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Yesterday’s (Sunday’s) Chicago Tribune posted a traveler’s alert in its travel section. It seems that with the addition of the new tourism police, crimes against tourists have decreased by as much as thirty percent in tourist destinations. Today’s A.M. Costa Rica carries a story about an alert tourist who helped police nab some ladrones who were trying to steal his luggage. With the additional police and common sense about staying alert in a foreign country, no one should feel any discomfort about traveling in Costa Rica.
Many years ago I read a travel tip about buying gas. Never pull your car up so far that you can’t read the meter on the pump. I personally get out of my vehicle and talk to the attendants as the gas is being pumped. They have always been friendly and honest and they provide an opportunity for me to practice my Spanish.
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Doc Bob
I went back to La Nacion and clicked on the link. It opened an e-mail page and offered no new information; just a way to contact the subscription department. I’m heading down to Grecia soon and am too busy now to follow up right now. I’ll contact them when I return in September. If you’re still interested in the info, I’ll let you know what I learn after I get back. If you decide to check it out yourself, I’d appreciate your letting me know what the subscriptions fees are
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Doc Bob,
Of course, Scott’s advice is gold, as is usual. However, if you really prefer to hold paper in your hand, here’s how I located it: at the bottom of the left column is a box labeled “Qienes Somos” and one entry is “Preguntas Frequencia.” Number 16 of the frequently asked questions is How can I subscribe to the daily in paper. They provide a link but that’s as far as I took it. You can check out the site, if you like.
Are you thinking of using the paper as a way to brush up your Spanish skills? I think I will go back and check the subscription site. If they have a Sunday delivery option, I might sign up.
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Well Roark, I have to admit that I am kind of envious of anyone who makes more than five hundred million dollars a year. Greed is a pretty common human trait. However I like to hope that most people limit their greed to where it stops short of harming innocent people.
A lot of these people whom you think deserve these outrageous salaries are causing hard times that will last for generations for hundreds, probably thousands, of families. Unscrupulous CEOs improve their bottom lines by raiding employees’ pensions, or by downsizing longtime employees, or by cutting benefits.
These workers have to change plans for retirement, or for their kids’ education, or for medical treatment. While they find their life plans ripped to shreds, the CEOs pick up a nice enough bonus at the end of the year to buy a pretty little chalet in the Rockies. The employees’ children often must forego college, passing disadvantages down through god knows how many generations. The offspring of the CEOs are born rich. They will have advantages throughout their lives that they believe are due to them.
As for the Gordon Gekkos of the world, they are skewing the wage dynamic of the workplace. You say that they are valued for what they bring to the marketplace. What a joke! They shuffle papers and juggle numbers. They’re gamblers. They produce nothing of value to society. How can you actually believe they deserve those stupendous salaries? These people make more money before noon than teachers earn in eight years. According to your value system, teachers don’t bring much value to the marketplace. They are as dirt beneath the feet of the arbitrageur.
I want to escape the culture that lionizes the most greedy among us. I want to live with people who are socially responsible, as are the Ticos. That’s how I define socialism. I guess that makes me a member of the heard (sic) that the libertarians on this forum despise. I’m just a contented cow.
Finally, I still don’t understand why libertarians are so taken with Costa Rica. There are a lot of beautiful countries that are not as socialist as this tiny land. Why do you mavericks want to spend your golden years among a people whose culture is an antithesis to all the values you espouse on this forum? Maybe you’re just lonely?
Viva Costa Rica y la vida pura!
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Scott,
You probably did what I did and googled Humberto Fontova. I also googled Hilda Barrio. She had 350,000 results tied to her name, although after a while the sites were about some woman named Hilda who lived in a barrio and similar non-results. All of the websites that were specifically about her, however, were respectable sites with no axe to grind. On the other hand, it seemed as though the websites that contained Humberto Fontova’s name were pretty much all right-wing rags or blogs written by rabid anti-socialists.
The Fontova family was among the Cubans who fled when Castro came to power. Like all these dispossessed Cubans, Humberto despises anything to do with the Cuban Revolution. It isn’t surprising that he would author a screed denouncing Che.
There are so many books and there is so little time, even for voracious readers. It is important to discern what is valuable and what is garbage. Scott, I’d bet hundred dollars that you won’t read “Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him.”
The way I read Jo Stuart’s article and the Puravida Life Care web site, the 250k is just for the privilege of doing business with Puravida. You aren’t even buying property. I’ll be curious to see how this enterprise pans out.
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I’m glad your dog problem was resolved. A lot of people would have just let the animals run loose to fend for themselves. There are plenty of homeless animals in Costa Rica, but you took an interest in two of them that you didn’t even own. Ignore genincr you’ll make a welcome addition to Costa Rica.
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That’s what I was thinking. Then the question would be: “How common are termites if only a handful of homes claim to be free of them?” And this leads back to the second issue that I brought up in my initial posting: “Are there services that inspect buildings to make sure there are no problems with infestations, substandard wiring or plumbing, etc.).” I wouldn’t mind spending a little extra money to know that l won’t have any major hidden expenses down the road.
Yeah, I can see where beaches would be rated according to the purity of the sand and water, but I’m seeing the description applied to structures. That’s what I’m wondering about.
No, it doesn’t seem to be in any specific area. If it were near the coasts, I could understand the condition, but I’ve seen it on descriptions for homes in the Central Valley (where I’m most interested in settling, as well as near the water.
I have to add my compliments to those extolling this outstanding map. I’ve been collecting Costa Rica maps for a few years now, and have a pretty good collection. However this is the best of the bunch. In fact, just saying this map is the best damns it with faint praise. No other map shows so many secondary roads or roads which need four wheel drive during the rainy season. I’m buying a second map to take on my next CR excursion. The first one is hanging on the wall for quick reference.
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I had the same thoughts as I was writing my post. As I said, I’m no expert, either. The article was written decades ago and my memory about the project is more than a little bit frayed. It may have been that a power source other than the hydroelectric dam was used to pump the water back up to the reservoir. I never saw a follow-up article that spoke to the success or failure of the project. I’m not even sure what publication carried the article. It may have been “Popular Mechanics.” You know, the issue that explained how to build a robot out of vacuum cleaner parts.
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I remember reading a magazine article about 30 years ago about a community that had one reservoir at a high elevation. There was a hydroelectric dam which supplied power to the community, however, it was being strained by increasing usage and decreasing water supplies. The community was in the process of digging another reservoir at a lower elevation.
The plan was to use the dam to generate power during the day as usual, however at night when the demand for electricity was much lower, the community would pump the water back up into the higher reservoir. It would take a lot of energy to do this, but the energy was expended during light usage hours.
I don’t know if this plan worked or not, but I thought it was a unique solution. Of course, I’m not an energy expert either.
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vegasknite
I’ve just returned from a glorious two weeks in the Central Valley and thus a my absence from the forum. I have the opportunity to respond now to your post about my previous comment. Vegasknite, I had hoped that the quotes around the word news would tip you off that I was referring to the information in the article as being familiar to forum members. I guess it was an ill-chosen writing device and I apologize. I understand that the article itself is recently written.
My comment was directed at your statement that negative opinions are not welcome on the discussion forum. There have been plenty of postings that scared the bejezus out of me. Accusing scottbenson of trying to stifle negative comments is off base. He isn’t saying that we should only focus on the good side of Costa Rica. He is saying that immigrants to this “paradise” aren’t in a position to charge in like John Wayne and make everything right.
It seems to be a common trait in Americans to want to take charge and show others the correct way to do things (i.e., in this case, how to prevent violent crime in Costa Rica). The problem is that Costa Ricans don’t want their country to become a mini U.S.A. So, if you are talking about changing Costa Rica’s culture or government, forget it. The best that we can do is, as individuals, to avoid dangerous places and situations.
Thank you for your brief curriculum vitae, vegasknite. I’m impressed with the dangerous areas where you have lived and worked. I also live in a large city, (Chicago) and there are neighborhoods that I would not go into in broad daylight, let alone after dark. Also, I wouldn’t walk through the most upscale neighborhoods with a hundred dollar bill hanging out of my pocket. These neighborhoods are often populated with numerous lawyers and politicians and that c-note wouldn’t last one block.
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