Cuba & Costa Rica Blog
About this blog
Written by Cuba and Costa Rica expert Christopher P. Baker, this blog will update readers on life in these two diverse and exciting countries.
Recent Posts
- Last blog post on Costa Rica and Cuba
- First-ever group motorcycle tours of Cuba successful
- Cuba’s Mariel port readying for Panama Canal expansion
- Musings on wildlife encounters on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula
- Cuba’s Steam Trains puffing their last gasp
- My top five thrilling activities in Costa Rica
- Cuba’s fun February festivals include Harleys, Books, Cigars
- Five top volcano viewing experiences in Costa Rica
- New road along Costa Rica / Nicaraguan border mired
- Cuba’s Hotel Campoamor at Cojímar to be restored?
- Cuban revolutionary Celia Sánchez honored in new book
- Christmas challenge for Costa Rica’s sexually abused girls
- Costa Rica opens Chinatown in downtown San José
- David Soul films Hemingway’s car restoration in Cuba
- National Geographic Expeditions receives license for Cuba tours
Costa Rica opens Chinatown in downtown San José
In his highly incisive book, The Old Patagonia Express, describing his journey south by rail from Massachusetts to Tierra del Fuego, Paul Theroux portrays a litany of places one might want to avoid. But Costa Rica is different. more >>
David Soul films Hemingway’s car restoration in Cuba
I returned last night from Havana and a week filming with acting-singing legend David Soul (most famously Hutch from the 1970s cult TV show Starsky & Hutch).
What a fabulous experience as we followed the trail of Ernest Hemingway’s long-lost 1955 Chrysler New Yorker convertible, the “discovery” of which I reported in my May 6, 2011 blog post: “Hemingway’s Chrysler to be Restored in Cuba”.
Back then things looked promising. Various yanks, not least Bill Greffin of the Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, had promised assistance. more >>
National Geographic Expeditions receives license for Cuba tours
I’ve been on tender hooks for several months now, awaiting confirmation that National Geographic Expeditions would (or would not) receive a renewal of its license to offer “people-to-people” (P2P) programs to Cuba this season.
(See my blog post of January 31, 2011, for an explanation of P2P programs and licenses.)
As I wrote in my blog post of October 6, 2012, in late spring this year it became apparent that OFAC (the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control) was holding up applications for licenses and renewal of licenses, which traditional have been good for 12 months. more >>
Tree Tops B&B – Costa Rica’s most singular guesthouse
I feel so very fortunate that a side benefit of my visits to Costa Rica is the friendships that evolve with hoteliers and others in the travel industry there.
Case in point… many years ago I discovered a tiny guesthouse—Tree Tops B&B—hidden away, quite literally, at the end of a dirt road in the hamlet of San Juanillo, mid-way down the Pacific Coast of the Nicoya Peninsula.
This simple, rustic, one-room B&B is the home of Jack and Karen Hunter. Former Hollywood society figures, their marriage was on the cover of People magazine back in the day… or did the couple custom order a fake cover, which hangs in their kitchen? more >>
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