BootsnAll Travel Network
Add this blog to: MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines, RSS


Archive for the 'Costa Rica' Category

« Home

Last words from Central America

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

The bus ride to San Jose was pretty long…something like 17 hours. The bus company tried to kill the boredom by throwing on movie after movie. Four in a row. At first I was like, why don’t they turn the volume up? Well, that’s because it’s subtitled in Spanish,and there’s no need to listen to all that English jabbering if it’s not needed. So, I successfully watched 4 movies with Spanish subtitles, and although I missed a line here and there, was totally in tune with what was going on, surprisingly. [read on]

Posted in Costa Rica | 1 Comment »

Giving thanks for no chicken

Monday, December 5th, 2005

I have to say that the weather really kind of sucked the whole time I was in Puerto Viejo. I heard there’s supposed to be great beaches and lots of surfing (not that I surf, but I’d like to watch some…I had a glimpse of a few guys having a go at it). Well, it was cold and rainy the whole time I was there. Now, cold means something like in the 60s, so I understand that it’s nothing like in Chicago. But, when you’re used to the 70s and 80s, hot, humid, and sunny, well then 60s and rainy is cold. [read on]

Posted in Costa Rica | 2 Comments »

Saving turtles

Monday, December 5th, 2005

I met some people at the hotel, who offered me a free ride to the boat launch place to Tortuguero, which was pretty cool. We drove past tons of Chiquita banana plantations. They put these blue plastic bags around them, and I’ve heard lots of different reasons for this…it keeps the bats and bugs away, they’re loaded with pesticides (which weaken their flavor), and it helps them grow bigger by holding heat and humidity in. I don’t know which of these are true, but I’ve heard the pesticides thing twice…maybe check if your Chiquita bananas are from Costa Rica and not buy them. It should say right on the sticker where they’re from. I heard bananas from Equador are good. Anyway, banana trees take 9 months to grow (from seed, or maybe just from really small), and they produce one stalk of bananas, and that’s it. At every tree, you see a little baby one starting to grow, to keep the supply running. I thought this was some pretty interesting banana information. [read on]

Posted in Costa Rica | 1 Comment »

Diggin’ the fiery bowels of the Earth

Thursday, December 1st, 2005

Crossing the border into Costa Rica was no problem. From the immigration office in San Carlos, Nicaragua, we were loaded onto a boat and taken down the Rio Frio into Los Chiles, Costa Rica. On the boat I met a girl working for Lonely Planet. I must say that their research is conducted quite differently than I thought. They don’t stay overnight at every hotel, and they don’t eat at every restaurant. They get paid a stipend for each travel project, and if they spend less, they keep the rest, but if they spend more, well, then that’s out of their pocket. Anyway, it was raining pretty nicely when I got into town and tried to find the hotel…got some directions from some old ladies who were really nice, but there was no answer at the door. I went back to the old ladies, asking them for another hotel. They insisted that I go back to that one because the others are “very ugly” (that’s the way they say that they’re awful, in direct translation). They told me just to knock louder or wait awhile, because maybe the guy’s in the bathroom (gotta love old ladies). I went back, and the man came running up the street with a plate of food or something. I was put in the “Tropical Suite”. The only thing tropical was a painting of a toucan on the wall. Otherwise, the room was completely bare and it reeked of mothballs. [read on]

Posted in Costa Rica | 1 Comment »