by Guest Blogger TicoNuevo

Suicide Showers, Surfer Hotels and Other Things to Avoid on Your First Trip to Costa Rica

In this blog, I’m trying to cover things you may not hear or read before you leave to visit Costa Rica for the first time. Since we’ve travelled plenty, but had been to Costa Rica only once, there are some things that struck us as unique or, at least, a bit unusual. The first of the two items mentioned in my headline above you may find at economy accommodations anywhere in the country, but particularly along the coasts.

The suicide shower as it is called, is an invention triggered by some engineer’s warped sense of practicality.  Many, if not most, Tico homes do not have hot water—hot water is generally seen by the native Costa Ricans in this warm clime as unnecessary and/or too expensive. This invention—an electrically heated shower head—is a way to provide hot water in the shower without having to invest in a hot water heater and hot water plumbing.

By guest blogger Myke Thomas for the Easy Times

Uninterrupted internet connection to connect to the world has been a long cherished dream for many individuals, especially in Costa Rica.

However, even in the recent past, one would have had to pay a heavy cost (not only in terms of money that is) to avail such a connection.

With the coming of broadband connection services to Costa Rica, one can now actually avail unlimited and uninterrupted internet facilities. It definitely makes searching for Costa Rica real estate a lot easier.

By Ivo Henfling

Water in Costa Rica is nowadays pretty clean in the dry season and very affordable. Most households in Costa Rica do not pay more than $30/month. If you spend more than that, you have a large household or you have a leak. No matter where you will buy a Costa Rica home for sale, you will probably be connected to A y A. Today there are very few areas that have water managed by the city or by a  coop. Water in Costa Rica is relatively cheap and is generally managed by A y A which means Acuaductos y Alcantarillados. But if you are looking to purchase Costa Rica real estate with your preferred GoDutch realtor, ask him/her where the water supply is coming from.

By Ivo Henfling

There are lots of retirees in Costa Rica and some way or other, they all communicate with their children and grandchildren back home. If the Queen of England can use email to communicate her decisions to her subjects as you can see in the photo, you can too. The computer age has changed us all tremendously and every day we learn new things, even though we think we are incapable of doing so. 30 Years ago, my mom and dad were living in the Canary Islands, Spain and we would talk to each other about once a month. When we were talking, we didn’t know what to say to each other or we wanted to say too much at the same time. Writing a letter was something like, do I really need to do this every month? Then we got Skype and other VOIP and now we have Facebook. Further down this Costa Rica blog, I’d like to share a great video about Facebook that my mom shared with me today, by email.

By Ivo Henfling and Mr. Z.

Just a couple of days ago, I wrote a blog about immigration in Costa Rica and a friend, Mr. Z,  just sent me a great sample of Costarican bureaucracy and what happened to him while trying to get his Costarican residency papers renewed. I am sure that some day, it will all work well, but this is a huge task for the Costarican bureaucrats.

The Costa Rican Central government has been working hard to digitalize their services so they will become more user friendly and step by step they are trying to make the long lines at the govenmental office shorter and shorter. I think it was the government of don Oscar Arias who first installed a Minister of Competitiveness and that started certain services in the INS (Insurance company), CCSS (Social Security system) and today, there are 7 governmental institutions that offer digital services.

by Ivo Henfling

Sometimes I get the comment that realtors only tell about the "good news" and never about the bad news. I don't think there is no good and bad news, its just news. If you watch the news on TV, most of it is murders and stuff, which shouldn't give us a reason to even want to watch it. In this blog, we (that's my agents and me), try to tell you a bit about what is going on in our community, "good or bad".

I have reported about the water company A y A putting in huge water pipes and covering the ditches, which will create a mess in the next rainy season. For those who don't know this road, it is called "calle vieja", which stands for "old road", which is an important artery as it connects downtown Escazu with the highway and downtown Escazu with Santa Ana. So hundreds of cars use this road daily. See in this pictures below how they covered the storm ditch and left behind the mess. And this is what today's story is all about.

By Ivo Henfling, your Escazu specialist

Finally some work on the water supply in Escazu and part of Santa Ana. Traffic backing up and machinery at work on the old road from Escazu to Santa Ana made me wonder what was going on.

Huge pipes at the side of the road and some machines digging up almost half the asphalt (almost a full lane) started worrying me as the municipality Escazu is not so well known for trying to keep up with the growth of what was once a small village and has now turned almost into a city.

I saw these huge pipes and of course wanted to know what was going on. Calling around didn't get me there and some more research finally got me to the A y A's website (water company, called Acuaductos y Alcantarillados) where it says: