The great thing about living on a tourist visa in Costa Rica is that you have to travel to another country every 90 days. I decided to visit Panama City for a week. I stayed at the amazing Hostel Mamallena again and visited my friend Rychy. Besides that, the week in Panama wasn’t very eventful. Unlike the trip home.
Because I am travel cheap, I decided for a long bus ride rather than a flight. Then again, I am not that cheap and like to travel with a little bit of comfort, so I booked a bus ticket in the clasa ejecutiva (business class). Including the border crossing the trip was supposed to take 14-15h. The bus was half empty, so I got the seat next to me for myself. Great. Soon after we take off we got served a hot meal: Steak. It was surprisingly good. Only, the fact that we were provided with a plastic fork but no knife made me feel like a caveman gnawing on a chunk of meat.
Next on the menu was the obligatory movie. In Latin American long-distance buses it’s usually one of the following categories: Action movie American style (Stallone, Schwarzenegger, etc.), Action movie Asian style (Jacky Chan, etc.) or Comedy with black American actors (Eddie Murphy, etc.). Since I paid $10 extra for the ‘business class’ I was hoping for some better movie. Well, I ended up watching ‘2012: Ice Age‘. It’s kind of a bad remake of The Day After Tomorrow (as if that wasn’t bad enough). In the movie the climate goes crazy and a glacier is approaching New York City with 200 miles per hour. No kidding. This is the worst movie I have seen in full (unlike the cinema, I couldn’t just walk out) in a long time. IMDB gives it a whooping 2.3/10. Here is the trailer, just to give you some idea of how bad it is. One last fun fact: The boy (I don’t dare to call him an actor) who plays the son of the main characters has the second longest tongue in the world. Exactly, WTF…
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March4th
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February20th
Manuel Antonio beach
Finally, I get to travel around Costa Rica for a bit. After having visited the Caribbean coast two weeks ago and La Fortuna last week, I went for a day trip to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast. And this time, I even got a sunburn. In case I did not look like a proper tourist before, now I do!
Manuel Antonio is one of the popular tourist destinations on this side. It’s very nice here but the Caribbean beaches are more beautiful. -
February9th
It’s high time for a blog update. And it was about time for me to hit the beach. I haven’t seen any beach since September 1st! Makes me wonder why I live here if I don’t take advantage of the great things Costa Rica has to offer. -
January5th
My room in San José
Some of you might have wondered why I stopped reporting about new countries I am visiting or why my location status on the website never changes. The reason is that after visiting Colombia in October I decided to settle in Costa Rica for the time being. There were different reasons for my change in plans, one of them being my financial situation that still leaves a lot to be desired. I simply have no money to finish my trip at the moment and hope that taking a break and focusing on my work will fix that. Costa Rica is the safest countries in the region and has the highest standard of living. The central valley in which the capital San José is located has a great moderate climate with 20-something degrees Celsius all year round.
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December20th
My bank account statement
My attempts of getting my bank account in a better shape have taken another blow this morning. Here comes another article for the ‘crime’ section of my blog (José, I hope you are happy now! 🙂 ).
As we all know, I am really good at losing things (one of the numerous superpowers I possess). But the only thing I actually got stolen during the last 12 months of traveling was a pair of smelly sneakers. Until last night, when 500€ (to be precise: 491.08€) miraculously disappeared from my bank account. That’s not cool. The money was withdrawn from a bank in Lima, Peru. I have never even been to Peru (yet). How this is even possible is beyond me. I could not contact my bank directly because their service number cannot be reached via Skype. So, my dad (who has access to my account) had to take care of this. The bank blocked my card but what’s going to happen to the 500€ is unclear. The bank person in charge did not reply my email, yet but told my dad something about a police report. I wonder how and where from I am supposed to get this police report. From Germany (via phone?), from Costa Rica or do they expect me to fly to Lima to file the report there…
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December18th
As you may or may not know, I am making a living and pay for my travels with my science illustration work. It’s not exactly making me a rich man. So, I am always looking out for alternative ways of making money. No, don’t worry, I have dismissed the idea of smuggling cocaine in my anus across the Colombian border… But it has always been my wish to generate some income from my traveling. Writing has never really been my thing (despite this blog), I am more of a visual person. And I have taken tons of photos this year. So, I was thinking of offering some of the nicer ones on a stock photography site.
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December12th
I uploaded a whole bunch of photos. Check them out at the photo page. There are still a few from the US
and Colombiamissing.Update: The Colombia photos are now online.
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November24th
My journey turns out to be a lot less linear than the straight line on the map may suggest. There is a lot of back and forth but that’s not a bad thing. By the time of writing I made it down to Colombia where my trip came to a stop as ran out of money.
San Francisco Skyline
I decided to fly back to Costa Rica and spend a few months there to focus on work and make some money (I’ll explain this in more detail in another post). My Costa Rican roommate works for an airline and when he said he’d go to San Francisco I got jealous and begged him to get me one of those cheap tickets, so I could come as well. The rest is history; I am back in San Francisco for a few weeks. The swift change of environment makes me realize all the things I missed in Latin America – and those I didn’t. This must be my fifth visit here and I’m always happy to be back. As one of my friends said ‘Welcome back home.” The Bay area is certainly one of my favorite places in the United States.
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November1st
Click here if you prefer to watch the video right on Vimeo.
Finally! For those of you that have little time, I created this video – fast forward slideshow with ~600 photos in just 99 seconds. I hope you are not epileptics and enjoy. Don’t forget to turn on the sound.
And hey, if it’s too fast, you are too old 🙂
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October16th
Two mullets from Medellin (© Stefan Ruiz)
The mullet – ‘business in the front, party in the back’. I don’t know why but I have always had a fascination for that haircut. Hence, I was excited to realize that the mullet is a perfectly socially acceptable hairstyle in Colombia. Without a doubt Medellin is the mullet capital here. You just can’t miss them. The interesting thing is that this is not a short-lived trend of some sort. Medellin and mullets have been inseparable for a long time.
I did not any take any mullet photos during the few days I spent in Medellin but the Green Soccer Journal has a whole photo series here. Check it out.
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