dean2900

I know a computer simulation would be one way but since my wife and I are getting ready to go to Costa Rica for a week, I thought I would practice up on my card counting for blackjack. I turned $200 into $900. It is always so much easier to do at home without all the distractions of the cainso. And yes my wife was the dealer

Dean

tidalwdave

Good luck with the blackjack!

Hey, please take and post some photos. I've been trying to get to CR for the past seven years, but moving and my job have not let me travel as I'd like. Are you going for the ecotourism stuff, or just to take it easy?

dean2900

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tidalwdave
[B]Good luck with the blackjack!

Hey, please take and post some photos.

tidalwdave

Very cool. What part of CR are you going to? I was wanting to do the pacific side with the big rainforest, the volcano area, the Caribbean area. Pretty much see as much as possible. Is the volcano still active, shooting lava and exploding? I'd love to see the leaf cutter ants, the howler monkeys, the waterfalls, that rare parrot in the cloud forrest (forgot it's name, resplendent quezell or something), as well as the other parrots and monkeys.

Have fun, you are taking one of my dream vacations! CR, Australia, and Alaska are all I need to see to die a happy man!

dean2900

We are going to be spending half the time in the Arenal area at the Volcano and then the second half in Jaco which is on the Pacific side. Jaco is a neat little Cental American town. The Los Suenos is one of the nicest resorts anywhere.

If you go make sure you check out the Manuel Antonio Nancional Park. You can walk up in the jungle and get a beautiful view of the pacific, see howler monkeys, white faced monkeys, sloths, and squirrerl monekys. Then you walk down to the beaces which are beutiful white sand beaches right on the jungle. You can almost always find a secluded beach in that area.

If you do end up going, please IM or email me because I can tell you gotchas in that country and the nightmare of car rentals.

Just make sure you speak Spanish fairly decent because when you get outside of the resorts, you will need it!

Dean

tidalwdave

I know about the car rental problems. Hablo muy un poco Espanol. I may do a small group ecotour thing if I go. My wife has no desire to go, so I'd like to go with some kind of group. Arenal is the volcano area I was thing of. My mind has forgotten all the research I had done. There's also that Monteverde Cloud Forest that would be cool.

Man, I wish I was going! Hope you don't spend all you time on blackjack. You can gamble in The States! See the country. Are you waiting to go during the dry season? I think Nov. - April or something. I think it's in our winter.

Anyway, not to take over your thread. I'll wait for some photos and stories!

dean2900

Don't worry, I only gamble at night. Daylight is roughly from 5am - 5pm in Costa Rica. I don't venture out too much at night. It is quite obvious to everyone that I am not a local

The Los Suenos has a nice little casino with about 5 table games and 20 or so slots/videp poker. I can usually get a table to myself blacking rummy (which is there version of blackjack). IN fact, the casino is only open from 7pm - 2am.

So you a little Spanish (un poco). That is good enough . You would just need to memroize the traffic directions as there are a lot of one way bridges, etc. It would also be important to memroize helpful phrases. There are a lot of instant immersion CBTS out there that really can catach you up in a hurry.

The thing is that you can get a good rate on a car rental (I got 280 a week for 4WD). However, you generally have to pay another 280 for the insurance because the theft rate and accident rates are so high. You also have put a 1500 dollar deposit which you lose if your car is stolen. My AMEX Platinum card covers that for me so I use it to book the car.

As for the Monteverde Cloud Forest, it is right there by Arenal. We are also going to the Tabacon hot springs where the volcanic activity makes these great natural hot tubs that you can sit in outdoors as you watch the Volcano.

We are going during the green season because it worked out best on getting the award tickets and fit our schedule best.

The green season is really not bad. Generally you get an hour of extreme rain in the day and then it goes back to 88 degrees. The 88 degrees does feel like 110 because of the humidity there.

The hardest thing for me to get used in Costa Rica is the fact that when we drive from Jaco to Manuel Antonio, you must cross this long bridege that has metal frames that got destroyed so they just put wooden boards over it. As you slowly and carefully cross this bridge by car, you will notice there is a large river below with about 1000 crococodiles looking up. I guess they are waiting for their next meal in case of a bad driver.

Dean