Semana Santa is upon us, and this website has come back from the dead. Turns out that when this site was on the old host, someone was able to install a malware plugin to wordpress. Last night I realized what was wrong, after quite a while “giving it some time to resolve itself” in the Caribbean tradition. The plugin is gone, the problem is gone, and now we can start thinking again about what aspect/s of Puerto Viejo, the Caribe, and surroundings this site could be useful for.
Back for 2019
Walaba.com has moved to a new host, with new speed technologies and a new pumped up hamster in teh treadmill ready to propel the site to newer, faster, better highs.
hacked
i guess we were hacked, and someone was using an exploit to send spam emails from our domain, but it looks like the issue has been resolved. sorry if you received email from some address at walaba.com, it wasn’t us!
credit card tip
over on the great consumer blog QuienPagaManda.com, their tip of the week concerns something people should know about using credit cards in costa rica:
¿Le ha sucedido que cuando va a pagar un artículo en un comercio le indican que le harán descuento solamente si paga en efectivo, pero que no se lo realizarán si paga con tarjeta?
¿O le ha pasado que en el negocio le dicen que le aceptarán la tarjeta (de débito o de crédito) a partir de compras de ¢1.000 o más?
has a business ever told you that you could receive a discount on an item if you used cash and not a credit card, or said a card purchase had to be for at least 1,000 colones or more? well those are both common, and illegal business practices.
included is a link explaining how to report these or other consumer abuses (spanish only).
the rainfall in puerto viejo is……all over the map!
charlotte siems heffner posted a chart of measured rainfall 2002-2011 over in the PV open forum on facebook. the one pattern that emerges is that there is not much consistency year on year. also, it doesn’t appear clear that global warming has changed the weather here, as some have contended over the last couple of years. anyhow, here is the data, draw your own conclusions! 
2012 Puerto Viejo Style
so, we rang in 2012 in customary puerto viejo style, with a ton of illegal fireworks. well, *we* didn’t personally, but it seemed like there were more bombetas this year than ever before. there were lots of things going on in town, and lots of tourists visiting to attend them. traffic was jammed up on main street with all the cars rolling in from around the country. beach break in cocles was packed with people during the day from christmas until yesterday, but today, the second, a monday, it looks like most people have rolled back to san jose to get to work, with the exception of some “ninis” with a homemade parrilla soaking in the sun with a cooler of imperials.
a quick survey in roughly bike-by order of what we saw around town: plan beach playing at tex mex, sebastian spinning at mango sunset, junior alvarez and the calypsonians and jim vick at la costa de papito, jimmy mac dougall and los rayos at chili rojo, maurizio spinning at cafe viejo, and rising sound at the lazy mon. wow, that was a lot of linking, my fingers are tired.
2012 is shaping up to be a good year, and hopefully we can get motivated to post more. we’re also going to be relaunching and working with puertoviejo.net to see if we can’t improve on and breathe some life into puerto viejo’s oldest website (we think) which has been up on the internets since january of 1998.
¡feliz año!
pro mani
i eat a lot of the pro mani salado, and tonight i looked up the website of the company. turns out that it is part of pozuelo snacks, and it claims these health benefits for peanuts:
Beneficios de comer maní
Contienen grasas mono saturadas, vitamina e, acido fólico, magnesio, proteínas, fibra y son ricos en antioxidantes.
Juegan un rol muy importante en bajar los niveles de colesterol y en dilatar las venas y arterias previniendo así la ateroesclerosis y otras enfermedades.
Son una gran fuente de beneficios que pueden reducir dramáticamente el riesgo de contraer enfermedades coronarias
i think my favorite is the mani con pasas.
costa rica’s minister of tourism likes puerto viejo
in an interview with the tico times, second term Tourism Minister Allan Flores reveals his partiality to the caribe sur:
Where does the tourism minister vacation?
My mother’s family comes from Limón (on the Caribbean coast), so that’s why I usually enjoy places such as Gandoca, Puerto Viejo and Punta Uva. To me those are the best places and I love them.
(it is very possible that the link to the interview will be placed behind a paywall by the time you try to click on it. if you are interested in puerto viejo, that quote right there is what you need to know!)