Scantastic! Costa Rica 1995

Long before the annoying tourists of the world discovered and developed Costa Rica, Melissa and I were there. This was back in 1995. We were 16 years old, and spent three weeks traveling about Costa Rica with Melissa's older sister Brenda, who had just spent a semester there studying. Anybody remember the old 110 cameras? Well, I had one when I went to Costa Rica in 1995; it was turquoise. I just scannned in 22 of its pictures. You know you want to see them - not only do you get to see Costa Rica before every square inch was covered in condos, but you get to see how ridiculous I looked when I was 16. And what was with the Indiana Jones hat? Sigh. The things we do when we're young. Anyway, go here to check them out!

Tramping through the brush

So it seems that my mom is purchasing eight acres of land just outside Waycross. The closing is in about a week. The property is eight acres out of an original 40 acre tract, mainly planted in three year old timber pines. In between the pines lives an assortment of blackberry and other brambly, briary, thorny plants - it's not exactly the best for easy strolling at this point in time. Nonetheless, as the property lines have only just been surveyed, mom wanted to go out and see the actual borders of the land she's purchasing. Additionally, as we've had quite a rainy week, we wanted to see how the land holds up under rain. We knew from looking at the plat that a small area of the back portion of the land is wetland, but we didn't know *how* wet, or how far it extended into the the rest of the property. Luckily, the wetland is quite unimpressive and only covers a tiny portion of the rear of the land. But speaking of wetlands... We arrived and had to park out by the highway and walk in, as the dirt access road floods when its wet. The road definitely will need to be built up! Or my mom needs a 4x4 truck.

The access road!


It's *much* drier out at her property.
The "road" on the right is the access road; her property is on the left.


Mom, exploring her new land :-)

Wading through the brush...
See the very tall trees on the horizon? That's the property line!


This shot is from the rear of the land looking back towards the access road.

It's quite nice property, although it'll require a lot of work to make part of it habitable/usable. We're planning on letting the bulk of the pines mature (they need about 15-18 years before they'll be ready to harvest), and using them as a longterm investment. Nonetheless, we want to clear part of it. I think my very cute little house would be much happier moved out to this lovely bit of land than sitting in the ghetto. What do you think?

And speaking of times that I've tramped through the brush, yesterday I scanned in high-res versions of my best photographs from my 2002 trip to Costa Rica (back before I owned a digital camera). As you can see below, Mia was very interested in assisting me in this process. I've uploaded 43 pictures (no, that wasn't intentional!) to flickr, and you should totally go check them out.

Nothing like news linking two of my favorite countries.

Sigh.

A 20-year-old Kazakhstan native turned himself over to police Friday, ending a three-hour standoff and safely releasing a man he had been holding at the Russian Embassy in Costa Rica, authorities said. Roman Bogdanyants covered his face as he was escorted by police from the building, followed by a Russian man that police spokesman Francisco Ruiz identified as a former hostage. Officials originally reported an armed man had seized eight hostages, quickly releasing five. But Russian Ambassador Valery Nikolayenko told Channel 7 Telenoticias in a phone interview during the standoff that he and three other officials had remained in the building to help negotiate a peaceful end to the situation. Immigration spokeswoman Heidi Bonilla told The Associated Press that Bogdanyants arrived in Costa Rica in 2005. Police earlier had described him as an Uzbek. A family friend, Artur Mitiniani, told Channel 7 that the family had lost $54,000 because of problems with a Russian citizen whom Bogdanyants met at the embassy. [from here]

Paradise Losing

In 1995, my best friend Melissa and I met up with her older sister Brenda for a month long jaunt around Costa Rica. (We were 15, 16 and 21, respectively.) It was an incredible trip, and it awakened in me an unquenchable lust for travel.

We visited the small port town of Quepos, from which we took a bus down a narrow, winding, dirt road to the nearby national park, Manuel Antonio. There was hardly a tourist in sight.

We visited the tiny village of La Fortuna, located at the base of the Arenal Volcano. We paid a local a small fee to guide us into the jungle where we could bask in the natural volcanic hot springs.

We rented a room in a family’s home in the even tinier village of Santa Elena. From Santa Elena, we walked up a long, deserted, dirt track to the Monte Verde Rainforest national park. Again, few tourists were to be seen.

In 2002, Melissa, Brenda and I returned to Costa Rica to find that things had changed drastically in seven years.

Quepos had become a booming tourist town, full of hostels and hotels, hip cafes, pricey restaurants and souvenir shops. The road connecting Quepos to Manuel Antonio had been paved, and its entire distance lined with resorts, hotels, condos and restaurants.

Likewise, La Fortuna had become a bustling tourist community. The volcanic hot springs of Arenal were no longer isolated swimming holes in the wilderness; instead, the naturally heated waters were pumped onto the grounds of impressively manicured hot spring resorts.

Santa Elena, too, was booming, full of a wide assortment of places to stay, eat, and entertain. The paved road leading up to the rainforest was lined with condos and resorts, going all the way up to the park’s gate.

While the interiors of the parks were indeed pristine reservoirs of nature (and while I must say that the hot spring resorts of Arenal were FABULOUS), I found the encroachment of the modern world distressing. Then, in one of the last legs of our trip, we journeyed south into the all-but-untouched Osa Peninsula. We arrived by bus at the nondescript village of Palmar Norte, from which we took a makeshift taxi (er, pickup driven by a local) to the tiny rural village of Sierpe. From there, we took a boat down th wild and undeveloped Rio Sierpe and out into the pristine Drake Bay.

Drake Bay was the ideal tropical paradise. Isolated. Untouched nature. Few locals and even fewer tourists. I only had my old 35mm Canon Powershot at the time, and as my originals are an ocean and a continent away, these small images I scanned in ages ago are all I have to share. But take a peek, and perhaps you’ll see why I consider Drake Bay to be one of my favorite places on the planet.

Drake Bay

Drake Bay as a storm approaches.
Shortly after taking this shot I was thoroughly drenched.


Left: Drake Bay at sunset
Center: Rio Sierpe
Right: Small waterfall and swimming hole in the wilderness

So why do I bring this up? Well, this morning I received a rather depressing email from Brenda and Melissa. A company called Arenas de Oro has purchased a huge chunk of the Drake Bay area wilderness (86 acres to be exact), and is carving it up into a planned beachfront community. Arenas de Oro is a branch of a real estate group called the Costa Rica Land Trust, which is supposedly “dedicated to environmentally conscious development of Costa Rica Real Estate that preserves wildlife and the scenic beauty of the landscape while helping people to enjoy their dream ocean view land investment.” It might be environmentally conscious development, but it’s still rampant development. Especially as CRLT seems to also own the greater portion of the land ranging from Dominical to Playa Uvita to the Sierpe basin to Drake.

Melissa, Brenda and I have been toying with the idea of a return to Drake Bay this fall. While I’m not entirely certain that spending a month in Costa Rica while unemployed is the best of plans, it now seems imperative that I go before it’s too late.

Costa Rica Travelers: Avoid Cabinas Dagmar

While I am in Russia, I do not have FTP capabilities. This means that I am unable to update my main website, janekeeler.com (thus all the mass changes and updates that occurred over winter break while I was in the States). But, I received an email today that I feel needs to be posted somewhere on the internet, until such time as I can update my Costa Rica Travel Tips section of my site. So here goes:

Hi Jane

I saw that you were recomending Cabinas Dagmar at Punta Uuvita/Bahia Ballena. Me and my boyfriend came home to sweden yesterday (12 jan) after 5 wonderful weeks in Costa Rica. We were spending 2-9 jan, 2006 in Uuvita at Cabinas Dagmar an were supposed to pay 15 dollars per night.

One day were going to the beach and we forgot the sarong so I went back to get it and I found Jose (the owner) in our room. I thought that he was maybe leaving towels or what ever so I only said hi and only told my boyfriend what happened. When we came back nothing was missing. All our money were there and so were the credit cards. We tought just like you that it was a friendly family but we still brought all our “important” stuff whit us rest of the time. We were a bit short on cash the day we were leaving so I paid whit my credit card it was a total of 61.000 colones (about 120 dollars) whit laundry. When I today were checking my account on the internet there is 5 charges from Cabinas Dagmar of a total about 1000 us dollars… I talked to the bank and he have also made a copy of my card and tried to take out money on ATM. He have also tried to make a reservation of a total 600 us dollars but they managed to stop it because there is no more money on this account.

I will get all my money back from the bank but would like to warn people NOT to stay at Cabinas Dagmar.

If you want to respond or ask something:
therese@norstat.se

Kind regards
Therese Eriksson