www.CostaRicaTicas.com

You are probably right about being too serious... Actually, I'd just like to be able to go directly to the info I want...

Otherwise this is a great site... and is filled (almost all) with gentlemen who work hard to avoid being "ugly americans".

Keep on Cruising in CR...

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One more day. two more beers.. three more times...

The posts recently from members who have had the misfortune to be robed/mugged in San Jose all indicate one frightening common element.

The perpetrators are very well trained in their chosen profession. They appear to be fully in control and well aware of how to accomplish their task in the minimal amount of time at the least risk to themselves

Not to be repetitious but since they are so well prepared we must take the only precautions we can, Taxi everywhere at night, minimal cash, copy of passport, no credit cards, try to travel as a group, do not wear jewelery or carry a camera, etc. It will not stop all the robberies but will lessen the loss.

I do not want to be a pessimist but I think it is only a matter of time until someone gets seriously hurt or worse.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Getting much tougher these days. I have my solution though! I am going to dress like Shoe Shine boy (old soiled sport jacket & tennis shoes) & carry my shoe shine tools in open display. I also have some black caps to put on a couple of my teeth so I blend in as a street urchin. After I arrive at my destination I will have to make a decision whether to stay as an urchin or spruce up a little. Guess it really doesn't matter to the chicas that much since 50 to 100 seems to get you everything you will need from them.

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"Run silent, run deep"
Spunk glazed Chicas are the building blocks of the universe!

Sorry captain, for what you have gone through. Considering the circumsatnces, i might add, you carried yourself with fortitude, something i do lack.
You do bring about some important analysis to the situation. These days, you need to be a gold hunter (sifting with a pan by the river) to clear the clutter. Some people live for this board and try to contribute in a meaningless way either 1. to get their post count up. Or,2 . To appear important.

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pablitho53

San Jose is like the wild west now!

You all need to hire JMAC for personal security. Break the wrist and walk away

Captian, I am glad you are ok.

It seems like this is happening alot. It will keep the P4P price down, But when you are older bumps on the head are not fun. Also I took the K*ds down one time and we walked around Ave central taking pictures at the theater and Metropoliton Cathedral after dark.

So you say well only in the city, then you read about the rapes on the beach and bank robbiers with people getting shot. I know I go in harms way in many ways to play. But not the K*ds. Some times the good old US of A ain't so bad.

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Take a walk on the wild side.

....but then this ???


How soon we forget.....

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You ALWAYS have an option ....... "NEXT" !!!

You have to dig on all the other boards.

Jeez louise, this by far the most entertaining board. And IMHO, has the most current and vast array of well organized information.

I am sincerely gratfeul for the jokers, smokers, midnight tokers, slackers, whoremongers, ingrates, in-laws, ex-pats, outlaws, old farts, young phucks, silly bastards, ticos, gringos, cubanos, canucks, and ugly americans that post all this crap.

RHM

I recall looking in a gun shop there. I was surprised at how very high the prices were. Guess there are plenty of cheap ones on the black market.

You are fortunate they only hit you once and that it did no real damage. 20 years ago I was robbed and hit repeatedly with a pistol butt. They were pissed that I had so little money with me. I was a mess and was lucky to survive. I believe in keeping enough on me to make a robber content, guess $50 or so would be enough there. Contrary to popular belief, cooperation is not always enough...

intuition

many people who have been victims of crime
say they felt or saw something bad before it happened

i always feeeeeeeel better walking down a street when no one
else is coming the other way- thank goodness they have police in daylight hours in the park morazon

i was thinking of renting a place near downtown
for my first couple months trying to live in costa rica
maybe i'd be better off a taxi drive away

i'm not an expert on intuition but i'm learning that our heart is more important than our head

i'm sorry this happend to you but thanks for sharing to help us
navigate, and take safer journeys

A few comments from a frivolous poster with a pumped up post count:

I'm glad you were not badly hurt and I think you should be given some slack from others since you readily admitted from the very beginning of this thread that careless mistakes on your part contributed seriously to what happened to you. However as you also pointed out in many ways even if you had followed more of the "rules" you still could wind up getting robbed and having very little you could do about it. These guys are professionals at what they do.

But enough frivolity. What I mainly wanted to add were a few other choice and to the point rules to add to your already very succint list
6) AVOID PIRATE CABS
7) USE A CHEAP WATCH WHEN TRAVELING and don't bring any other unecessary jewelry
8 ) HIDE THE CASH YOU DO CARRY
9) UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCES IN FRAUD PROTECTION BETWEEN CC & DEBIT CARDS
10) CARRY A DUMMY WALLET with a couple of 1K colone bills in it
11) IF YOU MUST WALK ALWAYS USE A WINGMAN - 2 or more people make slightly less appealing targets than a solo traveler.
12) BE AWARE OF WHAT'S AROUND YOU - give dark doorways and alleyways or knots of people a wide berth
13) BE PREPARED TO RUN at any time and don't be concerned if that makes you look like a chicken-shit (better a live chicken shit than a dead eagle).
14) IF YOU ARE SURPRISED OR CORNERED GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT RIGHT AWAY - unarmed self protection against guns generally only works in the movies. Besides if you've followed the other advice about not carrying excess cash and valuables then taking resisting and risking more serious injury just to save a few measly dollars really isn't worth it.

Even if you walk instead of take a cab to ZB, all you need to bring is $40 and your CRT card. And those could go in your sock or somewhere and probably be safe even if you did get held-up. My question for the captain is this: Where did they and where didn't they frisk you? Once they found your wallet, did they stop to look inside or did they just take off? The reason I ask is because if you have a dummy wallet and they get that how likely are they to look whether you've got more cash in the sole of your shoe (or stuck up your crotch)?

My other question is a comment really. Any merchant that is stupid enough to honor a credit card with an obvious gringo name given to them by some obvious tico street character without asking them for some sort of photo ID really deserves to be stiffed by the card company. BTW, I also keep a list with cc#'s and toll-free fraud lines, but I actually keep several. I keep 2 stored in different places in case one of the bags with the list in it gets stolen as well and I provide yet another one to someone back home before I leave who I can call if all else fails.

Finally on a different subject, I can understand your frustration at weeding through all the posts here. That is a big part of why I've taken a step back from the board over the last couple of months. I simply don't have the time to sift through everything here (plus I think I've bumped up my post count more than enough ).

Here are a couple of pointers though that might help you find things more easily using the search feature:

1) I almost always change the search to "Display results as: Posts" down at he bottom left of the search window rather than the default "Display results as: Topics". The other thing is if you do that whereever your keyword appears in the post it will show up in bold white font, which is especially useful if your results include posts by a certain prolific jerk who is always overly wordy.

2) Also, if I'm trying to find something on say security, I make a selection from the "Forum" drop-down list a couple of lines above that and pick "Sexual Health, Enhancement, Security & Scams!" (if I were looking up a restaurant, I would choose that section, etc.). Some topics don't fall neatly into just one forum section, so you may not always want to use this. And even when they do, posters don't always start threads in the most appropriate section. So if you always use this method you may miss out on some important post somewhere, but it does often narrow down your results to the ones most likely to cover what you're looking for.

3) You may sometimes want to use the advance search methods such as placing an "AND", "OR", "NOT or wildcard in your keyword box

4) But even simpler than that and what I often do is just select the "Search for all terms" radio button which is below the keyword box (rather than the default "Search for any terms or use query as entered") to restrict my search to just the posts that have everything I'm looking for.

5) Finally, if you really want to get the best and most complete information without having to read through everyones' posts, just put Prolijo in the author box. You'll still get way more results than you'll want to look at, but they'll all be very astute and informative ones. Actually, Irish Drifter, El Ciego and a several others will also work really well this way too.

Believe me the search feature here is a lot better than it is on most other forums I belong to. For example at ISG, you're only allowed to submit a search once every 60 seconds, which means if you structured your search wrong you have to wait before you can fix it and resubmit. Also, this forum has multiple sections with multiple threads making the search easier, whereas many other forums have multiple sections with one really long thread in each.

Captain,

Sorry for your misfortune, and glad that you made it through your ordeal unhurt.

Before my first trip to CR, I gleaned numerous tips on security by scouring the forum. I arrived for the first time in CR with a dummy wallet, only took ATM/CCs out of the safe when I absolutely needed one, carried only enough cash to get me through my next activity, kept a copy of my passport, CC and secured a trip itinerary with important phone numbers, hotel/airline contact numbers, insurance information, account numbers (no passwords) and url links in my safe. For added redundancy... in a worse case scenario, I scanned my documents, ATM/CCs and itinerary...then e-mailed them to myself and a family member and saved them in my e-mail account. Before every trip, I review and update this information. So far (knock on wood) I have not been confronted with "the worst case scenario."

It sounds like you rebounded nicely from your unfortunate experience and will continue to enjoy CR.

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Blue Devil

Pura Vida...enjoying life to the fullest...

Certainly keeping a list of CC's and their associated phone numbers to cancel the cards is a GREAT idea.......

But what makes you think the merchant is "stupid" for taking the CC ? What if the merchant is "in" on it ? Or just doesn't care so long as the charge goes through ?

Unless things have changed quite radically banks seldom charge back the merchant as long as they're assured the merchant took "proper precautions" The BANK eats the fraudulent charges, not the merchant.

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Reviews with Name, Where we can find her, Description (Height, weight, measurements (best guesses will do just fine)), and a rundown on services provided (and yes, YMMV is understood) would be GREATLY appreciated.

Good advice on searching though but it's STILL too cumbersome for someone that wants information quickly.

I've been on plenty of boards too and while, when a newbie asks a question that would take a rather long-winded explanation to answer properly, I understand why the next poster "suggests" a "search".

But when a newbie asks something like "What's HDR ? and someone tells him to search (which probably takes longer to type ), as apposed to simply telling him "Hotel Del Rey", welllllllll

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Reviews with Name, Where we can find her, Description (Height, weight, measurements (best guesses will do just fine)), and a rundown on services provided (and yes, YMMV is understood) would be GREATLY appreciated.