Travel Advisory

When travelling to Tortuguero thru Pavona be aware that you do not need to pre buy your boat ticket. Yesterday July 15th I took the 9:00A.M. bus from San Jose to Cariairi and then the local bus on to Pavona to catch the boat to Tortuguero.

Before the San Jose bus departed there was a gentleman that boarded and was going to the tourist trying to sell them tickets for the boat portion of the trip To Tortuguero. He was implying/saying that you had to buy from him and that he was cheaper ect. This was/is not true.  

When buying my ticket for the Cariairi to Pavona bus I was pressured to buy my boat ticket as well. I had to insist on bus only fare.

Upon arriving in Pavona and as soon as I departed the bus I was aggressively set upon by several people selling tickets for the boat. I was able to bypass these and while walking to the ferry landing a fellow approached me and I told him I was taking the CKIK CLIK boat and would not be buying a pre sold ticket. I should mention CLIC CLIK collect on the boat and do not pre sell tkts. He then told me that the CLIC CLIC boat had mechanical problems and would not be going and I should quickly buy my ticket from the “other” company while they still had room. This was a lie. And it made me mad. I got on the Clic Clic boat and made the trip into Tortuguero in a new boat with a 100HP+ 4 stroke motor while the rest of my fellow travelers (that I met on the bus) went with “other” company in a leaky overloaded boat with a 40HP 2 stroke motor.

I have been coming to Tortuguero for 3 years now and have watched this company go from “aggressive marketing” to straight out lying. I feel obligated to tell my fellow tourist/travelers that you do not and IMO should not pre buy the boat tkt. If you do you will pay more and be on an older/slower and probably leaky boat.

The reason that I post this is that I do not want people’s first impression of this absolute piece of paradise to be tarnished by a “questionable” operator. I have deliberately not mentioned there name because I don’t want to give them even negative publicity.

If anyone tells you that you have to pre buy the boat portion of the trip they are lying to you.

Here is the Tortuguero Village web site and there is some very good info on getting to Tortuguero …..As well other neat stuff.  And remember it is now Turtle season.  www.tortuguerovillage.com

Left my hotel and took a 5 minute cab ride to the hospital.  Was able to walk right into the International billing dept and talk to my rep. She took me over to admitting and got me signed up for my treatments and I could of had a phlebotomy right then. I chose to go in tomorrow morning as it will be a week Wednesday since my last treatment. Don’t want to push things. Was back to my room in less than hour total time. I hope tomorrow goes as well.

Well …. I am back in San Jose and am going to the Clinica Biblica Hospital in the morning to line up my treatments.  Will try for a phlebotomy (blood letting) for latter in the week. My last one in Calgary was on Wednesday and I don’t want to get much under a week apart. I feel pretty good ……much better than a few days ago. I’m a little tired but that is to be expected.

San Jose seems to be a little quiet compared to when I was down here before. I think school is out for a couple of weeks and it is the weekend. There doesn’t seem to be as many Gringos around either. I guess it is off season.

I will post again when I find out more about my treatments.

Time for a little background.

                I have been diagnosed with  hemochromatosis.  Hereditary hemochromatosis is a genetic, metabolic disorder that results in iron overload; the body absorbs and retains too much dietary iron. It is a primary disorder of iron metabolism that can affect many organ systems including the liver, pancreas, heart, endocrine glands and joints. It is potentially fatal, but easily treated if diagnosed early, before the excess iron causes irreversible damage.

·         Treatment for hemochromatosis involves management of complications, screening for liver cancer, avoidance of supplemental iron and appropriate vaccinations for hepatitis A and B; however, an aggressive de-ironing protocol is most important. Excess iron is removed by a procedure known as phlebotomy, which is the drawing off of a unit of blood, using the same technique as a blood donation, but with a much higher frequency.

This is a decent croc that I saw just down river from Puerto VejoSarapiqui

I got up one morning and was going to do some computer stuff and went to go into my computer bag when I found a new “friend”.  The video pretty well tells the story.

I finally have got a chance to go thru some more videos and am going to get them on the blog.  Here is one where we went “exploring” down south of the Tortuguero Park. I think this is the Christmas River but not sure.  I must mention that not being able to swim did enter into my mind but I do have confidence in my captain. I do use the F-bomb once or twice in this video and must apologize but I was in a stressful situation. LOL

A quick update …….  Forgot what all I have posted up to now so I might be repeating some … I got my new motor and it is great to have my own transportation. I am now able to get to Tortuguero and the internet when I want and so I hope to get a few more posts up.

The fishing has been slow but the weather has been perfect.  There has been no amount of rain for over a month and the rivers and canals are very low. You have to be very careful when running the canals or you are stuck on a sandbar.  But I just go slow and careful and so far no problem.  I must say a word of thanks to a local who was running the river to Pavona on Thursday …….Thursday is the start of the long weekend and the people were lined up at the ferry dock at Povona to get to Tortuguero. I was going very slow and careful because the river was so low. This fellow passed me going a good clip …. He defiantly knew the river. I got on him like shit to a wool blanket and was making good time and was having fun until I missed a corner by a little and run my boat aground …..Hard ….. Oh well …. Back to going slow. I had just got under way again when this fellow that I was following came back to see what had happened to me. With a big smile and wave he came around me and made sure that I was tight on his tail and we were off again.  This is just one example of how the people here look after the fat gringo.

Got to go fishing …… will post again soon ….

I’m on my way back to Costa Rica. Left the snow behind in Calgary and off to Toronto and am sitting waiting to board my flight to San Jose. I had a little hassle when checking in @ Air Canada this morning. I should mention that I have one oversized bag that I have full of fishing equipment. There was an AC “lady” that was at the start of the line for baggage check in and she was a “bitch”. She made me reweigh my bags even thou they had the weight stickers from Calgary in plain sight. No problem ….. Took the bags and weighed them (there was a portable scale right there)…….then she told me that I had to go over and pay for an oversized bag. I politely told her that my bag was registered on my file as sporting gear (fishing) and therefore the $100.00 oversized fee was waived. She was pissed by this time and told me in no uncertain terms that there was no such thing as an exemption for sporting equipment. I then told her to check the AC web site or check my file. By this time there was getting a fairly long line up behind me and this was getting stupid. I asked her if I could proceed and if I had to pay the fee I would. She sent me over to a special check in booth where there was no line up and proceeded to discuss the issue with the check in attendant by radio. When the attendant checked my file ….. No problem …. It was just as I said …….sporting equipment is exempt if pre registered. Now this is where my new buddy proves for all to see that she was a true bitch …..When she was insisting that I needed to pay the $100.00 fee even after she was told that the fee was waived she pulled the rope across the check in line and came over to the booth and loudly demanded to see my file. She had everyone’s attention while she read my file. You could just see her getting ready to kick some serious ass except that when she got to the part (I assume being as I could not actually see what she was reading) where I WAS exempt she got very red in the face and looked like she was going to explode or have an attack or something. At this point she could of saved face by saying something like “That’s new or something to that effect “and that would have been it but instead she proceeded to chew a new one on the girl that was checking me in for not keeping her “up to date” on baggage rules. This in front of the now 50 to 75 people lined up behind her roped off line and the now empty check in agents.  Truly embarrassing and totally unnecessary.

This is the second half of my spider monkey video. I will try and edit this down to a shorter video. When I get time …..LOL….