Overview

It took a while to get here, but considering where else I´ve been, getting here (and being here) have been relatively easy. My arrival was hardly as other-worldly as when I first stepped off the plane in Africa 10 years ago, New Guinea 7 years ago and India last year and let my eyes and ears take in what for me was a very unknown country and culture.

Thirty-five percent of Costa Rica´s GNP is based on tourism...and for the last 15 years, Ticos have been taking it very seriously. What Costa Rica has to offer is natural beauty in the form of rainforest-jungle, highland volcanoes, hotsprings and tropical beaches. Its indigenous populations were decimated years ago, though there are native peoples who do live on the peripheries. Ultimately, they don´t play an active part in politics nor in the country´s ethnic-spiritual identity.

Who travels here? Well plenty of Americans and Canadians (often for 10-day to two-week trips), Europeans are typically here for three weeks (in that it takes them so long to get here) while the Mexicans and Guatemalans I´ve met, come for about a week (in that it´s just a couple of borders away). Nicaraguans come looking for work in that Costa Rica is clearly more prosperous than their politically/economically challenged homeland. It´s been noted that Nicaraguans are to Costa Rica what Mexicans are to the U.S.

Costa Rica is so first-world that it´s literacy rate and life expectancy is exactly the same as the U.S. It´s illegal to sell food on the street except during festivals and while there is talk about pickpockets all I can say is that financial desperation is hardly apparent. (I have seen a couple of passed-out homeless people on the street, but honestly LA´s downtown looks much more desperate than San Jose´s).