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Davidcmurray and Jafranz,
Let us squeek through that closing gate & then I’ll help you push!
Have to admit I don’t care much for the changes I am seeing, how about we all promote Panama as the “new” perfect place to retire to!
Even on clear bright days Arenal often has it’s own little ring of clouds obscuring its top but last year in late November early december we could see smoke pouring out (& lava at night) on numerous ocassions. Our experience is that the best viewing point is the north end of the lake rather than at La Fortuna. Can recommend a good B&B at Tronadora (they have a telescope especially for volcano viewing) where we have stayed and had a good view of the lava flow.
Take your trip to Costa Rica, walk anywhere you feel like walking and be reasonably assured that you will not see a snake and even if you do, once you see it there is little danger; they don’t want you to see them anymore than you want to. Just be sensible – don’t lift up rocks, chunks of wood, bricks etc without checking them out first, snakes hide from people and whenever possible they will disappear long before you are even aware of them. For most of my life I have lived where there are large snake populations (here in the desert, and we live out in the desert not in town – rattlesnakes & sidewinders, in Paraguay all sorts, in my considerably more than 50 years I have probably seen a total of 20 snakes and NEVER felt in any danger. So relax, take sensible precautions and have a ball. (Mind you – talk to me about sorpions and trantulas and I might have different advice!)
Hi to all, I got an interesting discussion going there!
Here is our situation, we are keeping our house here in California as we have ornamental palms planted on our 10 acres and they will not be ready for sale for another 5 to 8 years. Should we sell the property now we would not get anything for palms which will be worth a quarter of a million dollars down the road. In fact have just sold another 10 acres that we have had to discount $125,000 just to generate some interest. SO have decided to ship only 20 or so cases of books, take what “stuff” we can on our various trips and buy locally what we can not take on the plane. I do not believe from what I have seen on Hipermas & Pricesmarts websites that buying locally (in CR), possibly paying a bit more that prices here, will save us the cost of shipping a container. I realize that everyone has different ideas and needs, we plan to create a whole new life and way of living in CR so I am happy to leave all this “stuff” behind and just take the bare necessities (our dogs, art supplies, computer, books & music) and get what we need there. If, in the future, we find we are unhappy without certain things that we can’t find or are too expensive there then we will look at shipping.
Thanks for all your imput, it makes interesting reading.
Ruth
You are such a mine of information, thank you so very much for taking the time to get all of that info together and putting it out there for all of us, VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.
Ruth
David, since we had recently received our residency carnet we asked at Liberia airport and were told that residents and tourists pay the same $26.00 fee.
RuthScott,
Web site is http://www.hipermas.co.cr/ofertas.htm
Costa Rica has so many beautiful areas, suggest that you make a list of things that are important to you, do you want to be close to cultural activities, top class restuarants, American style shopping, highspeed internet etc. If that is the case San Jose, Escazu, Santa Ana, etc. are your choice. Do you want to be near the ocean and still have much of what is mentioned above, then probably the central to northern Pacific would be a good place to look. The area around San Ramon is beautiful,as is anywhere between San Ramon and La Fortuna including Zarceros & Ciudad Quesadas – then there is Arenal & the area around the lake and the volcano. Once out of San Ramon going north you get into a much more rural lifestyle. I suggest that you rent a car and drive wherever the spirit takes you picking up B&B’s or hotels when you are ready to stop. Have a great trip.
Just for general info – I get free wifi high speed service at Casa Antigua, a small restaurant in Tilaran. I presume the cyber cafes have it there too.
To all –
After those glowing reports it looks like the Great Wall is a bust, appreciate your imput, you have likely saved us a great deal of $’s as well as headaches, will continue to look at the alternatives. Thanks!
Ruth
Try Jim & Rene of Ricorealty.com for the Arenal area, extremely honerable and delightful people, also members of the realty boards.
Our new rancito in the Arenal area was built using Convintec – plus before we decided to use it we visited a number of houses that have been built and are in construction using this system. Jim of Rico Realty has been building with this material for a number of years and the results are great. It is very adaptable and allows a great deal flexiability in design. One of the houses that our contractor is building is a large 3 story house with a circular staircase and all sorts of nooks and crannies, a strange design but one that would be extremely difficult to do with block – If you would like some photos of the ranchito and Jim & Renes office & grill building I could post them on the photo section of the forum, just let me know.
Ruth
Alvaro –
Thanks very much for all the info. Evidently I am getting different info than you as the report I got was that the Terracan goes out of production in 2007, may just have to wait and see! Appreciate your assistance, have looked at the sites you mention and they were very helpful, Right now we are deciding between the D-Max and the Terracan, both have advantages.
Ruth
I misspoke – 2007 is the last year for production of the Terracan, it is being replaced with the Veracruz.
Well – one thing about it, we are not going to find it hard to change our requisit $600 into colones if half of it goes on keeping our car on the road! Better to know now than have “sticker shock” when we go to pay our first marchamo.
Thanks David.
Ruth
