www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Just a thought. Where have they gone. All the greast posters of yesterday.
Prejoli. ruff nuts, handy spanky and soo many others. Soe are still around.
The every aging netgems, botnton with his ever sarcastic quips. Som are truley gone
Gordo. Paco Loco to mention just a few. Will they evr be replaced. I doubt it.
There are new posters for sure. But for me they just don.t have the same bang
for yuor buck as tge previous posters. Just my hunble opinion, I have been on thiis board for damn near 20 years and maybe i am getting old and opinionated.

_________________
not as good as I once was, but as good once as I ever was

I've gotten a lot of good information from this forum even recently, so I don't complain.

But...it sure was a lot more fun to read when there was a lot of active posters asking and sharing and bragging and figuring stuff out together.

I chalk it up to forums just not being a thing anymore. One of these days whoever's paying the CRT server bill has got to decide it's time to pull the plug.

Prolijo lives in Tampa and now travels to Medellin (as well as recent trips to Thailand, African cross country safari, and other adventures far wide). Gringotim is considering a trip to CR this year. Lionking is working his arse off but still paying cell phone bills for cuties in St. Pete.

_________________
If you lose your temper you’re phucking yourself - Garcia Marquez

You forgot to mentioned Vegas Bob and Irish drifter and of course my favorite mucho gusto

Pedro, You are right. There are quite a few others also. But I had quite a few
vodkas when I wrote the post.

_________________
not as good as I once was, but as good once as I ever was

Forumville a dying mode.

See it in the gambling forums as well.
SBR dead
BMR dead
The Rx dead

I don't know where everyone went to trade stories or post topics, a lot are on Discord now in certain invite only groups, but it is fast becoming obsolete

Jazzblo (bro)? All seriousness aside, anyone know what happened to CRT Bound. He showed the ropes in Pattaya years ago, forever in his debt.

I remember ages ago when Jazzbo held the record for the most posts. He's probably been surpassed by now. I was wondering about Vegas Bob myself. The last time I saw him, quite a few years ago, he did not look well at all. His Parkinson's seemed to be quite advanced. I can't remember when I first met him. It may have been on the old CRS board (2003, pre CRT). As he resided in CR, he would walk around the HDR in the late mornings almost daily, to check out the chica situation. He loved poker, and knew when and where the games were played.

_________________
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile, and the rest of us are phucked until we can put our acts together; not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely"...Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)

Keeping in mind that CRT is now more than 20 years old a lot of guys have moved on and many have passed on. To the best of my knowledge Jazzbro passed away a few years ago. As guys age they leave the hobby because they cant preform as they used to and spending a lot of $$ to travel for the hobby isn't worth their while.

I agree with some of the others that message boards such as these have fallen out of favor with a lot of guys. For me I have a circle of friends and acquaintances that I stay in touch with via Whatsapp ands emails and we send each other updates when we visit various venues.

In terms of CRT a few things happened that affected the board in a big way, First, the entire Cuba Dave saga caused people to quit posting and the demise of the Del Rey also affected participation on the board.
Some of the posters I miss are BB57, who the last posted he had moved to Cartago, Bilko, who unfortunately took his own life and Lookingtoswing4 who I'm not sure what happened to.

While I am relatively new here, my personal opinion is that Costa Rica overall has been "Gringonized" compared to the 90s. Does that cause all long time posters to go away? Not necessarily, but it makes the destination less desirable overall, and thus these types of activities associated with it. David talked about how Americans have been paying double or more for real estate, compared to the price a Costa Rican would pay, over the past 2 decades. And that eventually spoiled the country.

I still think there's some good info on these forums, but there are other forums and countries as well. Quite honestly I think a lot of places that were good a decade ago, are becoming tourist traps and the like. And I'm not sure there's much that can be done to stop this.

Gringos, and mostly retiree types, have been buying properties on the Pacific coast for many years. The demand for these beachfront and beach area properties has been there and growing probably, but nothing to do with the guys that come for sex related relaxation. Whether they pay double sometimes compared to what a local would pay...who knows. But in the past, maybe 20 years ago or more, the locals did not realize how valuable some of the beach area property was. So they were outbid at times.

But now they all seem to know and believe their properties are worth a fortune. And they count on some ignorant tourist type to buy them. So spoiled the country? I don't know. But all I say is that this country protects its own and don't ever get in any sort of legal dispute, and if challenged for ownership of your property good luck in defending it. Squatter scams etc will get you, or problems with title, etc. etc. The costal areas are a gold mine for fraud, mostly perpetrated on people wanting to get a piece of paradise.

I bought some land (about 2 hectares) near Atenas about 15 years ago. My plan was to build a retirement home. After about 2 years. the owner of an adjacent property decided he wanted to expand his holdings and made me an offer that pretty much doubled my investment. Needless to say, I jumped on the deal.

When I went to finalize the deal we found out that the Notary I used had completely screwed up my original purchase documents. For all intents and purposes, I really didn't own the land. It took about two weeks of me running around and about $500 in additional legal / notary fees to get the paperwork cleaned up so that I actually could sell the property.

Be careful when purchasing property or homes in CR. Pretty much anyone can act as a Real Estate agent. No licensing required. The Notary is actually more important than the attorney. Get one you can trust, ideally with references from trusted sources. The guy I used wasn't trying to scam me but was just more or less incompetent.

In hindsight, I am so glad I got rid of the property. I have since heard horror stories about trying to do new construction in CR. If the government ever eases up on their new CAJA rules and I decide to pull the plug and relocate, I will rent.

Consider this:
CR is now doing 6 month tourist visas, so fewer border runs. The caja sucks, so I end up paying out of pocket for routine medical care. Yesterday, I saw my cardiologist (Dr Frederico Malavassi, Clinica Biblica) and got an ECG, consult and pacemaker check. Total bill was c50mil. No insurance, no caja, made the appointment via WhatsApp, wait time for appointment was 3 days.

I also have US medicare and my former employer pays for a UHC Suplemental Plan N. Several supplemental plans (D, G, M and N that I am aware of) will cover emergency treatment when traveling outside the US. However, if you are a foreign resident they do NOT pay since you are covered under the caja and the Medicare Supplement is a payer of last resort. This, combined with the 6-month visas have me considering abandoning my CR residency.

Do your own research and consider your own unique needs and situation. For me, I do not use the caja for routine medical care.

_________________
If you lose your temper you’re phucking yourself - Garcia Marquez

HD,

What are the “new” CJAJ rules you are mentioning ?

Thanks ….

Woozo

From what I have read NEW residents must pay into both CAJA and the retirement pension scheme. From what I understand it's a pretty sizable monthly nut. Existing residents are apparently exempt from the pension requirements.