Category Archives: Costa Rica

Costa Rica! My most often traveled vacation spot. I usually stick along the (north) Pacific coast, usually in Montezuma.

My Trip – random update/thoughts

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

It’s definitely getting cooler on some of the evenings. I was actually chilly down on the beach last night.

I can’t believe it’s Saturday already.

I wandered down to the Ylang Ylang resort to use their internet, they have the best in the area. I”m in a hammock in the dark posting the old stuff and typing this short post. It’s not as comfy as it sounds.

It’s really humid this evening.

I think I’m staying in Montezuma (or at least this peninsula) for the rest of the trip.

Just so you know…

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

This also might get confusing since I may have typed something and not posted it but when I’m out and see an internet cafe and post something new. Then later I might actually get around to connecting my computer and posting the older note. So you might miss something, sorry about that but I generally try to keep them chronological to when I wrote them.

For example (actually, specifically), I wrote the entries about arriving in Montezuma and the phones yesterday but didn’t have a way to post them. Then I wandered by an internet cafe to check mail but it was SO slow I posted the slow internet message and left. But today I have reasonable access so I’m posting all the entries I wrote yesterday (and the photos) but they’ll appear before the slow internet message so you may miss them…

You better go find it since it does link to more photos!

The Internet is SO slow in Montezuma!

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

Showing up in Montezuma…

Today was just a travel day. Packing, travel, checking in, unpacking, eating and picking up supplies. I’m in the same room as last time I was at the El Sano Banano, it’s the place with the awesome air conditioning. Here’s a street map of Montezuma, the map is kind big, but you can see most of the stuff is in the middle. Sometimes they spell Montezuma as Moctezuma, so I switch it around a bit too (mostly for the search engines).

It’s evening now and nice and cool out. I’m getting dinner (at L’angolo Allegro), some homemade pasta (no meat, I accidentally picked a vegetarian place), bread and a glass bottle of Fresca. It was very nicely presented, I should have taken a photo.

This is the town where they do the fire show (dancing and breathing) in the streets so I’m hoping for a show one of the next few nights. Tomorrow morning there is some kind of market (Saturday) that I want to check out before I hike up to the waterfall.

I’ve got some more photos posted (see set 3 for the latest), They’ve even (mostly) got titles and captions.

I have no idea when I’m actually going to get this entry and the photos posted. ‘Net access around here stinks and while internet cafes are abundent, no one seems to have high speed (that would be some kind of satellite hookup).

(I thought I) Figured the phones out

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

0-800-011-4114

and that gets you an AT&T tone/message and you can dial your 1-800 number that’s on your calling card. Now these are the same notes I had scratched onto my card so I’m not sure if I misread them last time or the new pay phones they put in work more like the much older ones.

Now in the past (when it worked) it always used my minutes conservatively, it said it would use my cards at a 12 to 1 ratio (a 60 minute card would last 5 minutes) but it lasted much longer in the past. Not this time, I only got my 5 minutes that I had on that card (I got the cars from Sam’s Club).

Actually, I only got this to work in Jaco, I tried in Montezuma but no success (yet). I bet they want me to put money in the pay phone, but I’m not certain. Whatever it is, it’s probably the same problem I had last time.

Made it to Montezuma

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

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

I’m staying at the El Sano Banano, I got all settled into my room and ate already. I made a mad dash to their sister resort, Ylang Ylang, but I was too late to catch the Monkeys do their daily swing down the beach :(

Although I am taking advantage of their free Internet to give you this update…

Off to Montezuma in a Water Taxi

Cr Montezuma Jaco Water-TaxiSo I’m off to Montezuma this morning. You can see the ride by car would take forever. The water taxi, pretty much some guy on a boat that’ll hold about 8-10 people/luggage, will take about an hour. If experience holds, it’ll take longer since it’ll be way late. I sure hope it doesn’t rain…

I’ll be at the El Sano Banano, it’s a little hotel (in a little town), but I have access to their resort way down the beach. I’d consider staying down there but there is no A/C in their cabanas.

That’s all for now I’ve gotta shower and finish packing and get a taxi to get me to the water taxi (it’s actually at the next town north).

Thursday in Jaco

Sunset2007-11-29 18-14-01.Img 7041I don’t even have enough time to cover everything I did today. I mostly ate, slept and wandered all over the place. I also made my plans for tomorrow (which you’ll hear later).

Weather wise, it was an awesome day. Sunny, the humidity was down (or I’m used to it), the sunset was awesome. The weather stunk in Michigan, thus that makes the exchange rate for the money worth even more to me :)

The sunset was awesome, the previous few days were no comparison! This is one of my favorite sunset photos from today.

I’ve also got a second album uploaded (be sure to pick “Set 2”).