By Jerry Glover Welcome and bienvenidos to Quepos and Manuel Antonio. Fishing continues to be very good in our area. A few Marlin, and Sailfish are being released daily with 10 to 15 Sailfish being raised and boats reporting landing 6 to 12 Sails on full day charters. Mahi Mahi
Read MoreThese Horoscopes are meant to be fun and enjoyed. They should not be taken too seriously. PISCES – February 19-March 20 You will discover a secret about the Spice Girls-most of them can’t tell Cumin from Coriander. In fact some of them are vague about whether Black and Red Pepper
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Read MoreBienvenidos/Welcome to sunny Costa Rica! We are into the heart of our summer with little or no rain and lots of SOL – so don’t forget the sunblock especially at the beach..and while you’re there you can always cool off with a tasty ice cream at GNAM Gelateria & other
Read MoreCosta Rican national authorities along with the United States signed a symbiotic alliance in January to create the Energy Efficient Center (Centro de Energía Eficiente).
This center will promote research, development, and use of cleaner and more efficient energy that will allow this country to reach its objective of becoming carbon neutral by the year 2021. In other words, Costa Rica wants to mitigate the carbon that is created here.
Read MoreWhen last seen, my old friend Dedson was leaving the area in a battered Range Rover, bound for a ‘tour’ of Latin America. This was years back and the ‘tour’ he had planned revolved around the dented left rear hubcap that he swore bore an image of the Virgin Mary when the angle and lighting was right. “People will pay good money to see an apparition of the Virgin Mary on a dented hubcap,” he assured me. “Especially humble God-fearing Latinos always on the lookout for the latest Our Lady of Fatima.”
Read MoreGuiding visitors on ecological tours can be very rewarding. Showing guests their first monkey, sloth or toucan is as gratifying for the guide as it is for the visitor. Birds and animals aren’t usually obvious to the untrained eye, and it is often difficult to explain or point out to people the exact position of wildlife within the dense vegetation of the rainforest. A typical conversation might go something like this: “See him? He’s right over there.” “Right over where?” “Look, just follow that trunk up to where it forks off to the left…” “Wait a minute, which trunk?” “That big one just to the right of the one with the vine.” “Oh yeah, that one. Okay now, I follow that up to the fork, right? Then where?” And so on, and so on. Once the bird or animal has been spotted with the naked eye, the next step is to find it with binoculars. Some visitors are practiced in the use of optical equipment, but many are not, and it is sometimes difficult for them to locate the wildlife. I have noticed that visitors will sometimes say they see something even if they don’t. However, there is never any doubt when the person encounters their first toucan. When the large yellow, black and red bird with the enormous beak comes into their field of vision, the visitor’s reaction can range from a simple, “Oh, my god,” to something resembling a low-level orgasm. Nowadays all of our guides have telescopes which they can quickly focus on the wildlife, eliminating all that foreplay and getting right down to the nitty-gritty.
Read MoreSummertime is upon us in the tropics and that means hotter temperatures and weeks and/or months void of the cooling, refreshing, life-giving rains. To any gardener, be they home-gardener or professional, this can only mean one thing – water, water, water. Visitors who have spent time in Costa Rica in our rainy season, may find it hard to believe that watering is a necessity here, but the natural cycle of the rainforest does include a dry period for flower and seed formation of the natural vegetation. This is why the native vegetation/indigenous plants can withstand these dry times, moreso, than the imported, exotic species.
Read MoreHero in Manuel Antonio
All he wanted was a cigarette and a rum & coke – and to catch his next plane to Miami
I recently got to meet with a hero enjoying a hot dog and a cold beer at El Wagon –home of the BEST HOT DOG in MA as the guest of Alan Templeton of Costa Verde. He was here visiting his sister who lives in Jaco with his friend Karina from Miami. This was a trip he had been waiting 5 years to make and if circumstances had been different on December 25th it might never have taken place, but happily for about 270+ people, he turned out to be a hero and made it to Costa Rica……. it happened like this:
It had been a long, but uneventful flight. It was Christmas Day on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. The flight was about to land when a couple of very loud pops where heard – something like firecrackers and totally out of place. Shortly someone was yelling “fire – fire” – that’s when Jasper Schuringa, a Dutch film maker, looked up to see smoke rising from a passenger a few rows in front of him and on the other side of the plane. Jasper jumped up and over the seats to put out the fire. The passenger on fire wasn’t moving or talking and Jasper said he seemed to be in a trance. It was apparent that this was not an accident. There was liquid from a container dripping fire down his pants and they were on fire. Jasper was yelling for water or a fire extinguisher and using pillows to put out the fire. He received burns to his hands but they were minor. He stripped off the man’s clothes and got him in a headlock to assist the flight attendant with moving him to First Class where he was totally stripped to be sure that he had no other explosives on his body and handcuffed.
The plane landed safely and the man was removed into the custody of the FBI. Jasper was taken into interrogation for 5 hours where his clothes were removed as evidence. He said “the FBI looked just like on TV”. They asked if they could get him anything and he answered a cigarette and a rum & coke—-he repeated this a few times and nothing came – finally one of the agents took him to the bathroom for a cigarette – he never got that rum & coke! What he really wanted was to catch the plane to Miami where his friend Karina was waiting so they could continue their vacation to Costa Rica. After a few days of media craziness things settled down and they were able to fly here to our little paradise for a great visit and vacation.
As Jasper sipped his cold beer he was relaxed, tan from the beach and obviously happy to have finally made it here to see his sister – we are too.
By Katherine Richardson The ASVO (Association of Volunteers) has been in Matapalo Beach for 5 years and patrols 5.4 KM of the beach. Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea)turtles nest on Matapaplo Beach from June to November. This year according to Mr. Roberto Solano, the scientist in charge of the project, they
Read MoreWe should all touch ourselves. I often fantasize with my clients on how wonderful it would be to get a massage every day. Imagine having your favorite masseur at your beck and call to get your fix whenever needed…how glorious would that be? Well, we all do have this available, we can utilize ourselves. While sitting on my board surfing, waiting for waves, I massage with both my hands my head and temporal regions. Just a minute of small circular strokes helps to further relax and loosen me up. Every day I massage my own hands and forearms, it has become a routine, it allows me to know where my aches and pains are as well as flushing out stagnate blood revitalizing my tools of the trade. We are all socialized into the language of the senses and in my opinion have become impoverished with hands-on nonverbal forms of communication, relying instead on disengagement and so called sophistication with each other. Sight and hearing (distance senses) rule our days while taste, smell, and touch (proximity senses) are almost a taboo. A shame in my opinion but adopting a philosophy of touching oneself can help bring us into the light.
Read MoreBarry Biesanz pulls into my driveway, hops out of his car and wastes no time settling onto a patio chair for our interview. He does not need any prompting: he clearly has a message to share. “People ask me,” he says, “I bet you’ve seen a lot of changes here over the last 40 years. They assume they have all been for the worse – but they haven’t. Sure, there are some ill-conceived projects, drugs, prostitution and corruption. But there are far more monkeys than there were in 1971, and much more prosperity.” Most of Manuel Antonio, he continues, was being converted to pasture and crops, even much of what is now the park, and all the mangroves near town were cut to make charcoal.
Read MoreThe essence of Calypso is in its rhythm and its humor, not necessarily in that order. The seed of this musical style sprouted around Barbados, Trinidad and Ciudad Colon, Panama. It spread, literally by word of mouth, to other Caribbean ports, including Kingston, Jamaica, where it spawned the nucleus of reggae music. Walter Ferguson is probably the last Calypsonian to learn his craft in this traditional, organic manner.
Read MoreOne of the main focus areas of the work of the Titi Conservation Alliance is assistance to our members to introduce more sustainable practices in their work and, as a tangible proof of their commitment to the sustainable development, to get certified by the Costa Rica Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) Program.
Read MoreI write to you today to let you know, not so much about the organization, Kids Saving The Rainforest, (KSTR) but more on how it got started. KSTR is a 501 (C) 3, non-profit organization that was founded 11 years ago in 1999 by my best friend Aislin and me.
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