Trip Report and Photos
 

My housemate Susan and I just got back from Costa Rica. We relied a great deal on the posts in this forum, thank you all very much! In turn, I hope you enjoy and find useful our report and photos:<BR><BR>http://members.fortunecity.com/togetme/junk.htm<BR><BR>Quick itinerary (for the keywords!): San Jose (Grano de Oro), Quepos and Manuel Antonio (Si Como No), and Tabacon in La Fortuna, to see the Arenal volcano.

Bruce<BR>Would love to see your photo's but can't access your site?

I just cut and paste the link, and it worked fine... While I've heard back from about a dozen people who could see it fine, you're the third person who has had trouble. Anyone out there know why she might be having trouble? Maybe a different computer? Some bandwidth thing about fortunecity?

Bruce<BR>I can get it if I go on internet explorer, I just couldn't get it using netscape. Thanks it looks great!

Wow!<BR><BR>For the record, there are 72 photos on the web site. Susan appears in 7 of the 7 of her on stage at the dance club, 6 of 11 on the Canopy Tour, and 12 of 54 of the rest of them. So even if you exclude all the ones with the "thrashy" (sic) Susan in them, that leaves 47 "quality" photos of Costa Rica!<BR><BR>A truly nice, intelligent, hard-working U.S. Army Captain with a Master's in nutrition who exchanges nothing with me but friendship (darn the luck), I suspect that Susan represents America far better than people think, and far better than her detractor would! (Maybe we should put her in a burqa next time.)<BR><BR>Thanks to the rest of you for your comments, and my apologies to Getalife for causing any distress.

Looks like Fodors took care of Getalife for you. Honestly, first time I've noticed them to take off a rude, crude and totally unecessary slam on a person. Go Fodors!

As I was saying, your pictures of Costa Rica are beautiful. Susan seems to be enjoying restaurant, iguanas, etc. and looks very nice too. <BR>I got deleted along with Getalife. <BR>Go for it Bruce.

Thanks again to all of you, and to Fodor's. I lack experience in both travel and in photography, but I'm proud of the shots and very happy to sort of "give back" some of the experience to this forum. We spent a lot of time here, reading a ton of your posts, and made and changed a lot of plans in accordance with what we read. I truly am sorry that it struck a nerve with Getalife, but grateful to Fodor's for handling it with class. I suppose I could go put a link to Fodor's on my site, and go buy something from one of their sponsors!<BR><BR>A couple of valuable things we learned in Costa Rica:<BR><BR>- The travel books talk about a 25 pound limit on SANSA and Travelair flights. We worried about this until we realized that they would just charge extra for extra weight -- we paid an additional $14.<BR>- We went on the whitewater tour provided by Iguana Tours with which Si Como No has partnered. They were great, really fun, and the price was reasonable ($45 each?). But on the recommendation of someone we met there, we did NOT go through the hotel to arrange our Manuel Antonio tour. We simply took a cab to the park entrance, and asked around for Elvin (aka "Lingo"). There were a bunch of guides there, including him, and he took us around for around half what the hotel would have charged. We were very happy with him. The guides all had telescopes; we're told they hang around until 9 am or so.<BR>- We were told that the times at which you most needed to protect against mosquito bites were 5-7 am and 5-7 pm. I dunno if this is an old wives' tale, but we were pretty faithful to this and came out virtually unscathed.<BR>- I sweat a lot, and ended up buying three handkerchiefs and bandanas! They SAVED me, but I recommend bringing these along from home!<BR>- APS film is NOT widely available, and it's expensive as hell! At home, I get 90 shots for $8 (on sale). At the drug store in Quepos (the only place in Quepos that carries it), it was $12 for a roll of 25!<BR>- If you're driving, you might want to bring a couple of CD's! On what turned out to be a 7-hour drive from Quepos to Arenal, there ain't a whole lot of radio to tune in! The only store in Jaco that carries CDs is the Fuji film store, and they only have about 8 of 'em. Though there are guys walking around Jaco carrying some homemade ones for sale, which we were told are by and large pretty good. The only CD they sell at the Tabacon gift shop is one of natural Costa Rican sounds; we thought that might be a little redundant for the trip back to San Jose!<BR><BR>Pura vida, everyone, and thanks again!<BR><BR>(Sorry if this is a double post -- it doesn't look like it went thru the first time)

Bruce, about the luggage weight limit, you paid $14.00 extra but for how much? We have actually not gone to Costa Rica because of the weight limitations since we wanted to bring our own snorkeling gear. Appreciate the answer, we are reconsidering the trip!

They just $14 for the extra weight. I think mine was about 40 lbs, Susan's seemed to be about 30, but that's just a guess. Plus, they weighed US. I have a few extra pounds on ME, but didn't want to ask if that's what we were paying for!! :-)<BR><BR>By the way, the take off felt a little wobbly, but all in all the SANSA flight was smooth, and the landing was better than Continental in San Jose! Susan said that it was MUCH better than her puddle jump in Jamaica.