I'm Going to San Rafael and Perez Zeledon clarified

Sue Anne tells us she is going to visit friends in San Rafael.  And asks "where is it?"

We have 47 San Rafaels in Costa Rica according to the last count . . . I have a tour of the San Rafaels of Costa Rica if you are interested.  Every day we wake up in San Rafael and every night we sleep in another - you get to see the whole country yet always wake up in the same place.

My taxi broke, gonna make a new one

She says, "it is the one near San Isidro."

You know there are also numerous  San Isidros - there are two very close to us here in Alajuela.

Sue Anne explains, "it is the San Isidro that people call Perez Zeledon."

Our friends, the Innkeepers of Perez Zeledon

Ah of course that one.

Your San Isidro is, in actual fact, Perez Zeledon - I'm pretty sure that is correct as I was on the historical Perez Zeledon web site recently.  It is named after a famous guy most people have forgotten.  People down there call it Perez so it must be.  They say "I'm going to Perez on Saturday."  They do that because the real name is San Isidro de General and it is too long to say.  A Tico explained it that way to me.  A Tico is the way to say Costa Rican because "Costa Rican" (in Spanish) is too long to say.

This is the town in the Zona Sur where all the taxis are painted like race cars.  Did you know we also have a San Carlos that is really Ciudad Quesada and a Muelle that is Muelle San Carlos until they changed the name to Ciudad Quesada.  I am guessing it should be called Muelle Ciudad Quesada?  But that would be too long to say?

A Birthday party above Perez Zeledon - our friends at the lovely Rio Chirripo Lodge

The good news is that since we have almost no road signs and no mail service it really doesn't matter what they are called.  Well until the day you try to find San Rafael :-)).

Frank & Ori, Innkeepers of Canaan (there is only one in the country - phew!)

Costa Rica Musings - Statistically Speaking

ZORRO COUNT
Until last week I was pretty certain that there were only 4 or 5 animals called Zorros in Costa Rica. A knowledgeable local however last week assured me here were 8 such animals. When questioned closely on the subject as to what they were exactly he calmly said "Zorros".

VOLCANO COUNT
Our local online newspaper last year reported that the 200th volcano had just been discovered in Costa Rica.  This led me to many humorous conversations with guests about "how did they miss it all that time" and such.  Then a local guide we work with was telling a guest there were only 162.  When I argued the fact that a gringo paper couldn't be wrong about something so absolute as 40 or so missing volcanoes, he assured me this was from his geologist professor and he could NOT be wrong about such matters but he would check.  Sure enough the number 162 came back.  If you look on Google you'll find any number of numbers . . . one of my faves' is this Polish web site (an expert on Costa Rica): Kosta Ryka (from a Polish perspective)

He claims the number is 112.

SAN RAFAELS
There are 47 San Rafaels in Costa Rica.
I was going to start a list but . . .
San Rafael
San Rafael
San Rafael . . .

MISTAKES HAPPEN

From the Guardian (an apology):
"In our profile of Daniel Dennett (pages 20 to 23, Review, April 17), we said he was born in Beirut. In fact, he was born in Boston. His father died in 1947, not 1948. He married in 1962, not 1963. The seminar at which Stephen Jay Gould was rigorously questioned by Dennett's students was Dennett's seminar at Tufts, not Gould's at Harvard. Dennett wrote Darwin's Dangerous Idea before, not after, Gould called him a "Darwinian fundamentalist".  Only one chapter in the book, not four, is devoted to taking issue with Gould.  The list of Dennett's books omitted Elbow Room, 1984, and The Intentional Stance, 1987. The marble sculpture, recollected by a friend, that Dennett was working on in 1963 was not a mother and child. It was a man reading a book."