Medical Care in Costa Rica is Worth a Look See

You might have heard about it, or maybe not; but Costa Rica has great, new, modern hospitals and a health insurance system that is massively cheaper than the costs you'll face in the United States. CIMA is a private hospital that's just minutes from our Villa Real Eco Residential rental in Santa Ana, Costa Rica.

Now, it's a serious subject, and I'm no well healed, number cruncher sitting a big fancy Washington think tank, calculating and lamenting the rising health care and cost of living in Toledo vs. Miami. But I'll say this-- it's worth checking out the health care costs in Costa Rica if you are pricing your insurance and medical care for yourself or a family member, and trying to save on the cost of a deductibles and monthly payments that are beyond the pale.

You'll find that saving a lot of money for the same level of care is very doable in Costa Rica.

Here is the description of CIMA:

Consorcio Hospital Internacional, S.A de C.V. (CHI) was incorporated in 1992 with the vision of establishing, in Mexico as well as in Latin America, a premier private medical services provider. Consorcio Internacional Hospital is the Mexican affiliate of International Hospital Corporation, a company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. This consortium invests in, operates and markets hospitals, who work under the name of Centro Internacional de Medicina (CIMA).

In fact, a good chunk of visitors to Costa Rica are there on what's called "medical tourism", and it's not just folks hell bent for boob jobs, or Human Growth Hormone treatments. Nearly 25% of CIMA's patients are Gringos looking for standard care at affordable prices, like you and me. It includes retirees who want an affordable trips to doctors, dentists and pharmacies. It includes savvy tourists who paste on a medical check up, or trip to American trained nutritionists, or dermatologists, or dentists, onto their vacations in Costa Rica. It includes people who want root canals, or major dental work at deeply discounted rates.

What kind of savings can you expect?


For example, I had an ultrasound of a major organ for $60 dollars. In Chicago it would have been much much more. My doctor visits are $30 dollars. My doctor is American trained and teaches at an American Medical school. The wait is never more than 5 minutes for most anything, for anything from blood tests to other procedures. A friend of mine brought his father to San Jose for an operation on his prostate after checking into it in America and in Europe. His operation was a great success-- and he reports that the professionalism was fantastic and the cost savings were almost unbelievable.

And as for prevention, well, we all know it's worth a pound of cure, and a Costa Rican vacation with a "medical tour" pasted on is well worth the trip. Whether it's Diet and nutrition, dermatology, physical therapy, exercise programs, or active fitness type retreats, Costa Rica has it.

We are happy to offer referrals to the service providers in Costa Rica to clients and guests, or anyone looking for general information. Contact info@palmmgt.com for details.

Whitewater Rafting in Costa Rica in Class III-IV Rapids!

One of the best new tour offerings we've run across are the white water rafting day trips we've found to Pacuare Gorge in small groups.

So basically you stay in a 4 star setting in Villa Real eco Residential, you'll wake up to hike the nature trails and roads, swim the Olympic sized pool, play tennis, take golf lessons, have personal trainers help you set and reach goals working out, have yoga instructors help you stretch out, and nutritional counsel by doctors at CIMA help you to eat right. Then, you'll take day trips such as these outstanding whitewater raftfing tours in Level 3 and 4 rapids through surrounding rain forests.

Leaving from Santa Ana, you're tour guide takes care of everything on the way, from suiting up to lunch. Here's how the describe the one day tour, which costs 149 per person:

Early morning pick-up by your River Guide at your hotel in San Jose. There will be no more than one other stop en route to a deluxe Costa Rican breakfast on the way to the river. Upon arrival at the put-in, your professional guides will give an orientation and safety talk. You will then proceed down river on continuous Class III-IV rapids. This trip runs with a maximum of three rafts, compared to other groups that operate with as many as 25 rafts.

As you are swept down the Pacuare Gorge by the currents, soak in the natural beauty of the primary and secondary rainforests surrounding you. Water level permitting, a guide will lead you on a hike up one of the many creeks that spill into the Pacuare. Upon your return to the riverbank, you will find a gourmet lunch prepared by your guides turned white-gloved waiters.

Float and paddle downriver to the take-out in the Caribbean town of Siquirres where towels and a victory cocktail await. Drive back to your San Jose hotel (approx. two hours).

For details about incorporating this into your stay at Villa Real eco residential in Santa Ana, contact us at info@palmmgt.com

Hot Volcanic Springs at Lake Arenal, Costa Rica

One of the highlights of any Costa Rican tour are the hot springs near the volcano at Arenal.

Several resorts are organized to offer hot spring/spa services, and are well worth the $10 to 40 dollars they charge for clean towels and hot soaking pools and falls that you can soak in until your skin becomes like a prune.

We always recommend guests take a day or two to drive up to Arenal to see the volcano, see the butterfly/frog conservatory, hike the trails, and soak their bums in the thremal spas. Starting off in Santa Ana at Villa Real Eco Residential Community, where guest stay upon arrival, the drive is roughly 2 1/2 hours to Arenal.


Tabacon Grand Spa and Thermal Resort is designated one of the "Finest Hotels in the World", and offers day passes to their hot spring facilities, along with Spa services which are great, if you enjoy that sort of thing (not really my bag, so I tend to stick to the soaking bit, and the large heated pool, which has a built in bar next to the cold plunge pool). Tabacon is laid out well, it's clean, offers good food and great service.

Tabacon has made the media, in various Spa Magazines and publications. It reached the top of Spa Finder's mineral water division in 2007. The resort opened with 42 four star rooms in 1997 and has steadily expanded to with more than 100 rooms, 13 spa treatment rooms, and a wave pool.

It's also open late, so night soaking is encouraged!

Fitness Retreats in Costa Rica are Unmatched

Waking up at sunrise to 80 degree weather (any time of year), walking the hills of an Eco residential community to the Nature trails, returning to shower and a light breakfast before beginning yoga instruction, then moving on to an active day trip to a coffee plantation in the middle valley, or horseback riding, golf or tennis. Fresh Tilapia with Avicado for lunch; Nutritional counseling a CIMA, one of Latin America's best Private hospitals. Private surf lessons, 2 hour beach hikes on Costa Rica's Pacific shores from a private beach house setting. Endless sunrise and sunset hikes in beautiful places.

These are the signs that your in a Palmmgt Costa Rica fitness retreat program, complete with personal trainers, nutritionists, physicians, massage and spa attendants, and instructors for surfing, yoga, golf, tennis, horseback, martial arts, weight training, cooking, and more. Fitness retreats featuring active, so called "multi sport" vacations are all the rage now. Like Lizano, the green sauce everyone puts on Gallo Pinto each morning in Costa Rica, we're adding our own twist. Call our Gut Buster Team for details!

Exclusive Villa Real Rental Eco Residential Rental, Santa Ana, Costa Rica

Exclusive Villa Real Eco Residential Community Rental, Santa Ana, Costa Rica - $4,500 per month Bedrooms: 4 Bathrooms: 5 Parking Spaces: 4 Year Built: 1996 Subdivision: Villa Real Lot Size: 6000 Garage Size: 2 School District: Private Square Footage: 3400 Agent Name: Luke Aaron Rent: $4,500 per month Available Date: Fri May 15, 2009 Deposit: 13500 Minimum Lease: 6 months View More Photos Sanjoserentals.probets.us Range/Oven Full Refrigerator Washer/Dryer Dishwasher Microwave Satellite Hardwood Floors Wet Bar Security System Kitchen Island Vaulted Ceilings Attic Fenced Yard Swimming Pool Hot Tub Grass Lawn Basketball Net Secluded setting Tool Shed Club house Tennis Courts Nature Trails Modern, beautiful 4 bedroom, 5 bathroom villa surrounded by nature in Villa Real Eco Residential, Santa Ana, Costa Rica. Villa Real is one of San Jose's most exclusive private, secluded, secure and gated communities. Business class rental, ideal for "working vacations", business gatherings, and fund raisers. Has been used by VIP requiring additional 24/7 security. Includes 2 Megabyte, Broadband connection, Polycomm phones (Free calling to North America and Europe), a WiFi network, Flat Panel Television (42 inch), Home Theater System, Olympic sized pool, tennis courts, hiking trails. Ten mintues from International airport; 15 minutes from Downtown and Escarzu, Multi plaza mall. Maid service included. Catering optional. Four bedrooms, 5 bathrooms. Call for detail: 866.315.0984 Weekly and monthly rates.For Details, Visit: http://www.sanjoserentals.probets.org Luke Aaron 7036215962 Powered by vFlyer.com Equal Housing Opportunity VFLYER ID: 2484802

All information in this site is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and is subject to change

Widgets of Distinction

For whatever reason, I've been working on widget that will allow Palmmgt to syndicate all our vital, life saving data across the Internet via all the other Internauts out there. Actually, I know the reason-- after listening to a Hooman at U of Maryland on the subject I thought I'd look into it. He was right-- it's as geeky as it gets. There's enough coding, scripting-- JAVA, XML, Flash, RSS, html to make you want to reach for a regulated beverage and search the phrase "booty dance" on Youtube.

It might make you feel impulsive and gun crazy, fueling fantasies of protracted crime sprees, kriss crossing the nation from one bank job to the next, hard drinking, hard driving, hard talking and hard to imagine ways to forget all the widgets, midgets and eyeballs that fidget on this Internet. Of course, I entertain these ideas fully know that bank robbing just isn't done the usual way these days. Adventure, grace and brass balls have all been teased out, like genetic modifications in mice, deep inside some University lab, fully funded by public and anonymous private sources for the patient right. Ounce for ounce, Bernie Madoff, makes Willie Sutton look like a door man, to say nothing of the paradoxical journey of Patty Hearst. No, like most others, it's a nasty business these days, which somehow makes coding Widgets seem more tolerable.

In spite of the turtle's pace of change to the value proposition of all this XHTML, maybe the devil you know, hiding in your widget code is better than the devil that could be lurking just outside your door, waiting for you, like Tonya and the Symbionese Liberation Army to stomp you in your nuts or your gurl, as they flip through your wallet for something of value. That's a leatherback sea turtle at Playa Grande, Costa Rica by the way. They have been around since the sun itself, without usernames or passwords. We urge all visitors to Playa Grande to watch out for and stay away from Turtles eggs, stay off the beach at night, and to come learn about Playa Grande as a sea turtle nesting ground.

Speaking of "Gun Crazy", David Graf and Lauren Becker's six bank robbery crime spree came to an end today according to the news on Long Island. The loving couple stole up to $10,000 dollars to pay for heroin. I know-- romantic, right?

Speaking of something of value, it's not easy to decide what to put into the widget, or if it's even worth 4 minutes it takes to plan it. I don't know, I'm not Bill Gate's limo driver giving dictation into my Zune, like Grand Funk Railroad on an 8 Track. This stuff is like pasta, or something more smelly: you chuck it on the wall and find out later what sticks and what just stinks.

Palm Tours to Focus on Singles Travel 2 Costa Rica

Palmmgt.com is considering and kicking around the idea of hosting "singles tours" to Costa Rica's Pacific shores, which will include beach front rentals and a wide variety of activities, including surfing lessons, golf, horseback riding, volcano tours, hot springs, night clubs, spa days, wildlife tours, sport fishing, hiking, biking, sailing, ATVs, casino gaming, and even bird watching (believe it or not, it's one of the most popular reasons people come to visit Cost Rica, the most biologically diverse place on earth). Yeah, there's plenty to do for folks who are not paired off, but sitting on a few weeks of vacation time to use up.


So the challenge is to reach singles with the offer-- Singles Tours to Costa Rica, without forking over thousands of dollars to click ad companies, so 1000's of "employees" sitting in some Estonian internet bang can sit there and click our links until their fingers fall off and we cleaned out. I can't knock their business model, it's just that we don't really get what we pay for-- reaching all those singles, recently dumped by their significant others and looking for somewhere to vacation that is not some thinly veiled booty tour to some walled in resort in the Caribbean that is geared up to get them to buy too many drinks. The average cruise is priced that way-- they give away the space with the expectation that the guest will drink $100's of dollars worth of hooch in order to break even. Hile there are plenty of places to drink like a new parolee and party like a rock star (the old school, Keith Richards, wake up in your own barf kind).

Boozed based blotto tours are really not Palmmgt's focus but some people do come to the Tamarindo area for the wild club-night life (with its active drug culture); so while we can offer those "Blotto tours", we are really looking to reach people, single or not, who want activities based tours-- whether it's health and fitness based, "multi sport" based vacations, which amount to an exercise boot camp situation, or nature tours to volcanos, rain forests, hot springs, horseback riding, PGA golf or sport fishing.


Tear ass, horseback rides on the beach aside, to that end, we are having some experimental landing pages built out and set up, which are pretty funny-- see,

• http://tiny.cc/CostaRica

For some reason, there's been a rush of wedding requests on Playa Grande. Seems like beach weddings are becoming more popular.

Testimonials about Palmmgt Beach Rentals

It's always good to get positive testimonials. One of our most recent guests sent back the following feedback today:

"We had a wonderful time. The staff was very helpful and friendly and the location is extraordinary. A lovely house and a lovely setting made for a lovely vacation. Thanks to all."

The Green Ray at Playa Grande

There's something about the sun over the Pacific that's a little more special than Atlantic settings.

On the East coast, you don't get that picture postcard sunset point of view you'll find at say, Playa Grande, Costa Rica (see right), late in the day, after several Central American beers (with their elevated alcohol levels), and also after the facts of the day, however productive (like a day fishing either off a charter fishing boat, or right from the shore, with no fishing pole) or a lazy day, like the hung over and hammock bound, locked in, gazing into a thick paperback with a simple plot, twisted with gun play, wild sex, explosions, expensive things, extraordinary settings, odd coincidences and working class heroes serving up the poetic justice for which the reader has labored, carrying through customs, raising the stakes to: "damn it, I'm going to finish this thing so I can leave it here!"

Reading like that can eat up a day faster than a fishing boat and a cooler full of iced local beer, that is until the sun reaches the point where the light changes enough to draw your attention to the ribbons of reflected sunlight bouncing off the ocean, and those sprawled out beach readers look up from their murder mysteries and salacious tell-alls to see the sun dropping into the water, and waiting in the hope of catching "the green ray", that last bit of sunlight bending over the earth's curve, turning it green for the lucky few, like the tortured souls in the New Wave film maker Eric Rohmer's U.S. release, "Summer," which featured the green ray in the final 30 seconds.

Rohmer devoted his directing career to making movies without using the Hollywood close up shot, or extraneous musical soundtracks that do not come from the "real life" action within the film, a kind of realism you surly won't see when Tom Cruise straps on for some impossible mission to chase international spies for the return of some deadly micro chip.

Rohmer, who changed his name, was known for the realism and the neurotic romance in his films. As in Jules Verne's book "The Green Ray," Rohmer's, characters spend a lot of time searching out that green ray in the belief it will bestow something on them, but end up missing that green flash because they find romance, looking into each other's eyes rather than obsessed with the sun's final green rays. The characters stop searching the horizon for their better deal when they find what they've been looking for next to them.

But no discussion of the green ray is complete without an honorable mention of Herman Wouk's green ray novel, "Don't Stop the Carnival", which is a love story too, in a way, where a fictional island in the Caribbean basin meets the carnival of American capitalism. "Don't Stop the Carnival" was published in 1965, the wake of two events that precipitated America's existential angst: Kennedy's atomic face off with Cuba there, and of course his murder. "Amerigo", the fictional island, was a place that maybe a Bronx born comedy writer, who worked writing radio spots to sell American war bonds might like to imagine, if there were a Caribbean free from Fidel's false promises, murderous secret police, profiteering and degenerate command economy taking hold from the tip of Fidel's silver tongue, or maybe in spite of such a dictatorial political economy.

On Amerigo, the natives look at America's influence on the Island as a seemingly endless carnival. Jimmy Buffet made "Don't Stop the Carnival" into a musical in 1997 that played for six weeks in Miami, as Bill Clinton and Gore were partnering to do telecom deals in Haiti. In 2000, Buffet played the the White House lawn for Bill Clinton. It's rumored that Bill Clinton and Buffet exchanged green rays on that occasion.

More recently, Disney got into the green ray act, with yet another fantastical, comical look at piracy, where the green ray set loose the souls of those trapped in "Davie Jones locker", sort of like investor and employee victims duped by the 65 billion dollar con artist, Bernie Madoff.

Sunsets in Costa Rica are a great place to search for your own green ray. They say it reboots the system, and if you are able to find the right piece of land to buy from a seller who is willing to entertain your low ball offer, you may be able to generate your own green rays. The fishing has few parallels. But whether it's Costa Rica real estate, coffee for export, a fishing charter, cattle, or timber, it's important to realize what's been done before in search of that kind of green ray.

"The Best Restaurant in Costa Rica"

You know what this is-- you're in a foreign country riding around with your head bobbing and avoiding potholes with a friend who has local knowledge, when he tells you he's got a great restaurant that nobody knows about, that's cheap, with large portions, that's free from "tourists" (as if tourist money is soaked in cat urine) with a waitresses that looks like a TV spokes model. You're thinking, "Here we go".

Situations like this always remind me of a joke in a movie where a guy tells another guy sitting next to him in a bar that he "knows a place where you can go..." and get all you can eat, all you can drink and have as much sex as you want for 2 dollars. When the guy asks him "where", in breathless anticipation, the first guy answers, "I don't know, but my sister goes there all the time." It's the joke I use every time some recommends a great place to eat cheap that sounds too good to be true. It always gets a laugh.

Nevertheless, there I am riding around San Jose, Coasta Rica griping to my driver, Carlito Morgan about the damned mall food we've been eating, and what else is available (Outback Steak-burgers, Hooter's wings, or Subway) when it dawns on him-- he recalls "the best restaurant in the country, and it's a hole in the wall that you could not find with a GPS if you had 20 years".

He doesn't know the name of the road, because the country never named the roads, but he knows how to get there by landmarks. So I expect to walk into a place that looks like the photos here, with no parking, with an alley entrance. No surprise there. But what follow was worth writing about, which is why your reading this.

If I were an Iron Chef, I'd have a lot of descriptive things to say about the best place to eat in San Jose, but I'm not, so I won't. I took pictures, and the food was grand.

I'll just say the food was extraordinary, fresh, tasty, beautiful, and under priced, but for the hard location. I started with Ceviche, and moved on to a soup, and I'll do it again-- every time I go to San Jose. It was all fresh and perfect, and the place was comfortable, friendly and busy enough to mean rapid turnover.

The hole lunch was about $18 dollars for both of us, and we drank beers. So, it's worth seeking out these places if you can get a tip. I don't know the name of this place because nobody I know who goes there bothers to get the name of the place, but if you email Palmmgt.com, where someone can help you find your way to it.


Here are photos of the ceviche, and the soup, and the beer.

"Winter" on Costa Rica's Pacific Shores

Costa Rica's winter is summer. It's really that simple; and you know it the second you walk off the plane, with a sweater, coat or jacket that instantly feels like you are carrying a sleeping bag around.

Obviously, dressing right for the warm climate is a tricky business-- it works pretty well to use layers of light jackets, packed into light luggage that can be popped out when you're back in the cold winds of Kansas. It may take a nap sac, but at least you won't have a parka where it's 80 degrees and sunny. There are a number of tricks you can use to put more vacation fun in your vacation.

Costa Rica actually has 9 or 11 climate zones, depending on who you talk to and what you read. But no matter who you talk to or what you read, you'll find temperature, humidity and sun light and wind speeds vary greatly as you move around the countryside. Even in the capital city, San Jose (in the middle of the country), you can drive from the your hotel or vacation rental where it's nice and warm to the top of a mountain with a giant green neon cross nearby to go have a drink in a bar that used to be a monastery, only to find that you are woefully under dressed to hang around outside where it's chilly and the wind cuts like some disgruntled share cropper's machete (no, I have never met a disgruntled share cropper in Costa Rica, so it's more of a joke than a word to the wise).

If you take a drive west to the North Pacific shoreline, you'll find it hot and dry, similar to Southern California-Arizona in the States. Playa Grande, (near Tamarindo) for example can get so dry and hot that much of the grass and vegetation becomes dried out and brown from December to April. The beaches here make for piping hot sand that will burn your feet if brave them without wearing something. On the other hand, as you head south, toward Panama, past Playa Jaco, toward Playa Dominical and Playa Ballena, you'll find the climate a little less hot and dry. More humidity means that plants and trees remain more woolly and wild and green throughout the year.

Whether you hit the beaches to the north or south on the Pacific, sunscreen is no laughing matter, unless you want to reenact the scene from the movie "The Heartbreak Kids" with Ben Stiller and his sun burned new bride end up with big problems (it's worth a rental). So, bottom line, when we are asked "how do I dress for Costa Rica" in the winter, the answer is it depends on where you are going, but a light jacket or wind breaker in tow is a small price to pay to even out the dramatic climate swings on the skin of a tiny country with 9 or 11 climate zones.