Costa Rica - a review

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Hey everyone,

This will be our last blog from Costa Rica. When next we write it will be from Vietnam, somewhere. Still not decided on whether we start in the north and work our way south or catch a train for Ho Chi Minh City and see the south and Cambodia first then head back north. I´d like to take the slow boat to Hong Kong from Halong Bay if possible at the end of the stay. But we´ll let you know anyway.

Costa Rica is a small gem of a country. We arrived carrying left over stress from our lives in Oz but it did not take long for us to get in the groove of the Ticos and relax. Nothing has gone wrong for us. We have been very lucky.

The people are lovely and extremely helpful. They dress well and take much care in there appearance. The fashion is jeans and what t-shirt or blouse to wear with them. The ladies are voluptuous and have no body image issues. The tighter the better. Probably why David loves it here. The latino men are gorgeous too. They also take great care in how their hair looks. (check attached photo). Everyone wears closed shoes or very high heels. An indication of how much they like their shoes is evident in the number of shoe stores there are. Take a walk down central avenída and the competing touts are outside the stores trying to seek our attention. "Hey amigo my friend. Come in and have a look." And if we do decide to venture in, we have a helper close on our heels. Very claustrophobic, but they are on commission so they do their best to extract our money.

Their kindness is infectious. They greet us with a buenos dias, hola or the more casual "sup". There are a few homeless in San Jose and other cities and we have followed the lead of the locals and helped them out with a few coins. One fellow in Alajuela is now the proud owner of Davids 250 dollar hiking boots that failed him at Chirripo. We saw him later strutting so proudly past us.

In the early days, a young boy of perhaps 12 entered a restaurant asking us for money. We saw he was well dressed and I suppose we were suspicious of him and told him no. A business man asked him why he needed the money, in Spanish of course, and he said he was hungry. So the business man bought him a meal. Whether this boy was homeless or not is irrelevant. The issue was that the locals will help somebody in need. That is their nature. We learned 2 things that day. One was that we needed to learn some more specific spanish and secondly to open our hearts more.

Families are very close. Kids don¨t just grow up and move out. They grow up and then help their parents build an annex onto the side of the original structure for them to live in. We have seen some houses with 3 or 4 additions for the extended family. The schools are full of children wanting to learn. We had some great fun teaching english in Matapalo and the kids were so keen to please. The school hours are different. They start class at 7am and finish around 2pm. In the smaller schools, the grades 1,2 and 3 alternate with 4,5 and 6 for the classrooms. That is, the younger in the mornings on Monday Wednesday and Friday and in the afternoon on Tuesday and Thursday. And the older classes are the opposite. We wondered why school kids would be walking around at 10am until we learned this. Kids start school at 7yrs and finish high school 18 or 19yrs then go to uni. All education is free, including university, but there are some private schools that obviously cost.

It has taken a while for me to trust, but these people are so honest and trustworthy. The only areas where they are tainted are in the main tourist venues. They are more hardened to the tourist but consider us a necessary evil to earn themselves money. These are the areas we didn´t like as much. The warm feeling that we entered into at our homestay in Cacao was not around in these "colder" destinations. The more remote the destination the more welcome we felt. I suppose this is the same the world over.

The food can be a little boring but we got to like the gallo pinto (rice & beans with onion and capsicum) for breakfast. Lately with fried eggs. They also like fried chicken and all the sodas (small eateries) have a hot box with the chicken displayed with masses of pork crackling. Casados are good at lunchtime. They are some rice and beans, vegetables, and choice with or without meat. We have to search for salad and fruit as they are harder to find in a soda or restaurant. There are all the fast food chains but we have been successful in only treating ourselves a few times.

The water is fresh and clean. We have had no problems with drinking it...except for the mouthful of the Rio Pacuare I took while rafting it. There has been plenty of rain but this has in no way had a negative impact on the enjoyment of our travels. If anything we have had some fun in it...like the canoe ride in Tortuguero. I was armed with a plastic beer cup to bail out the boat while David and our guide, Feliciano, paddled. We had a lot of laughs getting drenched and making fun of the "sheep" tourists in the bigger motorboats looking miserable.

The transport here is superb. Without planning ahead, we can get from one end of the country to the other without difficulty in finding the next bus to the next town. The only traffic issues are the ones in San Jose. The government are making efforts to cut down gas emissions and reduce the days in which cars can drive. That is, licence plates ending with 1 and 2 are not allowed within the city limits on Mondays, 3 and 4 on Tuesdays etc. The drivers are quite aggressive in the city but somehow still considerate. They toot if it looks like someone will step on the road against the lights, they will stop altogether if an elderly person is at the curb wanting to cross. This has got to be the best sight, to see the traffic backed up but no one is tooting their horn because they have a great respect for the elderly. Once the person has stepped up the next curb then all hell breaks loose again.

We have done so much... witnessed active volcanes from up close, scoured deserted beaches, enjoyed the freedom of the baby green turtles reaching the sea, climbing the highest peak, caving 44metres below ground, swimming the Pacific and the Caribbean, rafting one of the best rivers in the world for it, joining in with small communities, playing soccer with the locals, playing volleyball on the beach with the other volunteers at Matapalo, wandering through some of the best natural rainforests of Santa Rosa and Tenorio National Park, seeing so much wildlife, and teaching and playing with the kids everywhere we went.

We are a little sad to be leaving. However we are to fly out Wednesday morning for our next great adventure. We hope you have enjoyed our blogs from Costa Rica and look forward to adding more with Vietnam.

I have added some more photos they may or may not have already been published.

Cheers everyone and keep sending us messages and news of home.

Love David and Lynne

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Photos

Getting involved in a kids birthday bash
Hungry Jacks, Town of Nicoya