International Living Visits Moran Real Estate At Lake Arenal

The Switzerland of Latin America






Dear International Living Reader,

Arenal in north-central Costa Rica was a complete surprise to me. I had seen the raw jungle in the southern zone and the cleared rolling landscape of Guanacaste, but neither prepared me for what was to come.

Arenal could be mistaken for Switzerland or the Italian lakes. The focal point, Lake Arenal, is surrounded by sloping hills and pasture land. Rising majestically on one side, is the pointed cone of a volcano, dominating the landscape.

The volcano is live and without sounding too New Age, has an aura all its own. I stood on a hillside dipping gently down to the lake, with a direct volcano view, and was mesmerized. At night, you can see the lava flowing; the best viewings are by boat from the lake.

There is a Swiss mini-village, complete with church and chalets, perched on the hillside overlooking the lake. There is a German bakery in the town of Nuevo Arenal, and an Austrian restaurant, all adding to that middle-European feel.

It is a tranquil, peaceful place…howler monkeys in the trees was the noisiest encounter that we had. Hiking, horseback-riding, bird-watching, swimming, fishing (mainly for rainbow bass), and boat trips are all possibilities. The lake is host to world-class windsurfing from November to April and the weather is moderate all year round.

Property prices here are as mesmerizing as the volcano. A three-bed, three-bath home was listed for $139,000. A fixer-upper was on offer for $45,500 and 38 acres of forest, pasture, rivers, and springs with volcano views was $139,000. Development here is in the early stages; most larger parcels of land have been sold.

The hot springs in La Fortuna are a major attraction that I wanted to visit, but ran out of time. The thermal water has reputed healing powers, and the volcanic mud is great for deep cleansing. There are a number of hotels that offer a variety of treatments...or you can simply soak contentedly outdoors in the heated water and relax.

And at the end of my day’s scouting, I sat down to a delicious meal at the Gingerbread Hotel. The chef hails from Israel and is passionate about food. His wild mushrooms in a wine and cream sauce on homemade bread was mouth-watering. The hotel has three rooms, set on the edge of Nuevo Arenal, and the restaurant opens for lunch and dinner.

Margaret Summerfield

CHIRRETE - COSTA RICAN MOONSHINE

CHIRRETE – COSTA RICAN MOONSHINE

Don’t Get me wrong its illegal, but this doesn’t stop some enterprising Ticos from the age old tradition of making moonshine, which is called Chirrete here in Costa Rica.

As a matter of fact there is a small village just minutes from the lake that is famous for its Chirrete. All you have to do is go to the village and ask around and you will be given the directions to a house on the outskirts of town where an old woman, the wife of the man who makes the spirits will gladly let you sample her husbands latest batch and sell you whatever quantity you need, generally sold per gallon at the going rate of about $8.

I have asked the farmer who has the still if I could see the still and he said he would be happy to show it to me, until I found it was a half days horse ride into the mountains each way, so I declined until another day.

This particular Chirrete is well known in northwestern Costa Rica for its quality and I wish I could say smoothness but that would be pushing it a little too far.
The proof, or strength of Chirrete is by definition impossible to say as every batch is different although usually ends up being between 100 and 120 proof. Anything over 160 proof is extremely strong and almost impossible to drink unless mixed with water or juice. 200 proof is pure alcohol. Costa Rican Chirrete is generally made with sugar cane, corn and rice and produces a clear liquid. There are some distillers that after the distilling process flavor their Chirrete with herbs which gives it various other colors.

Because of the single run distilling process most all moonshines are subject to some poisonous by products, including methanol and fusel oils. Fusel oil gives the moonshine that particular oily smell and is not very good for your health if you really get into your shine.

Going to a birthday party one day I thought it would be fun to take a 5 gallon plastic water container normally put on top a cooler and bring it as a gift. I asked the woman if she could fill it for me and without a thought she disappeared into the garage and came back 5 minutes later with it full. More important than that I got a quantity discount at only $6 per gallon and she threw in a bottle of her own home made concoction of Chirrete mixed with coconut syrup that tasted as good or better than a similar brand name bottle at the store.

Was my friend surprised when I walked into his house for the party with a 5 gallon water jug over my shoulder and plunked it down on the ground and just walked away. He later told me he was mystified at first why I was dropping off 5 gallons of mineral water.


Only later did he discover the real contents and needless to say he had a very happy birthday party

Costa Rica Lake Arenal Moran Real Estate

The Gold Mines At Lake Arenal

THE STORY OF GOLD AT LAKE ARENAL


For thousands of years the various Indian tribes of Central America have been mining gold through simple methods of shallow surface mining and panning. And there is evidence of this in many of the graves that have been excavated with small amounts of gold mainly in the graves of the nobles and caciques. The gold museum in San Jose has some excellent examples of this.


But our story begins with the purchase of 40,000 hectares of land in the Tilaran Mountains by an American named Minor Keith in the late 1800,s. Minor Keith in 1884 had made a deal with the Costa Rican Government to construct a narrow gauge railway from San Jose to Limon in exchange for 300,000 hectares of land on the Atlantic coast that later became The United Fruit Company.


His company was called Abangares Mining Company and the first mine he opened was in Las Juntas de Abangares. Later other mines were opened, two very close to Lake Arenal. A mines which closed fairly recently was located in Rio Chiquito on the south side of the Lake. The mine shaft has been dynamited shut, but all the machinery and smelter is still there. It was recently sold to a farmer for cattle grazing.


Another mine, with more historical significance was situated in the small town of Libano, which is 5 miles south of the town of Tilaran and about 40 minutes from the Lake. The Libano mine was opened in 1911 and finally closed in the late 1970,s not due to the lack of gold but because the price of gold dropped below the break even point where it became profitable to mine at $485 per ounce.


It took one ton of excavated rock to produce one half ounce of gold. The mining was done by hand, pick and shovel in hot narrow mines that went straight into a mountain side rather than down. They could only dig as far as the water table which was usually the elevation of the nearest river because they did not have the expensive pumping equipment to mine below this point.


The earliest mines were done with very primitive methods, crushing the extracted rock in large rocks which have been hollowed out and crushed mortar and pestle style, then treated with cyanide before smelting. If you go to Libano you can still see the old rusting machinery used in the mines and there is an old bar there where the miners would ease their weary backs after long hours in the mine.


I have purchased many of these interesting relics and artifacts from the Libano mine and they adorn the Gingerbread Restaurant grounds.






The written accounts depict the tough physical work of the miners and the tribulations to survive those hard existences.

Desperate men who were going through hard economic times for them and their families and end up working as miners because they could not find any other type of employment in the city. Despite the grueling hard work that the mines demanded, it still allowed many families to eat, particularly for people who hardly knew how to read and write.

Those who went to work for the mines were young, others middle age and some, pretty old. Some of them were physically strong. Some were slender and small built, others average in size, but the majority of them had a strong preference for hard work and for a hard living.

The conditions which miners had to endure were harsh to say the least The hours were long and so were the days. They worked under physically exhausting conditions being constantly exposed to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and different rashes and skin diseases. The miners spend the day crawling in wet, dark, bat and tarantula ridden tunnels. Rheumatic pain afflicted their sore muscles and aching joints and the long squatting and crawling inside tunnels carrying heavy buckets of ore or pushing heavy small gauge train carts stiffen their backs for hours.

The last General Manager of the mine at Libano who lives in Tilaran and was gracious enough to provide me with much of the information on the mine there said there is still a lot of gold to be had. And now with the price of gold hovering at $1000 per ounce, well, anyone feel like getting into the gold mining business.

Costa Rica Is The Worlds Greenest, Happiest Country

Costa Rica Is The Worlds Greenist, Happiest Country

Costa Rica Is The Worlds Greenest, Happiest Country
Published on Sunday, July 5, 2009 by the Observer/UKCosta Rica is World's Greenest, Happiest CountryLatin American nation tops index ranking countries by ecological footprint and happiness of their citizensby Ashley SeagerCosta Rica is the greenest and happiest country in the world, according to a new list that ranks nations by combining measures of their ecological footprint with the happiness of their citizens.A rainbow over San Jose in Costa Rica. Photograph: Juan Carlos Ulate/ReutersBritain is only halfway up the Happy Planet Index (HPI), calculated by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), in 74th place of 143 nations surveyed. The United States features in the 114th slot in the table. The top 10 is dominated by countries from Latin America, while African countries bulk out the bottom of the table.The HPI measures how much of the Earth's resources nations use and how long and happy a life their citizens enjoy as a result. First calculated in 2006, the second edition adds data on almost all the world's countries and now covers 99% of the world's population.NEF says the HPI is a much better way of looking the success of countries than through standard measures of economic growth. The HPI shows, for example, that fast-growing economies such as the US, China and India were all greener and happier 20 years ago than they are today."The HPI suggests that the path we have been following is, without exception, unable to deliver all three goals: high life satisfaction, high life expectancy and 'one-planet living'," says Saamah Abdallah, NEF researcher and the report's lead author. "Instead we need a new development model that delivers good lives that don't cost the Earth for all."Costa Ricans top the list because they report the highest life satisfaction in the world, they live slightly longer than Americans, yet have an ecological footprint that is less than a quarter the size. The country only narrowly fails to achieve the goal of what NEF calls "one-planet living": consuming its fair share of the Earth's natural resources.The report says the differences between nations show that it is possible to live long, happy lives with much smaller ecological footprints than the highest-consuming nations.The new HPI also provides the first ever analysis of trends over time for what are supposedly the world's most developed nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).OECD nations' HPI scores plummeted between 1960 and the late 1970s. Although there have been some gains since then, HPI scores were still higher in 1961 than in 2005.Life satisfaction and life expectancy combined have increased 15% over the 45-year period for those living in the rich nations, but it has come at the cost of a 72% rise in their ecological footprint. And the three largest countries in the world - China, India and the US, which are aggressively pursuing growth-based development models - have all seen their HPI scores drop in that time.The highest placed western nation is the Netherlands. People there live on average over a year longer than people in the US, and have similar levels of life satisfaction - yet their per capita ecological footprint is less than half the size. The Netherlands is therefore over twice as environmentally efficient at achieving good lives as the US, Nef says.The report sets out a "Happy Planet Charter" calling for an unprecedented collective global effort to develop a "new narrative" of human progress, encourage good lives that don't cost the earth, and to reduce consumption in the highest-consuming nations - which it says is the biggest barrier to sustainable wellbeing

Costa Rica - Health Is Number One

Costa Rica - Health Is Number One

Living in Costa Rica can be a healthy experience according to the United Nations. Costa Rica is in first place in Latin America for the development of curative and preventitive diseases, a ranking that places it in the top 20 in the world. In fact, this small tropical paradise surpasses the United States in both lower infant mortality and life expectancy.

So what sets Costa Rica apart from Mexico and other Central American countries? There are many factors, but probably the most fundamental is Costa Rica's strong and undying commitment to maintaining a high level of water quality. Unlike most of Latin America, you can drink the water right out of the tap! This applies to San Jose and the larger cities as well as small rural villages. All over the country, water quality and sewage treatment facilities are stringently monitored, and those few sources that are deemed unsafe to visitors are exposed. As a result, water quality standards have greatly benefited the restaurant industry. This coupled with their natural tendency for cleanliness and sanitation, Costa Ricans maintain extraordinarily high standards for their restaurants.

Foreign residents have lots of choices when it comes to how they want to handle their health care needs. Choosing clinics, doctors, and the mode of payment all take careful consideration. As a foreign resident, one must ask the question, "What kind of health care experience do I want?" As a general rule, the more one pays for their medical treatment, the more choice that person will have in which doctor they will go to, how quickly they will be seen by a physician, and how comfortable their accommodations will be. To answer this question, many residents have combined the best of both the public and private medical systems to create a hybrid health care plan for them and their families. Here's how it works: Many doctors in Costa Rica that work in the public CCSSS hospitals also conduct their own private office hours during the afternoons. Foreign residents can pay the CCSSS membership Costa Rica Residents Association fee (US$40-50) and visit the free clinics and hospitals in search of a doctor that they like. If this doctor provides a private service in addition to his public practice, the resident can take advantage of both worlds. They can make routine appointments with ease and little delay; however, should they need a complicated and expensive procedure, the CCSSS will cover the expenses.

Moran Real Estate Costa Rica Lake Arenal

Gingerbread Boutique Hotel And Restaurant Kudos

Gingerbread Restaurant, possibly the best place to dine in Costa Rica
October 3, 9:53 PMDallas Living Abroad ExaminerLynn Farris

Gingerbread Restaurant lit at night. Photo courtesy of Gingerbread Restaurant.
Most people come to the Arenal area to see the spectacular active volcano, to soak in the thermal waters, to windsurf Lake Arenal and enjoy the wide variety of entertainment nature has to offer. They must also now add dining to that list of things to do. The 2009 Lonely Planet guide book to Costa Rica has called Gingerbread Restaurant "arguably the best restaurant in northwestern Costa Rica (if not the entire country)." To those of us who live here, we know it is the finest place to dine in Costa Rica.


The Gingerbread Restaurant is located on the Lake Road, in Nuevo Arenal, northwest of the tourist area of La Fortuna. The head chef and owner, Eyal Ben-Manachem has an incredible passion for life and for food that makes dining here a memorable occasion. He believes food is to be shared and enjoyed. Eyal is originally from Israel and worked in a catering company there. He followed his enjoyment of food and rugby to the U.S. where he ended up in Chicago and enrolled in Kendall College, earning a culinary degree. He returned to Israel and then in 2003, he fell in love with Costa Rica, making it his home.



Here he creates what he calls an International fusion of French, Mediterranean and California cuisine, using only the freshest local ingredients. The menu changes nightly depending on what is good at the market. His specialties often include hand selected fresh local beef and pork. With the Costa Rica location, he also often showcases, fresh tuna, mahi mahi, red snapper, sea bass, jumbo shrimp, calamari and occasionally octopus.



I had the opportunity to dine there recently with friends. They had brought with them a special bottle of wine for us to share at dinner and Eyal was quite gracious in opening the wine and serving it to us without a cork fee. However, Gingerbread offers a wide selection of fine wine, spirits and both national and imported beers.



We all shared his amazing mushroom appetizer, and a caprese salad which was incredible. I’ll confess, I have shared his mushrooms and caprese salad every time I have dined here. These are two of his specialties and I strongly recommend them.



Our friends raved about his blackened tuna salad. The dressing allowed the salad to shine, but added a fascinating blend of sweet and spicy flavors. Her husband had the Mexican Pork, although he had planned to have prime rib, which wasn’t available that night. Despite his disappointment at having to make a substitution, he was blown away by the tenderness of the pork and the flavors. On our way home that evening, he was still wondering how anyone could make pork that tender.


Vegetarian Fettuccine. Photo by Donald Farris.
My husband and I are vegetarians, which often test the skills of fine chefs. Eyal made us a vegetarian fettuccini with feta cheese, green beans, carrots, sun dried tomatoes, peppers and fresh herbs in a very light sauce. As a vegetarian, I have certainly had my share of vegetarian pasta dishes; this was by far the best I have ever eaten. While Gingerbread may not advertise it, this is the place to come if you are a vegetarian.


Eyal is also known for his desserts featuring rich dark chocolate and fresh fruits. Unfortunately we were all too full to even entertain dessert.



Gingerbread also has a boutique hotel attached to it. With his spirit of creativity, it is not surprising that each room features the work of local artists. One room features a jungle motif with fantastic murals, another is a butterfly room and a third, the honeymoon room, offers a cupid motif. Eyal has supported local artists and not only is their art displayed here, you can purchase some of it as well.



While this certainly is not the least expensive place to dine, most people consider it quite reasonable for a dinner of this quality. Because portions are large and sharing is encouraged, if you come with friends, you can partake in a number of courses fairly economically. Make reservations before coming and bring cash. Credit cards are not accepted here.

Gingerbread Hotel And Fine Restaurant

Whisper Of The Past, The Pre Colombian Indians of Lake Arenal

On September 18, 1502 on Columbus’s last voyage he landed on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica where he encountered very diverse and autonomous groups of Indians all with distinct cultures and customs. Estimates vary greatly but somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago it is said that Indians settled this area having crossed the Bering Strait land bridge called Beringia sometime around 15,000 years ago and eventually migrated all the way to the tip of South America.

It is estimated that the Indian population at the time of Columbus’s discovery was somewhere in the area of 20,000. In the space of a few short years, as in all the lands the Spanish touched and conquered the populations were decimated by disease, warfare and slavery. It is estimated of this number that only one percent of the original pure blooded Indians remain in Costa Rica in small reserves throughout the country mainly in the far south and far north.

In the northern area immediately surrounding what is now known as Lake Arenal and to the north lived the tribe called the Maleku. These were said to be an aggressive warlike people who sometimes lived in conflict with their neighboring tribes,

They had several sacred sites in the area including the Arenal Volcano and Lake Arenal, which was one third its present size at that time. The Lake offered great opportunity for the Indians to fish as well as the great diversity of foods and wildlife which were plentiful.

As an amateur archeologist my entire life and having several collections in museums in the United States and the Caribbean I am extremely interested in pre Colombian Indians in this area and spend the little spare time I have combing the shores of the lake for artifacts. The level of the lake can vary 30 feet or more depending on the needs for hydro electricity and agriculture and the best time to look is when the lake is at its lowest. This exposes the wave lapped shores which have eroded to expose a tremendous variety of shards and entire pieces of pottery.

Aside from household and ceremonial pottery, there are gorgeous jade pieces and sometimes even gold.

There is one island in particular near the western shore of the lake known as the island of the Tombs because on this small spit of land are at least 30 graves, a few of which have been dug by grave robbers, but most are untouched.

The Costa Rican Government is very concerned about private collection, ownership or sale of any of its historical treasures, unlike many of the Caribbean and latin countries and it is illegal to own or collect any artifacts.



To be sure there are lots of private collections out there and in my opinion it would be far better for the government to permit collection of these artifacts if they were registered with the government and publicly displayed with the express stipulation that they belong to the people of Costa Rica and may not be sold. This would open the doors to all those people who have sometimes extensive collections and would allow not only the people of Costa Rica but also the tourist industry to view this rich heritage, other than in Government owned museums.

So when you are in the Lake Area I will be happy to point you in the right direction, even hire a boat and send you on a very interesting tour.

Happy Hunting