I’ve posted a photo album of various animals that I’ve taken here and there (Zoo, Costa Rica, London).

Some came out really nice and some are just okay (but I needed a few more to make an album). I uploaded them to my FaceBook photo album section, feel free to add me as a FaceBook Friend while you’re there.So is this photo too big for my blog page? Does it expand out of the center column too much? At all? Just right? It was bigger than I meant to upload but then I thought it looked nice…

I uploaded a album of sunsets to FaceBook. These are from my last two trips to Costa Rica. There are a few dozen and I think all of them are labeled where and when they are from.

If you are a member of FaceBook be sure to add me as a friend while you’re there. Just click on “Gary’s Profile” at the top and then “Add as a Friend”.

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. Notice the buttons at the bottom of the photos for Grid, Mosaic, Carousel or Slideshow; be sure to check out how they work.

So I enjoyed the San Jose area on this trip. Next trip I plan to spend a little more time in the city area to check it out more. It seems many people who relocate move to the middle of the country; while that seems anti-intuitive to me, the coast seems more obvious, there are a lot of conveniences there that I need to consider.

When I was in San Jose, I chose my first restaurant based on a few things: It wasn’t an American chain, it wasn’t Chinese and it had hightop tables (had I known they had WiFi I might have gotten my laptop and factored that in too). It was a local little sports bar with food so I thought I could get a feel for some local “stuff”. But the people who ran this place spoke English so well I have to assume they weren’t locals. Even some of the people who appeared to be regulars conversed in excellent English with each other so it wasn’t really the experience I was looking for.

But since the food was delicious and they wrapped the napkins around the bottles all cute and fancy it was worth it.

Most of these photos are from the park but that’s because I was busy during most of the daylight hours while I was there. I’ll get some more next time. So here are the photos from San Jose at the La Sabina Park.

So I keep saying I was trapped in Liberia, but it was a really nice town. When I started to build this album I thought I had taken more photos, but I guess I didn’t, so it’s kind of a mish-mash. Here’s a map of Liberia, the place I stayed (the El Punto) is just south of the Santa Rosa Mall.

Next time I fly to Liberia I’ll definitely be spending the night and checking out the town some more, the nearby African Zoo and the Rincon de la Vieja volcano (which I had gotten a recommendation for).

Here’s some photos of Liberia that I took.

So when I got trapped in Costa Rica for the few extra days I ended up staying at the El Punto B & B. It turned out to be an excellent place, it only has five or six units with a theme of colors, it might be the cutest place I’ve ever stayed. My unit had A/C, a ceiling fan, a very hot shower (but I never could get that much heat from the two sinks), two beds, two tables, three chairs and something I’d call a kitchenette but there wasn’t a way to cook anything but coffee (had a sink and medium refrigerator). I had found huge very comfy towels and a washcloth, made me feel very civilized. Outside I had another chair and table with a hammock. There was free internet but only up by the office and they also had what appeared to be a community area with couches, chairs and a television. There was also a nice double-sided page with info about the area (such as suggested restaurants), how to access the WiFi and useful info that all hotels should mimic.

Breakfast was amazing! A mini loaf of bread with jellies and jams and watermelon and pineapple and eggs with coffee and juice. My only real complaint is there just isn’t enough space to unpack (but I have that complaint quite often).

Here are some photos of the room at El Punto and of breakfast (breakfast included coffee and OJ which didn’t get shown in the photos).

It’s right around the corner from a nice outside mall, across from that is a Burger King/Papa John’s/Church’s Fried Chicken and down the street a bit (easy walk) is the downtown area. I’ll stay there again sometime (on purpose). I think they’re pretty close to the Zoo (that’s supposed to be excellent) and a nearby Volcano that was also recommended to me. Plus if I’m flying out of the Liberia airport it’s pretty convenient (I think during the busier season they might provide airport transportation?) and a cab was about $15.

So my favorite ice cream bar to get in Costa Rica is ChocoMenta by Dos Pinos (Twin Pines). It’s is good sized mint ice cream bar cover in chocolate on a stick. It’s a generous size, especially when you consider the price, they were generally only about 75 cents! You can see in the image (click it) that it’s a decent sized stick, and I think that helped the ice creme to not fall off the stick in the heat and humidity (not that I had a lot this trip).

Occasionally, I couldn’t find them so they were a welcome treat when I found them. At at 75 cents it was an awesome treat!

And for my older readers: “Milky the clown says, ‘What’s the Magic Word?’”…

I did make it back to Michigan (via Atlanta) problem free. Although it took forever for the luggage to start coming out in Detroit and that was after the 15 minute hike across the airport.

One of the annoying things about missing that flight was that the whole crazy vacation timeline revolved around me getting to that relocation seminar in San Jose and flying back to Michigan in time for my Mom’s birthday. And since I ended up missing her birthday it was just digging at me on the way home since I had many many hours to dwell on it. I could have just as easily left a few days later, landed in San Jose and then headed to the coast and come home later. This would have resulted in a lot less running around and not a crunched time-line (since I could have stayed later), isn’t hind-site great!?!

It was a disaster trip: lots and lots of rain, getting really really sick and missing that flight (which resulted in two more days there) but while I’m so glad to be home I’m already looking forward to my next extended trip in the next few months…

Over the next few weeks I will be posting many more blog posts that I’ve already half-written and posting photos…

Made it! Way early and on time. It’s so hot here, I’m only paying for Internet since I want to hang out in this air conditioned room (I’m standing at a terminal in the gift shop).

And they didn’t charge me a $150.00 change fee for my flight!!! I didn’t even get a chance to ask about it. The woman at the counter was the woman that I talked to on on Thursday and they had already decided it was an “Act of Nature” and they waived the fee for me…

It’ll be a full flight since multiple people would have missed, one guy guessed half the flight was probably trapped on the other side of the bridge. He might be overestimating but even if half that missed the flight, that’s a lot of people considering there was no Friday flight.

So you can see, I’m pretty much at my low peak for things under my control. The problem is most of the things that have gone wrong haven’t been much under my control. As long as things start to get better I don’t care how the chart looks, but I’m really looking forward to working my way up to the 20th!

I used a desktop widget for my Mac to generate this, I like this one since it shows six cycles. If you’d like you can try an on-line Biorhythm generator but it’s only got 3 of the more traditional lines (I ran mine on-line for fun and the three do match up pretty good).

Later: I just found this web site that calculates the primary and secondary biorhythms.

So I’m at a pizza place and they don’t have bottled pop and I’m not drinking any fountain drinks if I don’t know where the water and ice is from. So I order a bottle of water and then I realize the place next door (a very nice restaurant that I ate at yesterday) has bottled pop so I went to get a Fresca.

I didn’t realize I’d put the place into such a tizzy! I walk up to the area where the bartender (not a bar), the register and two waiters are standing and order a Fresca. They all appear to understand me, I know they all know the word Fresca, but they don’t know what to do (I guess since I’m not at a table?). I’m stunned, they must do take-out, the BK across the street has a drive-thru, but they’re stuck. It’s not like they’re busy, I olny make customer number five. They ask me two more times what I want and I clarify that I will bring the glass bottle back to them (and I know this waiter knows I’m the guy sitting outside next door). Then he mentions that it’ll around $2 and I’ve been holding a 2,000 Colones bill ($4) most of the time I’ve been there.

Here’s how it ends: I hand him the bill and he has me go sit down outside and a few minutes later brings me the drink and my change. It’s just the little things like that which make life fun…

In hindsight: I should have just walked over to the grocery store and got a Fresca or maybe since the pizza was pretty boring I probably should have just gone to the restaurant next door again tonight…

So I left Tamarindo with more than enough time to spare to get to the airport. That’s it. The rest of the story pretty much writes itself doesn’t it? It’s clear I don’t make my plane but why? There’s the obvious like car problems and the not so obvious like I was abducted by aliens; I wasn’t abducted but it was certainly closer to that end of the continuum.

When I left Tamarindo it was raining but everything was fine. About ten minutes into the ride I get a few cars flashing their lights at me, usually a sign of a speed trap so I slowed down. A few turns later I see there was some kind of avalanche but I’m not sure if it’s from the rain or the earthquake from last night. There are some huge items about a meter in diameter but I’m not sure if it’s rock or mud either way I drove around it. I did pass a few more mini-avalances but some I probably could have just driven through and been okay.

But as I drive I notice the water is getting deeper on the sides of the road; I hadn’t noticed much at the start but I was much closer to the ocean so it has lots of options for drainage. Then I notice the fields are flooded on both sides of the road and while I’m not certain how tall the crops are I know the backs of those tires are under at least a dozen inches of water. Then it starts covering the road! What’s really nice is the few times that I can’t see what’s under the water (hopefully road) there are other cars so i just follow them along. The worst was probably about three-hundred feet(?) long. Many shorter ones but there were a few deep dips too; these weren’t wide but I didn’t know about flash flooding coming down these roads. The flooding is worse for the homes much of them are in water that is knee deep at parts but some are waist deep (some of these homes are on cement platforms but I don’t think many were more than 18 inches and most were less than a foot). No one seems panicky and some people were relaxing on a bench on a porch, it was really sad to see.

Then I see a quantity of people walking towards me on both sides of the road and now I’m in a traffic jam and I can’t see the other end of it. What’s going on? I’m still thinking I might catch this flight so I’m trying to get around everyone and this bus seems to know what he’s doing so I’m following him; we’re in the wrong lane at this point but there is no oncoming traffic. There’s a lot more people on the road, Should I be heading into the “fire”? The a traffic cop stops us, lets the bus through but tries to explain in Spanis to me and then leaves me for some other problem; when I see he’s busy I leave and then I see the problem so merge back into stopped traffic.

The problem is there’s a bridge ahead so there has got of be some kind of a problem with it. But there are still refugees people coming off the bridge so it’s not collapsed. By very illegally parking and then walking to the bridge (it’s two bridges: an old one and a new one) and talking to a partially-English speaking officer and some others I determined I need to ditch my rental and cross the bridge. Oh, and at this point I’m pretty sure I’m not getting on that plane today.

Because the bridge will not be open until tomorrow and maybe not until the afternoon! But I guess even though they are concerned about the lower supports it’s okay for people and not cars. Did I mention it’s only 7 kilometers (4-5 miles) to the airport at this point?

Since then I’ve done some research, I believe this was the Guardia Bridge over the Tempisque River, ‘ve read on-line (nothing official or I’d quote that) that’s it’s 50 or 100 feet down. When I was on the bridge I’d say the water was 8-12 feet below but I’m not the best guesser at those kinds of guesstimates. Notice on the map that this is the main road to get from the Nicoya Peninsula to the Liberia Airport. Zoom out and you’ll see it’s the only road to cross the river when it has any depth of water. That’s not really try if you zoom out farther you’ll see the huge Friendship Bridge (image) but since another trapped person told me she was going to San Jose (the long way) and she was avoiding that bridge for some reason that didn’t translate but I knew it was going to add hours (4-5?) to her trip it must be a good reason. And it turns out that this Tempisque River is the same river that forms the start of the Nicoya Bay (which, with the Pacific Ocean, makes the Nicoya peninsula).Back to getting off the peninsula: I think I can get a ride on the other side but I gotta get rid of the car. I can’t find a phone that takes change and I don’t know how to use these phones since I never make local calls and I normally use the computer. I try the hardware store but they’re closed, they have no power (I assume no power in this area). As I start to try to get a person to lend (or rent) me their cell phone an American woman (who just dropped her husband off at the bridge for the same flight) takes pity on me and lets me use her mobile to call the car rental place.

The phone bounces between several people that that can’t help me and I hear them conversing between each other and I know they don’t fully understand the problem. Finally I stick to “This has had to have happened before. How can I leave this car here and have you retrieve it later?” and repeat that to someone else and I get an answer: “Leave it at the hardware store and give the keys to the shuttle driver at the airport” plus he tells me there is no charge for this retrieval! That was pretty simple! But since the hardware store is closed the gate is locked so we settle on the gas station two kilometers down the road.

So I park there and the guy at the station speaks no english but somehow I’m truly confident he understands what I’m doing. Now I need a ride to the bridge, I can’t get a taxi or a phone to call one (or a bus) so I end up taking an illegal (which was parked near the bus stop but I didn’t know that’s what it was). The taxi driver is reading and has no idea where I’ve come from (this is important later) and knows he can’t cross the bridge so he doesn’t understand but I get him to do it for $2. So as were get to the traffic I bully him to drive around it and the traffic cop (I make it clear that he’s just “an hombre” not “a taxi”). The cop really yells at us and I can’t figure out why, but then I get realize why! I guess it’s tomorrow already because the bridge is open!!! I wasn’t going to argue about it!

So here’s the new problem, the taxi driver wants to take me across the bridge, he has no idea I have a car back there. This did no communicate so well but I finally got him to make a u-turn and take me back, we almost made it to the bridge before I convinced him. I put my stuff in my 4×4 and got across the bridge ASAP!

I’ve got six bridge photos posted (not the best I’ve ever taken) and I realized as I did it that it certainly looks significantly lower than an hour before. Wow! I’m definitely lacking in the earth sciences area so maybe that’s normal…

Wrap up – Obviously it was too late for my flight. No other flights I could find until Saturday. Delta made me pay $150 to rebook. Why doesn’t act of God ever benefit me in these circumstances? It’s the only way there!!!

I’ll tell you about Liberia and my way cute hotel later…

I found the medicine that I purchased at the farmacia the other day in San Jose that I couldn’t find later. I really have no idea why I put them where I found them, it was definitely a stupid spot. The powder is similar but the pills are different (I guess they could be the same).

Although, if I had remembered, I’m sure be have been thinking it was an excellent spot.

This might not seem like a monumental post, but had I found it, that might have been enough to prevent me from my hospital visit a few days ago…

LATER: Actually, I’ve taken another look at the powder I found and it’s not the same. The one is electrolytes and the other is an anti-diarrhrettic. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have helped, just that I now know it’s different…

Severe flooding kept me from getting to my flight today. They closed the bridge heading towards the airport and said it was going to be closed overnight (maybe until manana afternoon); please note I did say “the” bridge and not “a” bridge; I think it’s the only way to get to the airport from the peninsula in the rain (if it’s not rainy season, you just drive across the river). Surprisingly, they opened it 90 seconds after I abandoned my car and was planning to walk over the bridge (pedestrians were allowed).

Anyone have any contacts at Delta? They still want to charge me a $150 change fee (I’ve called two different numbers at this point US and CR). If this wasn’t an “act of God” that should cover my fee then I don’t know what is. Once they get my $150 here at the airport I’m sure I’ll never see it again…

I’m booked in a hotel for the next two nights (no flights on Friday) and I want to be here (8 kilometers from airport).

I’ll do a “flood blog post” later, it’s gonna be a long one (home come this never happens when it’s sunny?). Wish I had taken more pictures now…

Something just happened. I’d say a huge semi-truck or two just drove by too fast and went through the crazy potholes (or something) but that’s not really possible where I am let alone it would have had to had been a 180 wheeled truck since it lasted a bit. It really shook the place for at least 4-5 seconds (it seemed much longer but I’m guessing it wasn’t) with a short ones a few seconds later about 22 or 23 minutes after midnight. Afterwards, it sounded like a few doors opened up at the hotel but no chatter of what might have happened. I don’t know how common earthquakes are here. I know I’ve never felt anything like it!

I’ve been looking on-line and finally found some data! It was a 4.3 Magnitude earthquake!!!! Not sure how big that is, but I’m from Michigan so…

The event id for this is “us2008wnan” as it’s official designation (I guess). This is the closest seismogram I could find from a drum recorder (are they still actually drums?) which happens to be the Volcano at Rincon de la Vieja, you can clearly see in the second block of 15 minutes after midnight the needle went a little crazy. Here’s some info on reading the seismograms.

Looking at the attached right-hand image (the “A” is the estimated center), I’m guessing it centered about 25-30 miles from here (Tamarindo). The smaller left-hand image has some time/date info with location info (and no other earthquake boxes for the last week in Costa Rica).

This was at 10.490°N, 85.851°W, a 4.3 magnitude and 39.7 miles (63.9 km) deep. Could this have been picked up as far os New Mexico or Oregon? Or were those coincidental marks on their graphs? Finding this I’m going to say “yes” (I found this in the morning).

I’ll keep adding data as I find it! It’s been two hours I’ve been collecting info, I’m off to bed, gotta get up in the morning to catch a flight.

The power has blinked off and on more than a few times today, but not during any of the storms so I don’t know what’s going on. I suppose there could be storms somewhere else (duh!). I did notice many more police out tonight than the last few days maybe they do that when there are power failures…

But now it’s been off for a few minutes. So no fans, no A/C and I’m assuming no running water since I can’t hear the toilet running any more. At least it’s been cool this evening.

It’s just surprising since there have been so many cRaZy storms this trip that I sensed no outage before today.

FYI – It was only out about 5 minutes….

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 was awesome) since I talked about it last week when I was there…

Is it “an YouTube”?

I was prepared to check in, looked at the time and tried it. But my laptop is still on Michigan time so it’s not 24 hours before the flight so I can’t check in. I guess that explains why they didn’t e-mail me about it yet. But I can change my seats so I did that while I was there.

I did manage to plant myself in a big block of empty seats on the way up to Atlanta from Liberia. Not as empty as the way down but should be not to crowded (on the way down many of us had a whole row).

From Atlanta to Detroit I see they have this layout (see image) but right now I’m in the yellow seat. One of those double blue seats would have more room as long as no one else squeezes in. Otherwise my yellow seat seems better. Any thoughts?

They’re pretty full so for now I think I’ll wait until closer to the flight to check again…

Later: It’s time for check in, but they wouldn’t let me so I guess I’ll have to do it all at the airport.

It’s raining out today, pretty hard actually, but I’ve got my covered porch and my high-speed internet so I’m okay from an entertainment standpoint. I’d much rather it be sunny but it’s rainy season and I knew that before I came here. It’s nice and cool out so I don’t need to even have the A/C on. Also, knowing there are a few places to go around here that I can actually park at helps me mentally with the rain.

Knowing how much better I actually feel mentally and physically makes me feel better:)

But it doesn’t look like it’s going to clear up soon (see below image). Clicking the image shows you a live weather view of Costa Rica. I’m around the “155″ highway marker on the most left part.

Maps courtesy of Google Maps and Weather Underground.

Can you tell I’m feeling more “normal” today?

Last Friday, I went for a walk during lunch and made you a video. I’m right across the street from where my seminar was. You got the first take since I was on a short time frame

I was standing at the East side of the pond about a quarter way up the pond from the road (see map below). I wish I’d had my sunglasses (squint!).

If it won’t play above then you can go watch it at YouTube.

This is a map of La Sabana Park in San Jose. You should be able to zoom in + out and move about like all Google maps. Zoom out a few clicks to see how large it is!

View Larger Map

I shot a video of the guys on the Zip Line too (sorry about the glare).

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. Let’s just say Saturday morning I made a few too many trips to the restroom that I went to the farmacia before I left San Jose. I purchased some pills and some electrolyte mixture to add to water. Then I headed out to Samara still feeling lousy. When I stopped for lunch I couldn’t find the medicine anywhere but then I got to my hotel I tore everything apart and still couldn’t find the medicine. And, of course, all the pharmacies were closed by then.

My symptoms got worse as the day went on. That night I got up at least forty times during the night and it got worse as the night went on. The next day, Sunday, all the pharmacies and doctor’s offices were closed so I head on out to the hospital in Nicoya. If I was leaving town, then I was going to see a Doctor…

The hospital in Nicoya was about what I expected not much of a building, no Air Conditioning (fortunately it had been raining and was slightly cool) and they said the Doctor’s did not speak English. I checked in and sat down in the crowd. I starting translating words to Spanish so it’d go faster when I saw the Doctor. I expected to be waiting for hours but I’d say it was only about twenty minutes. The Doctor said he didn’t know English but between what I wrote down and what he knew, we only had to look up a few words. He sent me for an IV and some tests; the IV was really a huge syringe and it as at least an inch-and-a-quarter around and five inches long. It wasn’t too bad but it made me a little dizzy, which they didn’t want to understand as they’re trying to move me to the next room (when I plopped on the a chair and stopped, I think they got the hint).

All of these things had a very short wait except for waiting for the test results. The test results were at least two hours. Then waiting for the Doctor took a while which would have been fine if I could have sat down and not queued up where they had us. He prescribed what I assume to be a similar electrolyte mixture and some pills (more for the stomach pain I believe). Total time four maybe four-and-a-half hours.

The room for the IV was the nicest and I didn’t even need to try and say “utilice por favor una aguja nueva”; it was a specific sentence in the Costa Rican Spanish book for the phrase “please use a new needle”, I assumed it was in there for a reason. Some of the rooms were more warehouse-ish than anything with roofed cubicles in and around the building. FYI – the office for the Doctor and the syringe room were both air conditioned but that was it. I’m sure the building would freak many of you out

I got a receipt for the 40,000 colones (about $73) but it’s lacking info so we’ll see what Blue Cross does with it when I try to submit it…

So, I left there and headed towards the main highway, I would have sworn there was an “American Hotel” that I was planning to splurge for but I couldn’t find it. So I drove all the way to Tamarindo (second largest city?) and grabbed the second hotel I tried (the first one was full). I was still sick for about a day and a half, but I was slowly getting better. Part of the problem was that I wasn’t eating either, I normally graze and eat 4-5 times a day but I was averaging less than I meal a day. Monday night, I forced myself out for a second meal hoping only for some soup and a sandwich, and while I’d normally avoid an American chain while I vacation, the Subway fit that requirement for me. I took it back to my room and the soup was so good and I nibbled on the sandwich over the next few hours. From then on I’ve only been feeling better.

It’s Tuesday and I’m not perfect but I’m way better. I’m eating (most of three meals I’ve had) and I got more of a similar electrolyte solution from the farmacia today. I’ve felt well enough to wander around town and the beach a few times and I’m in a hotel I really like so that makes it even better…

I 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).I couldn’t find this place in my GPS so here’s the info N 10°17.917 W 085°50.401. I would hope that would get you to a few meters of the spot.

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.

Here’s a random batch of photos from the past few days in Costa Rica. These mostly have some titles or captions to go with them.

Just an assorted few that I enjoyed and I hope you will too!

 

One of the things I’m doing this trip is attending a seminar by the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR). They offer this the last Thursday/Friday of every month (but December) for only $65. I’ve had this on my to do list for a while but it just hasn’t worked out previously, it is specifically why I chose now for this trip and not a few weeks later.

It’s pretty much what I hoped for so far a bunch of short little presentations (about nine a day). Of course everyone who does a presentation passes out their contact info, but it really is more of a presentation on the topic not selling their business. The one topic I hoped for, but didn’t really expect, was about working in Costa Rica. We have about 25 people in our group, mostly from US and Canada; mostly retirees or soon to be about five of us weren’t near the retirement range but want to relocate.

FYI: Really good snacks for break: OJ, coffee, some kind of pastry and little crustless sandwiches.

I talked to one of the people, Ray, a few times beforehand via e-mail and telephone before coming and he was very helpful.

I’d definitely recommend this seminar if you are thinking of relocating or retiring to Costa Rica.

I have some photos from the ferry ride from Paquera to Puntarenas uploaded.

 

 

The proper name of the hotel is Occidental Torremolinos (Occidental owns a bunch of hotels, but I’m not certain if it’s a “chain” or what) it’s a two floor hotel built in a square (hollow in the center) with an outside pool/hot tub and some tables outside in the middle. It is a nice standard “American” hotel and it’s located just off the edge of a busy area but it’s not too busy by the hotel. The room is standard “Holiday Inn” but with nicer finishing touches it was about $80 for the night.

I walked around last night and my only real complaint is there were too many American chain restaurants (there were a lot of Chinese restaurants but not in one particular area, they were scattered all over) the neighborhood seemed fine. Lots of Internet cafe’s all over the place.

This is a boring review but I always have a hard time deciding where to stay when in big cities and San Jose is pretty big so I thought I’d offer the basics.

Breakfast is free, in a nice dining room, it had juices, fruits, some Kellogg’s cereals, scrambled eggs and some kind of sausages but a bit below a full blown buffet but as included breakfasts go, it was great. Air conditioner, ceiling fan, TV, hair dryer and coffee pot in the room. There was a phone in the room which definitely not standard in the costa areas but I guess I’ve had them downtown and near the airport. The have a few old Windows machines with free Internet off the lobby, but WiFi is $8 a day (I think it’s accessible from the rooms too). Free semi-guarded parking too.

It’s very near the big Parque Metropolitano La Sabana, if you’ve ever seen a map of San Jose it’s the huge park in the middle of town. I haven’t had a chance to go in it yet this trip, I did go in about nine years ago so we’ll see how it changed. I mistakenly stayed in San Jose my first trip, I only say mistakenly in that I just needed to spend the night until friends showed up the next day, but the San Jose airport is not in San Jose (just like the Detroit airport is not in Detroit) I should have stayed neared the airport in that case.

If I had to stay in town I wouldn’t hesitate to stay there again (and I decided to stay Friday and leisurely leave on Saturday).Hotel Occidental Torremolinos
Calle 40 y Avenida 5 bis
San Jose, Costa Rica

Phone: 011 (506) 2 222-5266
Fax: 011 (506) 2 255-3167
San Jose West, San Jose, Costa Rica

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!

So 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…

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.

So this rain is making me a little crazy today. It’s been pouring on and off all day. I’d use it as a day to stay inside and catch up on the internet but it’s satellite and the rain goofs up the signal. So needless to say I’m a little bored today.

It’s to be expected as it is the “green” season but I was just hoping for a little less. Talking with a few German women in my hotel they said this is only one of three really rainy days that they’ve had and they’ve been here six months.

Although, it’s coming down insane right now and I’m in this restaurant with no walls and it’s really nice with all the rain noise and seeing the rain pouring over the edges of the roof. It’s not bright enough in most of the restaurants to read while you wait but the laptop lights itself so while it’s geeky it’s practical. Although a zip-lock bag would be more practical than the vinyl backpack I brought it here in…

I did get a chance to use faster Internet in Cabano today but it was so warm inside I didn’t stay too long or else I could have hung out there longer. I did use the internet to make a few phone calls and Mom was on-line so I got to video conference with her; for some reason it’s way more exciting to video-conference from Costa Rica than from 30 miles away.

With the rain it was too cloudy to go catch the sunset in Manzanillo, maybe tomorrow (I’ll probably go there and eat even if it’s raining).

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, I had this last trip and loved it. We actually saw the waiter eating it at a different restaurant and it looked so good and he looked like he was really enjoying it so much Mark & I both tried to order it so he had to confess it was from down the street. So we came here a few days later to try it out ourselves. That’s not how I usually get my restaurant recommendations but it worked.

I guess it’s like the old barbershop brain-teaser: “There are two barbers in town, one has a great haircut and one has a bas one. Who do you go to get your hair cut at?” And you need to say “the one with the bad haircut, because he’s the one who cut the other barber’s hair (the one with the good cut)”.

I just wished they had Fresca in a glass bottle instead of the can; I really like drinking out of a cold bottle…

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. But I was in a hurry because I couldn’t get them to bring me my “la quinta” (the check) where I had a late lunch (going faster didn’t help settle my meal).

Here’s a dozen photos of the Mal Pais Sunset.

The below map should show you where Mal Pais is. It’s near the bottom of the peninsula; you can click the “-” to zoom out an see where that fits in to the rest of the country (world). You can see Montezuma to the right and above it a little.

View Larger Map

So I tried to open a bank account today. Why? Because bank access in the southern Nicoya peninsula is very limited and the one bank they do have never lets me use my ATM so I thought an account might be useful. I was just thinking a few hundred dollars for emergencies and then it would be established already or if I needed money wired here a bank account would be handy (I could wire it to myself from the US while I was here, I checked with my Michigan bank on this already). I had e-mailed the Costa Rican bank (Banco Nacional) a week or two ago about this, but never got a response.

So I waited and waited and then finally I got to to wait some more. Then I asked at a different desk, because if I don’t have what I need, I don’t need to be waiting and got a very helpful guy whose english was good enough for us to figure it out. Turns out I need

a passport,

a local address / phone,

a few letters of refererence from other banking institutions (these made me feel like I was living in older times); they said a hotel would do for the address/phone but some coordination would have to be done since they wanted proof (like a utility bill) but what I was asking for was not unheard of,

a minimum deposit was $10 (obviously for emergencies that was much less than I planned).

So I’ll get some letters from the bank and be ready to take care of these when I need to.

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.m

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 more last night (I did check two others that were full). I found one that is nicer and cheaper, $30 a night which includes A/C and hot water. Don’t laugh at the “A/C and hot water comment”, some hotels have 4 prices based on which combination that you would like. As long as I sleep okay here, I think I’ll stay here until I have to go to San Jose on Wednesday.

So after I moved I went up to the waterfalls which was a little more exciting than usual, with all the rain the current was really flowing. When I got up there to swim it was pretty quiet (in terms of people) the the falls were raging with all the extra water. I tried swimming but the current was too much for me, I’m not that great of a swimmer and certainly out of practice. Hung out there for a while, for as dead as it was when I got there, I think it got the busiest I’ve even seen it. Not the best picture of me, but it’s the only one I have of me so far.

So since I didn’t wear myself out swimming I decided to hike it up to the upper falls. Another difference because of the rain a few recent downed trees and lots of mud. But I got up there just fine. Unfortunately, right when I got up top I dropped my bottle of gatorade! So that meant I really had to ration my other bottle of water on the way back; I usually take 3 bottles total (of water or gatorade) I was so thirsty on the way down but I made it. It fell pretty far and I’ve climb that part before (to get to the lower fall of the upper falls) but where I usually climb had loads of water running down it.

Here’s the cRaZy spot where you have to climb down to the upper falls. This is while I was halfway down rope looking down and looking up (fuzzy), it’s really not as bad as it looks

Stats according to my GPS: I climbed from 97 feet altitude to 572 feet, but I actually ascended over 600 feet and it was a total of 4 miles for the round trip. (But now I need to go double-check since none of that was meters or miles and I thought I had all that switched to metric; I’m certain it was “feet”, maybe it was 4 kilometers?)

All photos should be clickable for a larger version (but not very large, the ‘net is really slow here).

For some reason I was really thinking Costa Rica was only an hour off from Michigan right now. It’s actually two hours off so that might my flight feel much much longer since I had it in my head wrong.

Not the most exciting thing to tell you, but I keep noticing my clock on the computer is off by 2 hours so maybe this will stop me from thinking about it…

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 five days than to take a taxi and it was WAY too hot to try public transportation (taxi then bus then taxi then ferry then another 2 buses or a taxi) and I couldn’t find any kind of shuttles. I rented some little wind up 4×4 which ran really well for me. I really didn’t think the drive would be that long from the airport but it was.

The view was beautiful for the start of the ride. But while it was great out I knew from the clouds the afternoon showers would be starting. After a while it started to rain so I thought it’d be a good time to stop for lunch since it might be a while before the next town (especially since I was starving). But then after I got back on the road it poured for a really really long time. I wasn’t concerned about the rain affecting my driving, I was worried about the road farther up ahead. I was afraid the road might get washed out on the stretch that kind of separates the lower and upper sections of the Nicoya Peninsula (between Narango and Paquera) they’re actually in different providences (or something like that). The roads weren’t too bad when I got up there, but remember my expectations were it would be “washed out” so it was still pretty bad, didn’t have to drive through any actual rivers this time (yet!).

The sun set around 6 PM (5:54 at this location according to my trusty GPS) so I drove the last 75 minutes in the dark but it was mostly paved so the night driving wasn’t so bad but the last 4 miles were awful (as always). The rain really slowed down my total drive but I think that way isn’t optimum even if it was sunny, the other airport (San Jose) is better for Montezuma.

I did get to see some really great scenery earlier in the day

Town was really hopping, the bar they always say is the hot spot (Chico’s) was packed. But I was so pooped from my long day I went to be early…

So my Mom got me an early birthday present, it’s a portable Garmin eTrex Vista HCx GPS. This has been on my Costa Rica to do list so she asked me what I wanted at just the right time. Obviously, it’s a specific model I picked out for her and it’s been great the little bit of time I’ve played with it this past week. It’s got the color display, the compass (this is an extra) and the memory chip expansion. It’s a whole lot easier to us than I expected it was almost Apple-ish in it’s use, but there are too many buttons (it’d need a touch screen to make it a little more intuitive).

As of right now it’s telling me we’re at 7,284 feet and traveling at 527 miles per hour (we’re somewhere south of Cuba). That’s seems a little low to me (I thought they didn’t let us use electronics until 10,000 or 15,000 feet) but maybe it’s having a hard time tracking out the window of the plane (but that’s not really my area either). I’ll be sure to upload some of the tracking info later superimposed on a map. I’ve always been into maps so it’s a fun gadget for me.

I wanted it for Costa Rica for a few reasons:

the signage for the roads are awful and since some of the roads are so bad you don’t want to backtrack unless you have to.

When I’m hiking I’d really like to know how far I’ve wandered away from civilization and have a better idea if I’m walking in circles.

Maps here aren’t the greatest so maybe one of the Points Of Interest (POI) will help me find something I’ve been missing.This portable unit only has basic highways and major roads (roads like Telegraph and Michigan) for the US, it’s assumed you’re using this for specifics like hiking any you’re going to buy the topographical maps for it, but it does have exit numbers for the highways and food and gas info for those spots. I think you need to purchase the local maps for turn-by-turn directions but I never got a chance to play with that.

In anticipation for this trip did purchase the detailed maps for Costa Rica. The unit had very limited details before that upgrade, although I think it still would have helped me orient myself quite a bit. I purchased them from www.NavSatCR.com who does about 3 updates a year and then I can purchase future years for a lot less. They actually sell cheaper 10 day and 30 day versions so if it’s just a one time trip you don’t have to invest as much, but those maps actually stop working after that time frame (I purchased the non-expiring ones). From reading around, the folks at NavSatCR seem to be the place for Costa Rican GPS maps.

I also purchased a mount for handle bars so if I rent an ATV, scooter or bicycle it’ll help with getting around that way too.

As I’m wrapping up writing this, we just left the air above the Atlantic Ocean and passed into El Salvador…

This was the easiest layover I think I’ve ever had. I needed to go to gate E29 and when I got off the plane I was at E31, right next door! Usually I have to traipse all over the place but I still figured I’d have a long ways to go to get food and convienently there was a great food court around E25-ish. So there was no rushing no running it’s was great. I managed to get McBreakfast, pick up a cold sandwich for the flight and there was free WiFi to do a quick check of my mail.

And the flight? I have a whole row to myself. Actually, if everyone spread out I think every one could have their own row (out of the back 9 rows there are only 5 of us). The pilot thought it was a little bumpy for a while because of the tropical storm so it was a while before they passed out snacks but I thought it was fine.

I’m always trying to loosen up my shoes when I travel so I decided to wear sandals for this trip. Then I got to security it and remembered why I never where sandals, because you have to take your shoes off (yuk!). Plus, I kept forgetting stuff in my pockets (and then my belt) so I had to go in and out through the scanner a few times stretching the experience out. At least there wasn’t anyone behind me so I wasn’t holding people up.

The flight to Atlanta wasn’t very full, it looked really full on-line when reserving seats and the staff seemed to think it was going to be full so maybe a connecting flight didn’t make it. I moved seats and I’ve had more than enough space. My connecting flight looks really really empty so I’m hoping for 3 empty seats for a nap, I did not get near enough sleep last night.

Curbside check-in: They were really pushing for you to just check in at the curb when I confirmed my flight. But they were so slow and it was really humid out so I decided to go inside. As I was heading in I saw a sign that said it was $3 a bag, I thought that was pretty lame to charge us if it’s helping decongest their floor traffic inside, but I guess if the line inside was long and you were running late it’d be worth it.

Everything has been really smooth so far…

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 was with me) didn’t sit still. We moved hotels almost every night and probably saw an additional town or two each day while we traveled. Not exactly my preferred way to travel but that’s because we had a mission for this trip…

I love the small town Montezuma, located at the south end of the Nicoya Peninsula (just above Cabuya on the map to the right), but the mission was to find some other towns that I might like. I wanted someday to spend a few months in Costa Rica, my concern was that I’d rent a place for a few months and then realize that I liked the next town over since I hadn’t done much exploring from that perspective.

So we drove around like cRaZy checking out towns and staying different places and checking out different areas to see if there was anything I liked better. Montezuma was still my favorite but it’s definitely more isolated than some of the other towns. Tamarindo was a large town but a lot busier than I was hoping for but it pretty much had everything you need. Samara was a medium to small town that I didn’t get to explore enough. But comparatively Montezuma was a tiny town, but for some reason seems to fit me just right…

So the school system in the State of Michigan has an option as part of it’s retirement plan. You can actually “purchase” up to five years of work (called Universal Buy-In) and then then when you have twenty-five years of work into the system it actually counts as thirty so you can retire five years early. Now it’s a convoluted formula based on your age, your maximum salary and how many years you have in the system; so the younger you are and the least you make they cheaper it is. Plus, they’ll take the money out of your check pre-tax dollars so you can get into this deal for as about $35 less every two-weeks (that’s $50 pre-tax). When I got in on the deal the plan was better, now they charge you interest on what you owe, so now you’re better off paying it off fast, before you had to spread it out. (Warning: if you’re bored now, the post really doesn’t get much more interesting. The part in bold near the bottom is the slightly/semi-interesting part that caused me to write this post.)

I recommend this plan* to people who are in the Michigan retirement system and I always mention it to the new teachers at school. The younger you are when you start the cheaper this will be; I don’t want to hear you say you can’t afford it, you can start this at about $17 a week, that’s not that much and it should really pay off in the long run.

In my case, I didn’t hear about it until I had been in the system for a few years so it wasn’t cheap but since I knew I’d get five extra years of retirement payments so it seemed like a deal to me. I had it spread out evenly over the years I had left so it’s been getting paid down slowly.More details: If you leave the system (aren’t employed for a while by this system) they credit the years you’ve paid for and if you come back they’ll redo the above calculation with you being older, making more, having more years in system and factor in interest. This didn’t sound like such a good deal to me. Also, If you don’t actually work the 25 years, you have to wait until you’re sixty years old and it just increases your payment (or I think you can roll it in to some other kind of retirement).

So late last year I decided I wanted this paid off work was way too stressful late last year and I felt as if I could quit at any time, so I increased my contribution quit a bit. It wasn’t going very fast so I stopped contributing to my other IRA/403b retirement-type things and put almost all of my check into paying this off (I lived off of savings in the meantime) and eight paychecks later I was done. Hopefully, putting that much in pre-tax doesn’t goof up my exemptions come tax time.

This allowed me a few different things:

I don’t have to make those payments anymore.

I could move or take another job and not be concerned about this (if I left and wanted to pay it off it’d be one huge non pre-tax payment).

I could leave this retirement system for a few years and come back and this part is already taken care of.

It was something I didn’t have to worry about anymore. I don’t like payments and since I paid it off it was something I didn’t even need to think about. I don’t even like thinking about payments, my house is really my only thing that I owe money on. Now I need to replenish the savings that I lived off of but that’s different feeling altogether…

* I’m not a financial consultant nor do I portray one on TV (does anyone?), this is just my own thoughts on this.

The Tico Times is the english weekly paper from Costa Rica. For the last eight months I’ve been subscribing to the paper edition of The Tico Times. I’ve mentioned my Tico Times delivery issues before, it usually takes a while to get to Michigan but it’s much easier to read on paper than on the screen (they also offer a PDF subscription).

I’ve wanted to see what’s going on in the country when I’m not visiting. I’ve been paying attention to opinion pages, letters to the editor, classifieds and more local ads. Of the five times I’ve been there it’s all been in April or between the end of November and beginning of January (and really only covering half-a-dozen different weeks) so I’ve really only seen a portion of the year while there. So I’ve been paying more attention to the non-tourist type articles; when I’m there traveling I’m generally looking more for what’s going on there at that time.

So I’ve had thoughts for a plan for Costa Rica, I’ve had it for a while but haven’t specifically verbalized it very much. I think maybe the closest I’ve gotten to verbalizing it is in my 101 in 1001 list, the item that says “Decide if I might actually want to live in Costa Rica” the result has been blank but as the plan proceeds you’ll get the gist of which direction I’m heading…

A few of these will be long posts and some will be short, some might just refer back to some earlier posts that fit in with “the plan”.

I knew Costa Rica didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day on the same day that we celebrate in the U.S. but I didn’t know why. It’s celebrated on Assumption Day the day when the Virgin Mary (Jesus’s Mother) was “was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory”. Antwerp (Belgium) also celebrates Mother’s Day on on August 15th which falls on a Friday this year.

So on the left is my buddy Mark, I think I’ve been on four vacations with him and I think this is only the second picture of us at a destination. I’m pretty sure this is in Manzanillo, Costa Rica on the Pacific side of the Nicoya Peninsula (if not, it’s pretty close to there); it’s the fourth town from the southern tip.

I used my cool new QuikPod to take the picture. Last time we got Carla the waitress to take the picture; it was in a little bar in Jaco that doesn’t exist any more. Since there was no one else around, QuikPod to the rescue. It’s a kind of a stick with a tripod mount and a little mirror so you can take pictures of yourself.

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 too, that’s really the appeal for some people. I think there is a few surf camps and lots of lessons when we were on the beach.

But the town is mostly just a bunch of spread out stores spaced out along a very very very dusty road. You can see from this Santa Teresa Map how everything is spread out (that main road is a “city block” or two from the beach).

We stayed at the Beach Break Surf Hotel, nothing fancy on the inside (2 beds, A/C , TV and a bathroom) but perfectly clean and functional with a nice porch (I think we got it at a good rate), I’d definitely go back. This was the hotel with the great staff that came around with flashlights when the power went out in twon. Actually, the only reason we stayed in that town was it was the day we had to backtrack because we hit the river that we didn’t know how to cross ()read that as we didn’t know where to drive to get across the river).

I’m sure there are a few more hotels on the beach if you drive down a driveway, but I need a town (even if it’s a tiny one) to wander over to to eat and do some people watching. Some people love Santa Teresa but so far, it’s just not for me…

But I will give it another try next trip, it is just “around the corner” from Montezuma….

So on day one, we had just checked into the hotel and headed out to dinner and the power went out. The restaurant put out some candles, the stove was gas (probably propane) and they were ready to go. Twenty or thirty minutes later it was back on.

I know they have some power problems in the country but that was the longest one I’ve ever experienced (at least at night). I’ve never seen anything last more than a few minutes. But we had a few more as the trip went on, a few short ones and a really long one (a hour or so?). Everyone just rolls with it, it’s semi-expected, but still inconvenient (especially if hot) and as I said, I’ve been pretty lucky on my previous four trips.

It gets really dark out there when there are no city lights even in the distance. I always keep a mini-flashlight in my travel bag, but for places where I want to be outside at night (like CR) I take a few with, so it wasn’t too much of a problem for us. The small hotel we were at did knock on doors and pass out flashlights to the rooms.

So driving along the side of the road somewhere in the vacinity of Playa’s Lagarto and Pitahaya (I think). There were some money’s alongside of the road. There were a dozen or so at a time but it’s really hard to see them. Here’s an animated movie of a monkey with a baby on it’s back (if that does work, try this MPEG-4 version). I’ve sen a few computers that couldn’t load the previous two options, here’s a YouTube link. I’ll animate a few of the others when I figure out a better way.

I never knew what kind they were; they’re were darker than other monkeys that I’ve seen down there before and didn’t have the white fur on their faces.

Why the silly title of this post? Because one of us got pooped on (and it wasn’t me!).

I had such good intentions on getting more Costa Rica blogging done (especially some more photos) the past few days and it didn’t happen…

And here I am getting ready to head out to East Lansing to catch a performance of Avenue Q so I expect I won’t get much done today either…