Category Archives: Costa Rica 2008

Information on my multiple trips to Costa Rica. Specifically about exploring the Nicoya Peninsula and finding places I might like to live.

The new iBike

Posted on November 22, 2008 | 1 comment

Img 0455I thought this was funny that someone stuck this sticker on their motorcycle.

 

 

 

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Beautiful Day Out

Posted on November 20, 2008 | Leave a comment

It’s beautiful here and it’s an awesome day. I’ve been reading “The Time Traveler’s Wife” down by the ocean. What a great book!

But sitting still for that long made me lonely for home, my family and friends.

And probably a little burnt too :) Continue reading →

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Power Loss.

Posted on November 19, 2008 | Leave a comment

The power has glitched off and on the last few days. Just for a few seconds generally but it’s enough to turn off the A/C unit in my hotel which kept waking me all night long when it kept kicking off…

Today we lost it for a few hours but it eventually came back on. But it’s always a worry that it might not come back on (most hotels with A/C don’t have windows that will open) that means no A/C and no hot water (it’s electric).

Boring post, but that was out of the ordinary part of today…

I hiked up to the waterfalls too! It’s such a nice view!! But since I do this almost every day it’s really not out of the ordinary any more :)

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Fire-Dancing Video

Posted on November 19, 2008 | 3 comments

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

And (of course) the direct YouTube link.

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Nice park in the middle of the San Jose shopping district

Posted on November 18, 2008 | Leave a comment

I meant to post this earlier when I posted some photos of San Jose, but it looks like it got cut off (I’m not sure if it that it was never there or I just recently deleted it or that it was never there). Sorry if it’s a rerun!


If the embedded video doesn’t work, here’s the direct link! From the direct link you can watch it in High Quality (just under the right hand side of the movie).

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Riding the Bus

Posted on November 17, 2008 | Leave a comment

So I “needed” to go to Cobano today. They have “real” internet! It’s really fast but I had to get there and come back. It’s only about 5 miles so I needed transport. I planned to take the public bus. As I went downstairs at my hotel to check on the times I saw the owner leaving to take Roger (another guest) to the local airport. So I hopped in the car with them, I forgot my Spanish book but otherwise I was good.

So I spent the afternoon in Cobano. Used the ‘net, ate lunch, walked around used the ‘net some more, ate dinner and tried to catch the 5:30 bus. Turns out it was a 6 PM bus, I had bad info…

Img 0418 2But the bus was even later. And the locals were getting pretty annoyed about it. It finally showed up at 7:12. For a hyper guy, I’m a pretty good waiter. The problem was that I already finished my book and my laptop was dead by this point so I was pretty bored. But the ride is only 20 or so minutes so at least it was over pretty quick.

The price was amazing, I’m not sure how much change he gave me back but it was no more than 60 cents for the ride. I could have taken a cab for about 7 or 8 dollars, but that wasn’t the point. It was for the experience…

I also went to the bank to try to make a withdrawl but that’s another story…

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Posted in Costa Rica 2008, The Costa Rica Plan

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Fire Dancing in Montezuma

Posted on November 17, 2008 | 1 comment

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. Most had some kind of costumes or makeup on which added to the whole effect.

It’s hard to capture but I think these turned out pretty good. A few of the ones in the woman in costume I pulled from video I took so the quality might not be so great but I wanted you to see…

I only show a few photos here, the other dozen are here (including larger versions of them all) or click for the fire dancing slideshow (same photos).

Picture 11

Picture 9

Picture 10

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My New Digital Camera is NOT Waterproof

Posted on November 15, 2008 | 2 comments

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!!!

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