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Good luck on the Florida move. I have lived here for the last 30 years and an ready to get away for good. It is unbearably hot and muggy most of the time. The geography is flat as a pancake so the only beauty you will find will be in the sky or the sea. Bugs abound. The weather and geography in CR are better suited to my taste.

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[quote=”DavidCMurray”]sprite, you wrote, “I do not know a single person who honestly prefers a northern winter over the Costa Rican climate of the Central Valley.”

Well, I do know such a person, but he’s brain-injured.[/quote]

Brain injury is one explanation. Another is that the lack of sunlight can seriously depress a person and cause some skewed assessments. (suicide rates are much higher in northern latitudes) Pristine winter snow coverings may be interesting to see, but they do not qualify as beauty for me because I know what it feels like to be there. Even the rainy season in CR lets us have many hours of sunlight during almost every day.

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[quote=”Versatile”][quote=”sprite”]I grew up in Ohio but had the good sense to move to Miami by the time I was 31….29 years ago. I have never missed the snow or the colors of autumn as my siblings seem to think would be the case if they were to leave the northern latitudes. The truth is pretty simple, obvious and documented…most people are happier in the sun and the spring-like temperatures such as that of the Costa Rican Central Valley. I find it difficult to understand or even imagine how anyone cold prefer the cold, grey dead landscapes of northern winters. In fact, I just don’t believe anyone really does.[/quote]

You just don’t really know what you are missing. The winter world is just as beautiful as a summer world. Get off your verbal soap box and take a real look at life.[/quote]

Cold, bitter weather sucks. You can spin it any way you like if it makes such a miserable climate more palatable for you, but REALITY is that human comfort is a big part of what makes a climate and geography beautiful. Costa Rica qualifies as a truly beautiful geography for this reason.

The winter world of the north is usually populated by black tree trunks with leafless limbs, barren fields of dead grass, frozen mud and lead grey skies from which bone chilling winds blow. All the snow does is cover this ugliness with a white blanket of death. And when the snow melts, you have an even worse scene.

One has to be insane or self deluded to prefer such a climate over the one we have in Costa Rica.
I do not know a single person who honestly prefers a northern winter over the Costa Rican climate of the Central Valley.

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I grew up in Ohio but had the good sense to move to Miami by the time I was 31….29 years ago. I have never missed the snow or the colors of autumn as my siblings seem to think would be the case if they were to leave the northern latitudes. The truth is pretty simple, obvious and documented…most people are happier in the sun and the spring-like temperatures such as that of the Costa Rican Central Valley. I find it difficult to understand or even imagine how anyone cold prefer the cold, grey dead landscapes of northern winters. In fact, I just don’t believe anyone really does.

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[quote=”waggoner41″][quote=”Scott”]
Seems to me that the author of the article makes a lot of assumptions about a US invasion of Mexico – a country of 111 million people…
Scott[/quote]

If you haven’t noticed the far fringes of American conservatism:
1 – makes a lot of assumptions
2 – puts their own interpretation on the words of others
3 – twists facts until they fit their personal fears
4 – assumes that the majority of others will believe
Seemingly all of this is in an effort to create a fear of the future.

I think you will find that many of us who consider ourselves conservative see these types as something other than conservative.
Somehow they have avoided, or escaped from, the mental institutions in which they should properly be housed.[/quote]

Conservative fringe ideology is only conservatism carried to its logical conclusions. Those extremist conservative views show everyone where the end of the conservative road would lead if there were not a weak liberal effort to stop them.

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The reason for immigration should not matter as long as it is a moral one. That includes the search for income. The probl arises from huge discrepancies between economies and this is due chiefly to one nation exploiting another. It is capitalistic exploitation carried out on an international scale.

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[quote=”azvetman”]Hey Scott, don’t think the term “forum” is appropriate for YOUR opinions on the topic. While I agree with some of your rant, I find much of the article to be a simple way to express your personal opinions about what you don’t agree with. While I do love CR and its people, and when push comes to shove, YOU will be calling the US for as much help as you need when CR is bullied by a regional country. And I bet the good ole US will be there, and more than likely we won’t be sending drones to save your ass. Happy Holidays, like the articles.[/quote]

North Americans are infected with fear. It has been a part of our culture since the beginning. The irrational fear is the reason for:
all the guns in personal hands,
the force behind the genocide against native americans,
The keeping of old fashioned slavery till a war ended it, the acceptance of a ridiculously large military foisted upon us by the powerful and wealthy who need it to maintain their hegemony,
our submissive acceptance of the corporate plutocracy that we have been lead to believe is a democracy,
our fear and mistrust of any new visionary and progressive ideas and the reason for our distrust of all things foreign.

Scot, there is no way you will be able to reason with that fear. Fearful Americans will never understand how it is possible for a country to live happily without a military. This American view is an old, conservative world vision and one which seems contagious and self perpetuating. I hope I never see it manifest in Costa Rica.

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I agree…outside of San Jose, it is pretty straightforward. There aren’t that many roads in the tiny country and sooner or later you end up at one ocean or the other,…or a dead end or a road that just turns into pure mud. And there are some signs for the towns and cities and parks. Tourists who are not totally helpless behind the wheel and who understand and speak some Spanish should be able to get by with just a good map.

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I don’t recall ever having too much trouble finding my way around by car on my first visit…with the exception of finding a particular nice hotel in San Jose at night. I simply stopped a taxi driver and asked him to lead the way. I paid for the fare after I arrived at my destination. But that was my fault for driving in a new area at night.

Otherwise, I really don’t see the need for a GPS. Locals are always happy to give you directions, whether they know the way or not. :-}

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Thanks for another heads-up, Scott. I appreciate finding the information you present here and I also enjoy the opportunity to discuss these matters with reasonable people. Those who are not reasonable can join in too but it seems some of them prefer not to have their silly ideas challenged at all. They can always listen to the endless nonsense from Rush Limbaugh or Fox TV if they don’t have the mental ammunition to carry on here.

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[quote=”maravilla”]they’re still chewing coca leaves in peru — the minute you get off the place in cuzco, elevation nearly 12,000 feet, they hand you a cup of coca tea. it has some medicnal benefits as it combats altitude sickness. as for peyote, the indians also used that to conjure up visions that they then used in healing practices, so it wasn’t necessarily about getting high. i don’t know what the answer is to any of this. in countries where they have made it quasi-legal or at least de-criminalized it to keep junkies from robbing, stealing, and god only knows what else, is that any better? when i got held up in manhattan with a .45 pointed at my head, it was a junkie who needed money to buy some horse.[/quote]

Drug addiction is an illness. Like most other unhealthy behavior such as thieving, cheating, over eating and violent abuse of others, it can be traced right back to the dysfunctional economic system under which we all live. People are simply products of their environment. A problem as basic and pervasive as drug abuse can only have one solution; the one that changes the very economic foundation upon which our species has been laboring since we stopped living in harmony with each other and the natural world and became slaves to a small powerful group.

Anything short of that is no solution at all. Drug abuse is a natural response by many to a sick society. It is also used by the elite rulers as a control tool along with religion and nationalism.

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[quote=”ticorealtor”]Don’t you guys understand how important the U.S. has been to CR?
How many of you were here ten years ago? Do you remember when the police were riding mopeds with blue lights? I used to call them the blue light special cops.
If it was not for the U.S. dumping money on items such as aviation, training, equipment and so on, Costa Rica would still be walking to the drug raids! Ten years ago Costa Rica was crying for the help because they don’t have the money or the training! With out the help of the U.S. you would not see cops with new uniforms walking around San Jose, you would not see them making any kind of dent in the cartels and you would see more corruption than there is today.
Last nigh my family and I were walking around downtown San Jose and seen a huge improvement from ten years ago, with young police officer everywhere.
I think Scott if you don’t see this you are missing a bigger picture. What would have happened if the U.S. said no to helping CR. Do you think you would be having as many expats living in CR?[/quote]

Americans are extraordinarily naive and simultaneously arrogant about their relative value in the world. More importantly, they are completely ignorant of the harm, of the immense damage their corporate and personal economic fanaticism and greed has caused to the environment and to other people. I am sick of hearing and watching the chest beating and saber rattling from a dysfunctional culture with a significant drug addicted population.

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[quote=”maravilla”]im glad i moved to costa rica and not mexico where i still own property. some of my friends there travel with armed body guards. ugh[/quote]

My sister has to make regular trips to Nogales supervising work transfer from the US to Mexico and they have armed escorts from the border to the factory and back out again. All are warned to be out of Mexico and back across the US border by dark.

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I always consider possible motivations and biases of any information source. I am no engineer so I haven’t a clue as to the feasibility of creating a coast to coast canal in that region. But if it is economically viable, Ortega would be insane to invite that kind of controversy into the region. I can think of nothing more likely to invoke another yanqui incursion. And who would be there to stop it? Is it possible that Israeli and American propaganda is at work here as a way to justify another invasion into Central America AND Iran? Two invasions for the price of one lie. What a deal!

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[quote=”janetdw”]Well, for some of us, we can not do some of these things now. At present my health insurance is taking up 29% of my gross, and I am working part of the year in my retirement. With deductibles and copays, I ended up spending 34% of my gross (including some unemployment) which is ridiculous.

I probably go “out” at a low cost restaurant maybe 10 times a year, haven’t been to the movies in years and have not had TV since it broke 4 years ago.

I gross about 1700 a month now, working part time post-retirement. I will feel rich when I can start collecting Social Security! But there is no way that I can continue paying this outrageous cost for health services. I am in an HMO right now and often wait for appointments, so CAJA and INS sound pretty good to me.

I know I will make sacrifices, but I make them now… water heater broken for 5 months now due to no money to pay for a new one, no AC even though we run between 90 and 110 all summer, old car, … When I can sell my house without taking a loss, I will be out of here!

After a lifetime of working, I can not afford to live in the US at this point in my life. I know I will live in a modest place, but I live in one now. I have no illusions about living in one of the palaces shown on most websites – why should I? I don’t live like that now![/quote]

It is shameful that people can spend a lifetime working and still have to struggle into their retirement. I don’t give a good crap how other countries fare compared to the US…it is shameful that it happens anywhere.
There is no need for all the luxuries but if you want to live in a country where the society spends most income in consumption of these luxuries, you will feel out of place unless you are able to consume at the same level. A whole lot of older US citizens do not have the wealth to do that and retirement must become an ostracizing experience for them. And for many more, it is not even a matter of being able to maintain a level of over consumption just to fit in. For many, I read that it is difficult to even survive.

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