Monday, February 28, 2011

Our MOST Watched VIDEOS

Our
Costa Rica travel videos are doing pretty good on our YouTube Channel. As of today, our videos get seen about 2000 times a day, EVERYDAY and NEVER drop below 1800 times a day. With our Total Video Views reaching 800,00 total views. Finally, after 3 years and thousands of hours, the light at the end of the tunnel seems almost blinding. We're pretty excited to say the least because for awhile,the only light we saw came from the candles we were holding- birthday size candles at that.

YouTube can tell you everything about your videos- who's watching, where, how often and the age of the person viewing, I'm surprised they can't tell what someone had for breakfast, so needless to say, keeping track of video statistics is pretty easy. So, Mark in Florida, here's your answer. Some of our most popular videos to date (in no particular order):

Baldi Hot Springs in La Fortuna Costa Rica



Living in Costa Rica CULTURE SHOCK



Driving Costa Rica



Prostitution in Costa Rica



Gay Hotel in San Jose Costa Rica



Theft and Crime in Costa Rica



TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Is Pincho Fashionable ENOUGH to Make the CUT?

Is our cute Chihuahua puppy, Pincho, to seXy for our Videos?

The plan is to eventually incorporate our little chihuahua, Pincho, into our videos. BUT, does he have the style, the fashion sense and overall desire we'll demand in order to make the cut? There's 2 qualities that D'Angelo and myself our known for- our professionalism and maybe more important, the fact we only wear the latest gear in our videos. I don't like to brag, but we do set the fashion trends among expats in Costa Rica. We'll expect no less from Pincho.

So, we took him out the other day to try on his new designer shoes. Check out this video and let us know how you think he did.



TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Living the MUSIC in Costa Rica

Costa Rica based ZenWest- 'Meditating with a Hammer' CD

I LOVE what we do. Traveling Costa Rica, making travel and expat videos, writing blogs and such, we get to meet a lot of fascinating folks- Way COOL!

Roland and Cathrine live in Santiago de Puriscal, Costa Rica, which is west of San Jose. I should say, I don't really know them, know them, and actually, don't even know what they look like. They saw what we did on-line and then turned us on to what they do- or at least what Roland does. Not sure if Cathrine is involved or not, but by the sounds of it, her creative spirit is also alive and creating.

Roland is involved with ZenWest, "which writes, produces, and performs it own brand of Musica del Mundo (Music of the World). The songs swing from ethereal and soothing to rhythmic and thought-provoking percussive storytelling."

How ZenWest describes their songs:
"The songs are a combination of meditation and percussion that are meant to invoke thought, movement, and a journey within and without."


I would say that description is accurate, kinda like taking a 70-minute hike in your head. 70- minutes being ZenWest's CD- 'Meditating with a Hammer'. Here's an example, this is Track 10- Dancing the Equator.

Personally, I prefer to start the CD from the beginning and let the journey begin.

And that's how I met Roland and ZenWest. He invited me to check out the music- and I dug it- simple as that. It may not be for everyone, but it may be for people interested in the following: yoga, self-reflection, contemplation, spirituality, growth, discovery, making the journey... I think you get the picture. Hopefully, we'll actually get to officially meet and hook-up with Roland and Cathrine in the near future. I'm fairly certain they're our kind of people.

Gotta add, excited to hear the next CD because Roland turned me on to one of the NEW tracks that will be on it: Tropic of Europa and it's VERY NICE. Check out that song and learn more about ZenWest.

ENjoY!

TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

When RIFF RAFF get out of CONTROL

La Fortuna Costa Rica probably has one of the BEST small town parks in the country.

The La Fortuna, Costa Rica park sits smack dab in the middle of town, so as you can imagine, it gets a lot of traffic from both tourists and locals alike. And since it's a beautiful park, it's a great place to people watch, CHILL, take photos, picnic or just enjoy each others company in the shadow of the Arenal Volcano
.

Everyone loves to chill in the park with a nice cold Imperial.

Truth is, before they did what I'm about to tell you, on any given day, a few teenagers would roam the park and sell pot. To people who live here, they're known, to a visitor, not so much- very unassuming and it's not as if they carried a sign.

The cops knew these kids and would search them on a regular basis, but it was more of a game, we rarely saw someone actually get arrested.

Yeah, some sketchy behavior does happen from time to time in the park.

Another minor problem- guys would sometimes gather under a tree and drink. It was more of a minor annoyance than anything, harmless drunks and it's not like they were taking over the park or anything or harassing the tourists, just a few locals with a little too much time on their hands.

The powers that be in La Fortuna decided something needed to be done about these atrocities so they installed cameras on the church steeple so they could keep an eye in the sky as to the goings on in the park. All this to deter a few of the riff raff. But what's the use of cameras if you can't see anything. The park 'had' many beautiful, mature trees which obstructed the view of the cameras, so obviously they had to go. Don't want to lose sight of those pesky, drug dealing kids.

I wish it would take as much time to destroy something as to grow it.

So they decided to gut the park. This is our video. We chose not to hammer the issue, after all, we live here and although many Tico's don't like what happened to the trees, they would dislike us announcing the fact even more. Costa Rica markets 'perception' and it's practically a sin to air dirty laundry.

BOTTOM LINE- Our contention is their were better options than ripping about 25 trees out of the ground. The irony, the police are a presence in the park everyday, all day, they do have the manpower. What do you think?



TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Tico Times- GAY or just LAME?

"Tico Times- when 'Pura Vida' just isn't enough!"

We love Costa Rica's gringo newspaper, Tico Times. Of course they're on the internet as well, TicoTimes.net but sometimes it's nice to sit down with a cup of coffee and a REAL live newspaper. Too bad it only comes out once a week.

Bottom line- we think the Tico Times should do a story on us as ours would make for an interesting one- How we came to be in Costa Rica, how it all went bad, really, REALLY fast and what we did to stop the bleeding. And if they want to talk gay, we could, not mandatory, but doable and still interesting. I digress.

Unfortunately, I posted the above pic on my FB page a few days ago and Tico Times being one of my 'friends' did see it and did respond. What did they do? They gave it the 'thumbs up'. Whoo Hoo! Big F'in deal. That's it, a thumbs up. No, "thanx for taking the time" or "thanx for the shout out" or "Cool pic"... nothing, ZIP, how fuckin lame is that? A freakin newspaper at a loss for words.

In my mind, I was hoping the Tico Times was a little more free thinking and web savvy but like most things in my mind- it ends up being just wishful thinking.

So Tico Times, forget it. We'll hold out. Our day will come and it will be a lot more than a 'thumbs up' day.

But it's all good, I still need something to do every Friday when I'm enjoying a nice cup of the pure stuff from Costa Rica... and AM Costa Rica sure in hell doesn't do it for me. So, if our roads ever cross, I'll be sure to give you a 'Hi 5', which of course is equally as GAY as a thumbs up. And let's remember to jump in the air as we slap hands...... geeeeez

*I'm not really a bridge burner type of guy, I prefer to BLOW them the fuck UP, you know, just so we're CLEAR.

TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Driving Costa Rica Accidents and Landslides

Driving in Costa Rica is an adventure in itself.

Driving in Costa Rica is as much an adventure as any white water rafting tour or waterfall rappel through the rainforest and if you've ever driven here, you already know that. And not just for the obvious reasons such as road and weather conditions but also for the fact Tico's are some of the worst drivers on the PLANET... yeah, I said it.

Anyway, we made a video called, 'Driving Costa Rica' a couple years back when really, we were newbies to the video making genre. That video is the second one down on this page.

We received a LOT of negative comments on that video, from 'threats' to just out and out name calling..."FAGGETS go HOME and Butt F*** each other if you don't like Costa Rica." I would often respond by politely pointing out that the comment would have hurt a little more if they had actually spelled 'faggot' correctly.

Anyway, we did come to understand why they were a little peeved... it was our delivery. We came across a little flippant... and we did.

Finally, we made part 2 of that video (which is directly below) to set the record straight, but not only set the record straight but to emphasize a couple points the first video did not.

There you have it. Planning on seeing Costa Rica by car, you need to CHECK OUT both videos. ENjoY! and as always, hope it helps.

This is the NEW video-'Driving Costa Rica- Accidents and Landslides'



This one is the old one, but still VERY relevant:



TONS of Costa Rica Travel Info and VIDEOS on our website: Travel Costa Rica NOW and if you want to visit our YouTube Channel: iCostaRica24 ENjoY!