I hope you had a great holiday season and I’d like to wish everyone a great 2008! It’s hard to beleive that Costa Rica Talk Radio has been podcasting now for one year. Time flies when you’re having fun.

I would like to kick off 2008 with a video podcast about driving in Costa Rica. My last audio podcast covered renting and driving a car in Costa Rica but a picture is worth a thousand words (or something like that). So this video podcast will take you on a ride with me behind the wheel.

We’ll make our way from downtown San José through the Sabana and down to Escazú via the old Escazú road. I also left a minute or so at the end to take you on a ride near Mal País in the Puntarenas Province so you can get a feel of navigating through the pot holes. If you get motion sickness-watch at your own risk!

• Driver – Alan Petersen
• Camera – Steve Sexauer
• Music – Kevin MacLeod – Cumbia No Frills (faster)

In the latest Costa Rica video podcast, I hit the streets of London, U.K. looking for the Costa Rica Embassy in England.

The video podcast starts as we’re walking through the Plaza de la Cultura which is a nice plaza right in downtown San Jose which is closed off to traffic so it’s one of the only places in Costa Rica that pedestrians can walk around carefree without having to dodge oncoming cars.  During our walk you’ll see El Teatro Nacional which is Costa Rica’s National Theater and El Gran Hotel de Costa Rica which is a large hotel which used to be the most luxurious hotel in Costa Rica back in the day.

We then cut through the Centro Comercial Omni which is located in Avenida Primera near the Calle 3 y 5 downtown.  This was a stroll through memory lane since I spent a lot of my youth in the Omni playing “maquinitas” (video games) in the arcade which is still in business!  We then exited out to Avenida primera until finally finding a Rosti-Pollos restaurant across the street from Cine Variedades (beautiful architecture from the late 19th century, this theater started as a regular stage theater until a film projector was added and movies began showng in the silent movie era of the 1920’s).  The movie theater has been decalred a national monument in 1999 so it will live long in history!

And at last our search for Rosti-Pollos is complete and our hunger has been tamed by their tasty rotisserie style chicken, corn tortillas, yucitas, and salad.

I wanted to thank everyone who has emailed me asking what happend to the show!  It’s great to know that people were missing the show and don’t worry Costa Rica Talk Radio isn’t going anywhere!

In the meantime here is a video podcast of a recent drive in Escazu, Costa Rica.  I was driving and my buen amigo (good friend) Steve was doing the camera work.

¡Pura vida!

Alan

We drove from Escazu down to Santa Ana and on to the Pan American Highway.

We then exited the Pan American Highway and took the old highway towards Quepos en route to Jaco the rest of the way.

The old highway is a bit longer and not a straight shot versus staying on the Pan American Highway but there are a lot less trucks to slow you down and the scenery is fantastic as you make your way down the mountain down to the coast. You can see the beauty of the Costa Rican mountains as we make our way down to Jaco.

We stopped for a bite to eat at La Casita Del Cafe (Little House of Coffee) which sits on a coffee farm with a breath taking view of the mountains. They serve fantastic Costa Rican food like Casados with beef, chicken, fish, and the typical fixings of a casado (rice, beans, maduro, salad). Their gallo pinto is also delicious and the prices are awesome for around $3.00 you can have a delicious casado!

The video ends with us arriving in Jaco Beach and finishes with a drive on to the beach – beware the potholes.

Hope you enjoy this view of Costa Rica, potholes and all (you’ll see at the end)!

Video Podcast is the same as the audio podcast it’s delivered via an RSS feed so if you’ve subscribed to Costa Rica Talk Radio with iTunes for example you will get the latest video podcasts automatically and you can watch them on iTunes or on your iPod if you have the video playing iPod.

Upcoming Video Podcast’s will actually feature Costa Rica not just me chatting into my laptop