Why Did the Knee Need a Vacation? Part 2

To carry on:

Besides the anti-inflammatory injections and the painkiller prescriptions, Dr. Baltodano also wrote prescriptions for x-rays and an ultrasound.

For these, I went to Clinica Medica Eidita in Grecia. Cost of the x-rays: 39,600 CRC (about 73.00  USD). Cost of the ultrasound: 30,000 CRC (about 55.00 USD).

In Costa Rica, patients are sent home with their x-rays/ultrasounds and we then take them to our doctor appointments. They remain in our possession. This works out well if you need to go for physiotherapy, for example - any therapist can see the test results.

The final diagnosis was medial collateral ligament injury of the left knee. Dr. Baltodano referred me for physical therapy. 

I’ve been going to Physio Terapia Física in Grecia once a week. Cost of each visit: 13,000 CRC (about 24.00 USD). Each visit lasts about an hour. This is a very modern clinic and they have another one in San Ramon. I don’t know how many visits I will ultimately need.

When I went in to make a first appointment, they were able to see me right then and I had ultrasound and electro therapy. The second appointment was the same, but the electro therapy was stronger.

The electro therapy being applied.

Electro therapy machine and other gadgets.

Click on images to enlarge. 

Romeo Gallegos - Potter

Yesterday, we were fortunate to meet Romeo Gallegos, a potter from the town of San Juan de Oriente (aka the town of potters), Nicaragua. 

He and his wife create really lovely vases and other pottery items. The designs are beautifully done. Things are difficult in Nicaragua these days. To earn money for his family, he comes to Costa Rica and sells his wares for very reasonable prices.

He posted his available work on Facebook and I ordered a vase. Lots of other people were claiming the pieces they wanted. He travels around to Atenas, Grecia and San Ramon and I think he will take himself to wherever somebody wants his pottery.

We met him in Grecia and he saw me, pointed and said “Diana”! I pointed at him and said “Romeo”! He knows me from Facebook and also that I too do art - the caballos (horses) and vacas (cows) as he said.

He showed me a matching piece to my vase so I bought that also. I so admire how hard working this man is.

Click on images to enlarge.

Lunch - Blue’s Cafe Arte and Cafeteria, San Ramon, Costa Rica

Today we drove to San Ramon (about 40 minutes away) to have lunch at Blue’s Cafe Arte and Cafeteria. It has received good reviews and the menu looked interesting.

It took a while to find a parking space but we finally found one a short walk away. Blue’s is inside a small mall and there are tables inside the restaurant and also outside in a covered mall.

Service is fast and the servers very nice. It’s not a large restaurant but it’s upscale. They offer live music and today we enjoyed a guitar player.

For refreshments, I ordered the “ice macchiato de caramelo”. It was really good - I like iced coffee and of course caramelo in or on anything:

Lance opted for the “cappuccino doble espresso” and pronounced it perfect, with the double shot of espresso and a mouse:

I wanted a hamburger today, something I don’t often order. This one - “hamburguesa de la casa” - was excellent. The bun was not too “bready”. It had onions, cheese, lettuce and bacon and came with a side of fries and a dipping sauce.

For Lance, it was the “wrap Cesar de pollo”, accompanied with waffle fries. I really like these and I wonder where I can buy them - maybe in the frozen section in a grocery.

As is usual for us, we couldn’t eat everything on our plates so we came home with half a burger and half a wrap - there’s dinner.

If you are in San Ramon, do try this restaurant. They are doing a great job.

We turned on Waze to make sure we got out of the city in the correct direction to get to our house in Grecia. It took us on an indirect route which we did not expect. The route was not anything like Highway 1, the freeway. Instead, we were met with switchbacks going up and down, no shoulders, and steep dropoffs with no guardrails (because there were no shoulders to support guardrails). It was definitely cocktail hour when we made it home.

Click on images to enlarge.

Available at Last! The Road Trip to Arenal Videos!

Last year I gave Lance a car cam for his birthday. We decided to try it out on a road trip and we  chose Arenal volcano as our destination. I made reservations at the Arenal Manoa Resort Hotel and Hot Springs.

Caveat: There are seven different videos posted. YouTube won’t accept individual videos longer then 15 minutes (without going through an administrative process) so we broke up all the videos into less then 15 minute segments. Also, most of them are of driving on the roads to and from Arenal - so some may find them boring. Others who have never been to Costa Rica might find them very interesting. You decide.

This trip we remembered to bring Kermit with us and he was very happy.

I have added photos of Manoa resort after the final video - #7.

Maps of our routes going to Arenal Manoa Resort and returning home are as follows:

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Video #1 is of us leaving our house and starting out to Arenal Manoa Resort. We drive over the stone bridge (puente de piedra) which is where our neighbourhood got its name from.

Video #2 - we are on highway 1 (aka Interamerican or Pan American Highway) headed towards San Ramon.

Video #3 - After San Ramon, rain starting, heavy cloud/fog and twisty roads.

Video #4 - We are now driving on highway 702 to La Fortuna. Notice the narrow bridge - “ceda” means yield.

Video #5 - We are at the Arenal Manoa Resort Hotel, returning from a day trip we took the second day. Part of the road was being repaired.

Video #6 - Heading home on highway 4 and then highway 35 south.

Video #7 - Highway 118, through Sarchi and the outskirts of our town, Grecia.

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Lance outside on our casita’s patio.

The casitas are very private.

Kermit had never seen a jacuzzi before.

The clouds parted from around Arenal volcano just long enough for us to have a good view from our casita.

Breakfast was included - excellent.

 

The pool with swim up bar.

Pizza! made to order right by the pool. Thin crust - the best. Note that the cook and the server are wearing face masks.

Random photos from around the hotel grounds:

This was a great road trip, albeit with a few driving challenges - rain, cloud, fog and twisting roads. La Fortuna is a super place for tourists to visit - there is so much for them to do.

Click on images to enlarge.

Ants, Compre Bien and a Highway Restaurant

We recently experienced an invasion in our house and surrounding outdoor areas of very tiny, reddish/brown ants. They were everywhere. As fast as I swept them up, they returned. There were piles of dead ant bodies.

Outside our back door (those brown piles are dead ant bodies):

Inside, in every room:

Yes, it is the rainy season and, yes, we live in the tropics but in our ten years of living in Costa Rica, we have never had an insect invasion like this one. We live peacefully with the odd insect who comes in our home but this was not acceptable.

It was time to call in the big bug guns. Who ya gonna call? Delgado Fumigadora, of course. Our bug technician was bilingual. The outdoor areas were sprayed as well as indoors. A return visit will be needed to spray the outside again. We, and many others, highly recommend this company. Price was very reasonable.

We had a lucky week! Both Lance and myself received our new Costa Rican Dimex (or cedula) ID cards showing that our permanent residency had been successfully renewed for another three years.

And … I won 80,000 CRC in groceries at Compre Bien, a Costa Rican owned grocery store that we frequent here in Grecia. That is equivalent to about $160 Canadian dollars.

Today (Sunday) was one of our designated driving days. These driving restrictions are in force to hopefully keep people at home in an effort to control Covid-19. We decided to go out to a restaurant for breakfast.

Searching online, I found one in San Ramon that looked promising. We never found it - it was not where Waze indicated it should be. So we gave that up and decided to head towards home and maybe find a restaurant that was open along the way. By happenstance, we passed one that looked promising (it had trucks out front, a good sign) - Comidas Tipicas El Paraiso on Autopista Bernardo Soto (highway 1) - so we stopped here.

It was a good choice. The service is cafeteria style. All the selections were identified and prices posted so you just have to point if you feel your Spanish is a bit shaky. I prefer this style of eating for breakfast and lunch as I can control the portion sizes and just get the items that I want. For me this morning it was a tamale, an egg cannelloni and a tamarind drink. The cannelloni is stuffed with meat and then wrapped in an omelette - I had never seen cannelloni prepared this way until we moved here. Lance ordered pinto (rice and beans), eggs, coffee and a sort of potato salad. Everything was excellent.

You will never guess what the final cost was for all these delicious items ….. 5,200 colones!!! That’s like $10 Canadian - for two people! This restaurant is very popular with locals.

Then, just to sweeten the pot, a special car drove up and parked. It just looked expensive … it had gull wing doors that swung open. We had to check it out when we left - it was a Tesla 10X! Except on TV, we had never seen one of those before. The starting price for this vehicle is about $91,000 in the USA, according to Car and Driver Magazine. I wonder how it came to be here and who owns it. 

I took a photo - the green-blue coloured licence plate indicates it is an electric vehicle. The people who got out of it and entered the restaurant looked just like everyone else - ordinary folk. Maybe this is a testament to this restaurant.

Click on images to enlarge.

Beach Day - 2016

A couple of weeks ago, a group of expats from Atenas and San Ramon, Costa Rica, met at Playa Dona Ana for a day of sun, ocean swimming, relaxing, chatting and just enjoying living in Costa Rica.

I made a short video of our day there. The monkeys were particularly bold ... I've never seen them coming down on the ground to grab pieces of bananas before. 

If you wish to watch the video full screen, click on the Youtube icon.

Beach Day

On Tuesday of this week, December 3, 2013, a group of us from the Atenas and San Ramon areas of the Central Valley met at Playa Doña Ana, 10 km south of Puntarenas at the mouth of River Canyon on the Gulf of Nicoya.

Playa Doña Ana is a black sand beach (volcanic sand) protected by the ICT (Costa Rica Institute of Tourism). It has been awarded an Ecological Blue Flag by Costa Rica's National Blue Flag Commission. This is an annual certification awarded to communities scoring a minimum of 90% for all requirements: ocean water quality; quality of potable water; quality of coastal sanitation areas; coastal garbage and garbage containers; treated industrial waste; treated runoff water; environmental education; security and administration.

There is a nominal charge to enter, with plenty of parking outside the gates. There are showers, washrooms, change rooms, BBQ's, and covered and uncovered picnic tables. There is now also a restaurant but I do not know their hours of operation or if they are only open for special events. We always bring our own food and drinks so have not tried it.

One thing I like about this beach is that it is a Tico beach. We get to mingle with the Costa Ricans, who come here with their families. On this day, there was a Pops ice cream company picnic, with 72 people attending. Lance heard the number being counted off as he was waiting to pay our entry fees. So there were a lot of people at the beach, but still it was not crowded and not very noisy.

The resident white-throated capuchin monkeys are usually visible and will readily come part way down the trees for bananas. Please don't feed them anything else. I've seen junk food being offered.

Playa Doña Ana was the first Costa Rican beach we went to after moving here. I remember being so amazed, seeing the Pacific Ocean this far south, the waving palms, the tropical breezes, and then floating in the warm, salty water. Overhead flew flocks of brown pelicans and large seabirds (frigatebirds?) massing on the cliffs.

 

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Tracking the Weather in Atenas

My husband Lance is collaborating with Paul and Gloria Yeatman on keeping daily rainfall and temperature statistics for both Atenas and San Ramon, a town that is at a higher elevation than Atenas and therefore experiences different rainfall and weather patterns. Costa Rica is a country of microclimates. Many think that the country may be uncomfortably hot and humid. That is simply not so. It depends on where you choose to live.

Paul and Gloria live in San Ramon and have a very informative and interesting website called "Retire For Less in Costa Rica". They share many of our philosophies about living a simpler life with less "stuff" to clutter up your space and mind. Their site offers lots of helpful information about living in Costa Rica.

Lance recently received a rain gauge as a gift from our friends and neighbours, Rose Mary and Tony ... thank you! On the days we have rain, he records the amount of rainfall and also the daily high and low temperatures at our altitude. It is interesting to compare the different figures between Atenas and San Ramon, especially for those people researching living in the Central Valley of Costa Rica and wondering what area would suit them best.

Lance's rain gauge

Notice the nice green pole the gauge is mounted on. It is mounted in an area unobstructed by overhead foliage. We went to the Atenas hardware store, Vargas, and found the perfect piece of wood behind the store in their lumber area. It even had a pointed end to drive into the ground. Then we bought some outdoor green spray paint for the pole and a couple of screws to loosely mount the gauge on the pole. The loose mounting allows the gauge to be lifted away from the pole to eye level for reading, emptied of water, and placed back on the pole with ease - ready and set for the next day's reading.

 

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