Bottom Line About Costa Rica
Ok, so now that we’re out of Costa Rica, what do we think? Well… It is a really beautiful place. Compared to other Latin American countries, it is clean, safe-feeling, good roads, and you can drink the water. Compared to the US, it is cheap to travel around. That said, here are a few myths about Costa Rica which should be expelled:
To start with, the Pura Vida farce… if you’ve ever watched a TV show about Costa Rica where a baboon-like travel host pontificated about the wonders of Ecotourism, they will have redacted for several precious minutes about how everyone in Costa Rica uses “Pura Vida”, as a sort of Aloha-like phrase. Not true. We spent almost two weeks there, and we heard it, MAYBE, a half-dozen times. And always, STRICTLY, from people directly involved in tourism. Locals never used it among each other that we saw.
Now, if you had bought an all-expense paid package to dive, surf, sleep and eat, you’d no doubt hear it. But it is not a local thing - it is something that, apparently, the tourism department made up to attract tourists. As such, I find it mildly patronizing - not to say disturbing - that a culture reforms itself to appeal to tourists
Another example of that sort of thinking is the “green season”. See, from December to May the weather is perfect in Costa Rica. It seldom rains, isn’t too hot, and is good to travel. This is called the dry season. The other half of the year it rains every day. In some parts of the country, it rains non-stop for weeks on end, I’m told. But the tourism drops off sharply because of the term “wet season” which has traditionally, and appropriately, been applied to this season.
So the ministry of tourism decided to rename it. Now officially the time from May to December is called the “green season”. Because non-stop rain for 6 months makes everything green! I find that rather deceptive. But to be fair, tourism departments are created to bend the truth and attract tourist dollars in every country, so Costa Rica isn’t alone in that.
Prices as I said are cheaper than the USA. If you don’t require air conditioning (and most people won’t in most parts of Costa Rica), and are willing to share a bathroom in some towns, you can stay for between 10$ and 15$ per person per night. Away from tourist areas, you can sometimes even get air conditioning for that price. They seldom have a price per room, it is always by the person. Food in local eateries costs about 5$ per person per meal. Fruits cost roughly half of US prices, most of the time. Prepared foods (canned/dried beans, pastas, candy bars, etc) cost about double
The quality of the food is extremely high. Costa Rica is a very fertile country, and so everything tastes better than the same item at home. Usually. This is due to the heavy volcanic activity and conservation efforts that have been made thus far.
The health of the people reflects those facts, as they are one of the longest lived countries on Earth. However, I would predict that those statistics will change in the next few decades since the people were looking quite overweight and unhealthy when we were there - not compared to Americans of course, but compared to other Latin Americans. They eat a heavy portion of white rice with EVERY meal. If it wasn’t for eating the cheap cuts of meat which have more nutrition in them, and eating a good amount of fruits, they would already be like us. Fast food is spreading there, too.
Ticos themselves, while nice enough for the most part, were not a very happy people from what I saw. They were always in a hurry, they seldom had time to feed the pigeons or hang out with each other on the streets like other Latin Americans do. But my biggest complaint of all, is that there are no markets in the streets, and almost no street food!
Apparently, Costa Rica has an organization like the FDA that requires food to all be processed through their facilities before it can be sold (which accounts for the relatively high food prices!), and which prevents any markets from forming without a permit. And judging by the fact that I saw no markets in 2 weeks, the permit must be hard to obtain. I was very disappointed by this, because markets and the attendant street food is to me, the best part of Latin America.
The upside is that almost all food can probably be eaten without worrying too much about Montezuma’s revenge and such illnesses. But I find it a high price to pay for that.
So bottom line… Costa Rica is a great entry-level Latin American country.
If you’ve never gone south of the border before, for fear of Federales or Drug Raids or Man Eating Snakes or Belly-Eating Bacteria… go to Costa Rica. You’ll scarcely know you left home, except it’s more beautiful than the eastern USA and cheaper than any USA destination.
You can’t see turtles the size of volkwagons nesting by the thousands in the USA. You can’t see monkeys hanging from treetops in the wild in the USA. Costa Rica offers thousands of things like that you can’t see in the USA, and in some cases, anywhere else on Earth.
But if you want to see the REAL Latin America - not what Latin Americans think Gringos would want Latin America to be…. and if you’re wanting to make your dollar stretch a bit… try Nicaragua.
P.S. I am sure this will offend some people. I am sorry about that, but this is the facts as I saw them. I’m sure they would be perceived differently by other people, and some people think Costa Rica is like a Western Garden of Eden. I didn’t.
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Posted on February 9th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Costa Rica |
