Ara Macaw, the bird of 1-costaricalink.com
 Costa Rica has an immense variety of birds. Ricardo and Carlos Vilchez gave us the copyright for the photos of his beautiful book 'Todo Costa Rica' when we started this Web-Site in 1999. The bird of our logo, was scanned from that book. On Sunday 4th of June 2006 we decided to give the bird a more dynamic background. The result can be seen on every page at the top. The original picture was taken at the Zoo Ave in La Garita in Alajuela with a tele-objective. 
Here you'll find:
Beautiful pictures and descriptive text about Costa Rica, what to do and where to stay, vacation and tours, packages, rent a car companies, information on flora, fauna, trees, travel advisories, honey-moon packages, anniversary and retirement packages, weather and climate and thousands of pictures .
Most of the pictures have a 90% quality to keep them nice but fast enough. If you want high quality pictures (1024x768 pixels) to copy for your computer or other private use, you'll find some here. We are using three different kinds of cameras for our pictures. The underwater pictures or pictures in the rain with the Sea-Master have a different proportion than the bulk of our photos that have a 2:3 proportion. These are taken with a SONY DSC-R1 Zeiss Vario Sonar 24-135 and its Macro or Tele-Objectives. The third camera is also a SONY and serves as emergency-camera. Some of the original pictures we take have a size of 10.3 Mega pixels. If you want some of them for private or not competitive purposes, please use the 'Permission to Copy' link at the bottom of the page. Many visitors of our web-site take advantage of this opportunity.
Unlike some other Costa Rican travel sites, we do not try to hide from the tourists many nice hotels just because they don't pay a high commission. We try to have the widest selection in each area based upon our visits to the hotels.
We have removed several hotels over the last years because of complaints or booking problems. 1-CostaRicaLink goes to great lengths to have the widest variety of hotels, tours and businesses with as much information about them as possible. All Hotels, Tours, and Packages have a large Picture Gallery, so the traveler can get a good feel about it.
Here you will find Pictures and descriptions of most beaches and parks. But stay tuned for more of our Photo-tours. We are constantly visiting and revisiting hotels, resorts, spas, parks, tours, and beautiful beaches and wildlife refuges plus add information on local businesses. The immigration information shall help other foreigners if they should decide to move here. Read what others comment about us.
What you will not find on this site:
No flashing advertising banners distracting you while you try to read or enjoy the pictures. All our advertising is concentrated in the Yellow Page section. We believe in letting you make your own decision on where you want to go next without being prodded by a blinking rectangle. Also, so far we have decided not to use flash and as little java scripts as possible.
Negative news. If you want some, you can find it on other sites, newsgroups or newspapers. But, in our experience, any problems that you might find here, you can find elsewhere in the world only much worse. Just exercise normal precautions in traveling and business dealings.
This does not include some cautionary travel advisories sprinkled throughout the site - like being careful and not diving at the Montezuma waterfall, where several young people jumped to death. They put warning signs up now, but there are dozens of other waterfalls without a sign. Also warnings and instructions on our Beach Pages, that 90% of the 200 unnecessary drowning come from rip tides and how to behave if get caught. They pull you out not under!
How we feel and think about or project
Ihave learned so many things from you, mankind... I have learned that everyone wants to live on the summit of the mountain, without knowing that true happiness is in the way one climbs the crags. I have learned that when a newborn grips for the very first time, with his tiny hand, the finger of his father, he has him trapped forever. I have learned that a man only has the right to look down on another when he is helping him get up. So many things I have learned. Full text of Farewell Letter.
by GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
General Manager and Webmaster / Photographer
 
Angela Segura, General Manager and guiding angel for all aspects of our business. She not only manages the company, but also of our family. She gives our clients the same love, patience, honesty and professionalism as she gives us. You will also find her throughout this website as model for many hotels and beaches we have visited. She is also in charge of our reservation and sales department.
Jörn Malek: Webmaster / Photographer, born in Vienna, Austria, in 1943. At age twelve, he began to draw as a means to express himself. Later he worked in the advertising design and publicity fields in Costa Rica (agencia publicitaria APCU), and lived in different countries of North-, Central- and South America, as well as in Switzerland. In the USA he became a "Certified Real Estate Buyer's Agent". After the love for his family, he is deeply in love with Costa Rica. Join him at his daily walk into mountains of Río Oro or see the best hour of his day. This is the driving force, that keeps him double shifts behind the computer. It is the web sites about Costa Rica, where he can apply all the accumulated knowledge of design, marketing, languages and love for nature.
If you want to look at some more personal pictures, you may click here to get to a small picture album about our life, our children and grand-children, in our house in Santa Ana, during our travels, on the beach, and in San José, or here for a small Potpourri of Birthday Parties.
Reservations
 
All staff in reservation works in one room. Yamileth is in charge of supervising the reservations of the hotels and tours and help the other staff to answer questions about places. If you want to know who is helping you with your reservation, please put your mouse over the picture for the name.
 
 
 
 
Assistenten
 
Gabriel and Alvaro are responsible for many of the beautiful logos, and the constant changes and upgrades of our large web-portal.
Real Estate and Keeping the Books
 
Rufino Segura, Angela's father is taking care of the direct Real Estate requests, and rentals. Don Carlos our book-keeper of many years keeps our papers in order, and files the taxes.
The future managers
 
Keeping us and the place in shape
 
Ivan and Carlos take care of the large garden, the six dogs and other animals, the swimming pool, the ranch where we all have dinner, the trees and plants around the house and office. Marta works where ever she is needed, as babysitter, cook, supervising the cleaning lady and keeping the house in shape. She and her husband will also house-sit, when we go on tour.
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