Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
It’s truly very unfortunate that there have been so many drownings lately, but there seems to be a link all along the Atlantic Coast and not just in CR. It seems that there is a large number of drownings on the US East Coast too. Nearby storms create precarious swimming conditions and we should all be extra careful when there are storms nearby that may affect the coastlines. That said, I have been to a great number of beaches in Costa Rica (on both coasts) and most of these beaches do NOT have lifeguards on duty. Some resorts do hire lifeguards, but remember that the beaches in CR are public areas and probably should have some money allocated for this service, but unfortunately, they typically don’t. You could check their Statistics Dept regarding # of drownings(maybe the University of Costa Rica has some of this info or their Health Dept)…From hearsay, you typically hear of drownings in Jaco and Manuel Antonio beaches…both are known for their strong riptides…For the most part, in order to stay safe in the water, never swim alone and always keep an eye on your kids when they’re in the water.
I gathered since the other day driving back from Heredia there was a slight fender bender on a small bridge leading to La Uruca leaving only one lane on a two way bridge so I was incredibly grateful that the drivers on the oncoming traffic were giving our side a chance to pass every once in a while or I’d still be waiting there…lol…
If I know Ticos, in a little while and after a lot of frustration, I can see some of them ‘finding’ alternate license plates for their cars to avoid this mess 🙂
Well, I’m sure they will eventually get it right because people ARE complaining ~ it’s the meantime that can be messy…
Just to clarify, Omega-3 needs to be distilled/purified to avoid heavy metals and other toxins that have polluted our oceans and are found in the fats of animals including fish. This process will not stop the fact that you seem to be having the oil produce a digestive side effect, that can be ameliorated by not taking it on an empty stomach and dividing your dosage so that you’re not taking too much at a time. I found that when I took it in the liquid form (not encapsulated) I had much more of this problem, but working your way around this is well worth it for the benefits it provides.
Also, the best way to get most of your vitamins is thru fresh wholesome (hopefully organic) foods it will make a world of difference in how you feel and then the supplements will also provide an added umph without taxing your digestive system…
True that traffic has improved, but how do you take your kids to school and how do the school buses travel to pick up the kids and deliver them from the different locations to their schools? Is there an exception made for school buses/vans? Last Friday I saw a bunch of school vans demonstrating in front of the Ministry of Education in SJ and I think it must have had something to do with this…Of course, this only affects family with school age children that need to be bused in to and from these restricted areas, but I’m sure these families would like to see this resolved.
PriceSmart does have vitamins and so do the natural food stores in CR such as the Macrobiotica of Plaza del Sol and others…I don’t know if anyone else has had vitamins shipped to them from the States, but I had trouble doing that for my sister. Maybe if you have one of those US PO Boxes that re-direct to your mail to your CR address and don’t get sidetracked in the CR post office– otherwise you will have to pay additional taxes on them. Hope this helps… 🙂
Hello eehorebec, Some farmers in Costa Rica have been on the organic bandwagon for a while now, but if you have something proven and true for ants, I suggest you bring it because that is something that they battle with. Once you’re in CR you can chat with some of the farmers in the organic section of the farmer’s markets held in various towns on Saturdays. Please let us know if the safe pesticide works for the Costa Rican ants as they can be quite persistent 🙂
You can also contact EARTH University (see their website: http://www.earth.ac.cr/ing/index.php ) They even have an English version. This university specializes in tropical agronomy and has been promoting organic growing for a while.
Best of luck to you….
Some kids adjust more easily and others don’t. One of the things you need to also consider is the cost of private high schools in CR which can be quite expensive (more expensive than going to college in a public university in CR). If you know that your grandchildren are average students, you have to know that although the experience may be positive in many ways, it will be an additional challenge they will face and that I have found CR private & even many public HS taxing on kids that are not used to the educational levels expected of. Not to mention the additional testing they would be required to undergo. In order to pass HS and go the university in CR, they must pass their HS classes and a special exam that is quite nerve racking even for the locals. Some private HS allow for just a HS diploma that would be useful to attend universities abroad, but if the idea is for them to be there, this needs to be considered also.
Wow…this does seem reminiscent of the Diego days—no need to get nasty with a whole gender or population to express you prefer Latin women. The women you will meet in Latin America will have certain characteristics, but they are human all the same and that means they will also be blessed with various personality types, motivations, and individual characteristics all their own. That said, I do think that the initial question by soflodoug is quite valid and important. Anyone interested can find information on this site below and it should not come as a shocker that larger city areas and near universities there seems to be higher stats than in more rural areas, but don’t become complacent, this may only mean that people there haven’t sought out care or diagnosis. Heck, check out Acosta’s stats with higher incidence than some city areas! I really think that if you’re sexually active, you need to do what is necessary and responsible not to contract nor ‘share’ STDs with anyone, no matter where you are. It is interesting that there does seem to be more stats about people with syphilis in CR than with TB!
CR has been very diligent about having diagnostic procedures, promoting condom use w/billboards & thru education thru NGOs in spite of it being a Catholic State for a long time so I would venture to say that there is a lot more info for anyone interested in checking the Internet or stats from Ministerio de Salud (Health Ministry)
Latin American cultures are notorious for avoiding the use of condoms and this does not help the situation. If you have adolescents with you, please make sure they don’t fall prey to a false sense of security that could cost them their lives or their fertility.
2006 Pan-American Report on Health in CR: (including STDs—not the complete range of diseases but it should give you a basic idea)
Hi Tracy, Thanks for providing the link…It wasn’t very long ago that EARTH University was still using and promoting chemical fertilizer/pesticide use. It seems like it’s been a long road to change, but change sometimes needs time to flourish in a sustainable manner. I remember facilitating an sustainable development/science seminar there in the late 90s to a group of local science school teachers and we were showered with pesticide by a plane spraying one of their fields…It was incredibly ironic that the university was providing us with the logistic space to improve local methodologies and then they were the ones to inadvertently spray us with chemical fertilizers…In any case, many people within the university have been lobbying for more sustainable agriculture and I’m so glad they have been successful with their banana production showing that sustainability can also be profitable…Thanks again 🙂
Dear jcmcgee, I would also hate to see a marina in that area and even if the coral happens to be dead or on it’s way out in Playa Negra, there are live coral beds nearby and they will be adversely affected WHEN the spills happen. This is never IF, always WHEN because everything we know about oil related spills & contamination is that they ALWAYS happen and are many more times likely to happen again and again while arriving, leaving or docking in a port….
Nonetheless, you have to understand that the locals would most definitely disagree with your statement that there is 0% unemployment and more so if you consider the types of jobs & pay available for the locals now. You see, that’s where they (developers) promise the locals decent wages and some dare to imagine that this may in fact happen this time (even if it hasn’t happened before)…The truth is that the more technical & better paying jobs will not be available to locals because they have not been educated in these areas…What’s really sad is that we allow people to barely make a living while others make a bundle in places like these, and so there will always be people that offer them pie in the sky dreams and many who will choose to believe them — In the end, Puerto Viejo will feel the impact and one of the places I love most in this world will have been changed forever, but I can understand some of the locals support for this marina and only wish I had the power to offer them a more ecologically friendly ways for them to have a better economic future for themselves and their families because keeping it green is a wonderful thing when you’re not the one facing underemployment, minimal wages and very few opportunities to make a decent living for you and your family so that your children can one day choose to still live in PV and still have a wonderful future ahead of them. Right now, most PV people need to leave the area not only to receive better education, but also to access better paying jobs. And don’t get me started with the social problems plaguing the area…Sustainable development is not only about environmental concerns, it’s about marrying both the socio-economic issues with the environmental ones….Can’t pretend to save a specific environment without addressing the locals’ concerns…This has been proven time and time again all around the world and until we don’t get this, there will be wolves in sheep’s clothing promising locals ‘a warm meal by the fire, without them realizing that they and their beautiful environments will most probably become the pretender’s meal in the end’….Rebeca
Sprite, I think you’re the kind of person that will do well in that kind of environment because you will consider the options…When it comes to Terciopelo, they’re sometimes hard to see among the debris of vegetation on the ground so you do have to be careful. When you encounter one, they need to be killed or captured because they do pose such an incredible threat to people, livestock and pets. I’d rather be bitten by a coral snake than this one, although I frankly prefer neither would occur..I have had my fair share of encounter with vipers and I’m always saddened when one has to be killed, but the alternative of them hurting us is not so appealing either… 🙁
Terciopelo, Fer de Lance or B. asper (see links with pics) has a fairly large distribution and not just in Costa Rica (see links and map which shows it throughout ALL of CR)…Nonetheless, that distribution has been enhanced and their populations have grown more than typical in the last few years because of the availability of prey (rodents & like) made available to them by chopping down areas of forest, working them for a while and then leaving them fallow or to re-generate (regenation is a great thing except in the interim these lots become “charrales”–overgrown), prey animals move in and the terciopelo comes in for the buffet.
However, there is another incredibly important reason why it has had a population explosion in many areas including Costa Rica and that’s because its natural predator a black snake called Zopilota (Clelia clelia) in CR is commonly killed by people. It’s bright red so they call it vibora de sangre (blood viper and it’s not even a viper, meaning poisonous) when young, but this snake can actually eat any snake that is actually poisonous so it’s incredibly important to support it in these environments. An encounter I had in CR with C. clelia almost gave me a heart attack because it was quite large and it managed to stand up and strike at the passenger side window where I was sitting, but I’m always grateful to see one–even if not necessarily that “up close and personal…” LOL…In any case, I’m not such a proponent of just killing any snake you see because they not only have an intrinsic right to exist, but the snake you kill could have been the one that would have directly or indirectly saved your life in the long run…Whenever possible, get out of their way, when that’s not a possibility, make sure you know the snake you’re killing is truly a poisonous one that poses a risk to you….Pura Vida…
Marvelous mussurana or Clelia clelia http://home.earthlink.net/~itec5/Serpentes/Colubridae/Clelia_clelia.html
http://www.dominical.biz/reptiles/SnakeRattleRoll2.htmBothrops asper, Fer de Lance or Terciopelo http://travel.mongabay.com/colombia/images/co02-0164.html
http://www.venomousreptiles.org/articles/133Sprite, I’m not a snake expert, but from my experience as a tropical biologist and that picture, that doesn’t look like Bothrups asper (terciopelo) which is a lot less colorful than the snake you photographed; however, it does appear to be a poisonous snake due to the shape of its head (although I can’t be certain from the picture) and it was certainly an incredibly risky maneuver to allow a zip line group to remain right under it. You were in its environment and needed to leave that area as soon as possible more than having tried to kill it since that would have also posed a risk for your group — the snake might have easily lunged at your group. Vipers have even been known to bite once their heads have been cut off so you can imagine how that might not have been the course to take when your group was on a small platform so many feet off of the ground.
The responsible thing under the circumstances was for the group guides to remove your group from the risk this snake posed, but also note that many people can easily confuse a poisonous snake from a non-poisonous one and kill a natural inhabitant of the area you have voluntarily entered unnecessarily.
Under different circumstances (on the ground), terciopelo, is not protected and is actually shown to be a human and environmental problem so I would have certainly tried to capture it and taken it to Clodomiro Picado Institute or kill it instead of just letting it remain in the area and pose a very real threat to another person…and I think that would have been the choice of most Costa Ricans also…I’m glad you and your group were not harmed…
I second that…I’m always amazed at how much I eat in CR and how I always loose weight there…Yes, there’s the natural & less processed food and extra exercise we get there, but there are also all of the benefits considered under the “biophilia theory” proposed by Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard University professor who also LOVES Costa Rica! Our “love of living things” our innate affinity with nature provides us great benefits once we’re in the midst of it and it doesn’t get much better than CR…Costa Rica has always been good for my integral health and I highly recommend it! Besides, it’s so much more fun than taking a bunch of pills or dieting 🙂
Kathleen, Here’s the info regarding the Brit gentleman I had mentioned previously…He has helped some VIP members with cell phone rentals:
Nick Daines on 506-239 6731
for the office and mobile is 506-349-1114 or email him at:
kbcomms@yahoo.co.ukPura Vida! Rebeca
