Tag Archives: Costa Rica

New Year’s Resolutions 2007

So I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions any more. People generally don’t keep track and they tend to eventually fade away. I found out about the 101 in 1001 list on-line. What you do is make a list of 101 things you want (and can) to do and you have 1001 days to complete the list. They need to be measurable like how many pounds or how many miles you plan to walk per day. This gives you almost three years to complete the items you put on the list. It can be as simple as “taking a warm winter vacation” or “visit Costa Rica again”, or even do “taxes on-time”.

I’m just bringing it up since it’s that time of year and I’m sure a few of you have already broken a few of the resolutions that you’ve already made. I’ve been doing mine for just over a year and I’ve completed 30%, and I still have 18 months to go. I’m sure I’ll hit 90% (at least 80%) and that’s probably better than the average person does on the old fashion list of resolutions.

Here’s the link to the originator of the 101 in 1001 list with their rules.

Scooting to Quepos

Img 3533Img 3535So 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).

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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.

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The Hotel Balcon del Mar in Jaco, Costa Rica

Cr1902Cr1900So 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 :)

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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.

Skype logoHere’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.

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Good Things Happen Too.

So my last post wasn’t to make you believe that life isn’t good, it was just pointing out the blah things and not being in the mood for blogging (or even much blog reading). Life has been good and even today in general has been great.

  • I got some gifts for a wedding and not only did I find somethings on the registry that I didn’t mind buying but I found things I wanted to buy for them and one was something I had even considered before reading the registry. I won’t list the items in case they’ve been keeping up on my blog.
  • I went to the library to pick up two new books I had on reserver and they actually had a third waiting for me! The items consist of: Brother Odd (Koontz), Next (Crichton) and Wild Fire (DeMille). These plus some other one week books are going to generate some nice fines for the library.
  • While I couldn’t get to sleep last night I slept like a rock once I did get to sleep, got a little over nine hours, if I can just do the same tonight…
  • While I was at the library I found a few 25 cent paperbacks which I’ll take on my next vacation (and not need to bring back).
  • Plus I drove by my local bar just as happy hour started and I popped in. So I’m currently blogging this over a Long Island Iced Tea and some and some free appetizers! Plus, it’s very Christmas-ish here thanks to Dawn.

    Other good things coming up: We’re celebrating Christmas at my place for the extended family in a few weeks and I’m way excited about that. I’m not exactly sure where I’m going to put 25 people in my condo but I’ll make it work. For the last few years my (Mom’s) extended family hasn’t celebrated Christmas anywhere near the 25th (we used to do it on the 24th every year) which is why I volunteered to have it on the 23rd. I actually sent out invites in April to make sure this would happen. And on top of that, next month I get to go on a warm sunny vacation to Costa Rica!

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