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C O S T A R I C A |
Costa Rica is pretty tame compared to most of the countries we've visited. Tourism is it's biggest industry and there are numerous "attractions". (and I don't include the gangs of marauding Americans on naturalist holidays amongst these.)
Unfortunately all of our photos of Costa Rica were stolen in Ecuador, so there are no pictures on this page, but we've provided some stories that should titilate. It was in Costa Rica that we met Deborah the DEA Agent in the Monteverde Cloud Forest, went white water rafting in Turialba, visited the surfie paradise at Jaco, watched Arenal volcano spewing molten lava at night, saw England thrash Columbia in the World cup and ate lots of fried chicken and rice in San Jose.
San
Jose
San Jose, the capital city, is a busy modern metropolis by local
standards. It was refreshing to find modern transport, paved roads,
pedestrianised shopping streets and other amenities. We met a Swiss girl
at the airport and shared a cab into town with her. She already had a
hotel lined up, so we decided to join her. The Hotel Ritz is
absolutely nothing like its namesake in London, but it's pleasant enough.
At least there was plentiful hot water, and we had a large safe room.
In San Jose, the choice of restaurants is pretty thin on the ground. You've got fried chicken and chips or fried chicken and rice, sometimes with beans, oh and a Burger King. We had fried chicken at a greasy looking place called Pio Pio - seems to be a national chain. Despite appearances, it was delicious.
During the course of our stay in Costa Rica, we came back to San Jose and the Ritz three times. Its unavoidable really, since all transportation seems to start and finish here.
| Watch out for the Ketchup Scam in San Jose! |
| San Jose is a lot safer than most Central American cities, but you need to be on your guard. Once when we returned from a trip into the country, we were dropped downtown by the bus. It was early evening and we decided to walk the few blocks to the hotel. We got a bit lost (oh no!) and dug out our city map (bad idea). The next thing we knew, we were covered in tomato ketchup. It was all over our packs, the back of our trousers, everywhere. It wasn't the ketchup that bothered us, but we'd heard about this kind of scam before. Somebody squirts you with gunge while you're not looking, another person offers to help clean it off, and in the confusion your wallet gets lifted. This bastard must have used a whole bottle of ketchup or something, it was everywhere. We didn't wait for the 'help' to arrive, but hurried off and escaped into a taxi. |
A more pleasurable experience in San Jose was watching England thrash Columbia in the World Cup. We found a pleasant looking bar and staked out some prime territory at the end of the bar with a good view of the TV, about 40 minutes before the game. We were a bit worried that the Costa Ricans would be avidly backing Columbia. Latin Americans tend to stick together in these matters. A curious bloke at the bar asked us where we were from. "Inglaterra ... and we're going to win". Uh Oh, the cat was out of the bag, it was going to be a lively game. The next thing we knew, everyone was buying us drinks and wishing us luck for the game. And what a game. England trounced the Columbians 3-0. On every goal, I bought our new friends Tequilla shots. Predictably, it wasn't long before everyone wanted to be our friend. After goal number two, somebody bought me a turtle egg. A real live one, immersed in a small glass of alcohol. "You must drink it all in one go". He commanded. Well, I was sceptical, firstly about the environmental ethics of this but also about the effect it might have on my stomach, but it would have been rude to refuse, so I gulped away. It was fine, and soon after, when we scored number three, I had another. It was a riot, and by the end of the match we were high on adrenaline and booze.
On our third day in Costa Rica, we took a bus to La Fortuna, a small town about a hundred miles north of the capital. La Fortuna itself is not a particularly attractive town, a one-street strip. The attraction is the active volcano about three miles up the road. Arenal volcano dominates the town, a classic cone shape, emrging from the clouds. We booked a trip to go and see it at night, when the eruptions are more easily visible.
TO BE COMPLETED....
We arrived in Monteverde on an ancient ex-american schoolbus which was called el Viajero Allegre (the happy traveller). You needed to be happy, or at least in a good frame of mind to travel on it. The road to Monteverde was a 40 mile dirt track, which winds up through the mountains to an elevation of 5000ft. Torential rain (it was the rainy season in Costa Rica) had turned the track into a quagmire, and the driver performed heroics, crunching through the gears nursing the beast up treacherously steep slopes. A JCB digger was out on the road trying to patch up the damage, where the road had collapsed into the valley below.
On arrival in Monteverde, we were spotted and acosted by Deborah, a sparky blonde woman trying to persuasde us to stay at her hotel; "Only $14, all you can eat breakfast, and a free lift to the reserve of your choice". How could we refuse. She marched us off with another couple of travellers, expertly parrying an attempt from a rival tout to get our business. On the march, she stopped to have a heated argument with a man on the street "where did you get that shirt? It's mine" she barked. He had bought it from a second hand clothes store. Deborah told us that she knew who'd stolen it, and was going to get it back. "I worked for the DEA for years. I know how to catch villains. Besides I know who the thief is." The thief turned out to be the father of her child. Not a particularly stunning piece of detective work really. She said that she was working in Monteverde for her own protection after having helped to bust a particularly nast drug trafficker. Why then was she telling all and sundry this fact. One day, Pablo Escobar's cousin's going to be on an Eco-adventure holiday and she'll end up eating lead.
| Stuff to do in Monteverde | Eco-Warrior Alert |
| After dumping our very wet packs at the hotel, Debs rattled off a brief introduction to the area with military precision. This is one of the most popular spots in Costa Rica for 'naturalist' holidays. Really serious eco-travellers can immerse themselves for months in volunteer projects, growing organic food, building huts, hugging trees and recycling everything, including their own urine. Less earnest travellers can choose from a multitude of 'attractions' such as hikes in the Cloud Forest Reserve, visits to a wimmins coffee cooperative, humming bird sanctuary, or the bizarre aerial tram, a contraption not unlike a milk crate suspended on wires that you can travel in through the forest canopy 'to observe the wildlife'. Not surprisingly, the people I spoke to who'd shelled out 45 bucks to use it saw bugger all wildlife, it was probably scared to death. We opted for the Cloud Forest Reserve, which offers "10 miles of hikes through pristine rainforest". "Any questions?" yelled Deborah after the briefing, not really expecting any. "Yes - where's the laundry" said Katie. Our clothes were starting to play host to a wildlife of their own, and we were in desperate need of a washing machine. | The 'Chunches' laundrette is also an organic coffee shop cum ecological book shop cum local handicraft store and greeny hang out. We put the wash on and settled back with a coffee to watch life go by. The town has been colonised by tree hugging eco-warrior types in sandals. Opposite the coffee bar, a girl was actually crying because some guy had killed a bug. "It was only a mosquito!" he pleaded to no avail. This is the only place in Central America that I've seen recycling bins. In most places they don't even have litter bins. (Belize takes top prize in this respect, for having sucessfully turned their entire country into a landfill site). In some of the hotels - or eco-lodges as they seem to be known, they even recycle their own waste water. If they want to drink their own piss, fine, just count me out. |
| Suicide
Shower Alert The next day, we rose at 5.45 to get an early start at the cloud forest, since it seems to be less rainy in the mornings, and there's a better chance of seeing wild animals before the hordes of Americans start trampling through the woods. I had a frightening shower. It was one of those electrical affairs that seem quite common in Latin America, with bare wires coming out of the top. It started smoking mid way through, a pungent smell of burning insulation. The hotel owner, Raffa, was laid back about it; "Don't worry, there's a trip out switch" he said. Yeah, but it wasn't his balls that were about to be fried, and I didn't share his trust in Costa Rican electrics. I later learned that these showers are known as "suicide showers" by the travelling community. Very reassuring! In the Cloud
Forest |
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You are
reading the story of Adrian and Katie's travels through the Americas
between May and August 1998.
Adrian and Katie put the rat race on hold for a year to travel the world.
Adrian & Katie's World Tour News - Costa Rica Last Updated: 6 September 1998 Web Page by Adrian Ball (email: adrian.ball@virgin.net)