wouldn't mind living there someday so I thought this might be a good read.

I bought it a month ago and I planned to read it then or else I would have asked Santa for it. It looks like a good book and mentions some of the smaller towns like Jaco so I'm still looking forward to reading it (eventually).

Skype Unlimited Calling (US and Canada)

A few months back I mentioned that Skype was allowing free outgoing calls to US & Canada for free for the rest of the year. Well the year is almost up and it looks like they're going to charge $30 a year for unlimited outgoing calls. Please note that it doesn't matter where you are in the world, it'll be free outgoing calls to the US and Canada from anywhere.

Here's the important part: It's only $15 for the first year if you sign up before January 31. 2007. Plus it looks like they give you $1.25 in international calls and $50 in coupons towards other Skype equipment.

Now you can still buy blocks of calls from Skype to the US for 2.1 cents a minute, so if you're not going to use it that much (I probably won't) then it's probably not a deal, but if you do, it's certainly a deal for the first year, they second year you'll need to make 1400 minutes to break even.

If you lived out of the country it might be a deal, but there might be better ways for international calling if I needed it all the time, I just don't use it that much. I think I'm still using the original block of $20 worth of minutes I purchased (about $8 of that left since April 2005).

It'd be great for your kid in college if they had high-speed internet in their room!

The question is for my trip to Costa Rica, will I have good enough internet connectivity for me to save $15 in calls? I did use Skype to place my hotel reservation for the first few days in Costa Rica it was easy to use and I think pretty cheap a minute to use it.

Guess where I'm off to now!?!

So I'm heading back off the continent again. Actually, I'm not 100% sure that's true, Costa Rica is on the isthmus which connects North America and South America and while I think that makes it not part of South or North America I'm not sure if it's “off” the continent. but I digress...

So it's time for some sun and relaxing. Want to try to get to some different places this trip but the trip is starting back in Jaco, my favorite town so far. I'm trying to find somewhere out on the peninsula that's on the northwest part of the country for somewhere different to go.

“Pura Vida” is kind of a catch phrase / motto there, it means “pure life”. I did the magazine cover shown here after my last trip.

I'll be crossing two items items off my 101 in 1001 list with this trip: traveling somewhere warm this winter and returning to Costa Rica. I've also talked about eventually moving there if I make a decision (either way) I can cross that off the list too...