Monteverde

Walking through Monteverde reserve is like walking through the most perfect fairytale I’ve ever read. The forest on every side is green from the ground to the canopy, moss covering the trunks, and plants upon plants hanging from every bit of bark. Creepers and vines wind their way round the trees, and purple tongued orchids suspend themselves in mid air on flimsy stalks. Tiny streams trickle through mossy rocks and prehistoric ferns that look like mini-palms sprout beside the river-bed, their shade of leaves ruffled by a slight breeze.

Tiny birds nests are built into the banks next to the path, and if you look closely you can see miniature mouths squeaking within. Brown-winged parents with yellow bellies fly past to drop off a grub every few minutes. If you’re lucky, you can look up and in the branches above there will be the magical mystical resplendent quetzal, its long green feathers curving down like a quill from its little fat body.

Some say the fairyland is ruined by the abundance of tourists that this little piece of perfection sees every year. It’s the most touristed place in all of Costa Rica – quite a title to hold. Everyone has it on their list, and many are here to hunt down the quetzal, the notoriously aloof, wonderfully exotic inhabitant of the world’s disappearing cloud forests. A Monteverde guide said that one of his clients was so overwhelmed when she saw a quetzal in the reserve that she literally broke down and cried. Its that emotional. But I have to say I managed to contain my tears after I’d seen a male and female in the trees just metres away from the Monteverde reserve gates.

In my opinion, tourists or no, this is a beautiful corner of the world. Walking through the bosque nuboso trail early on a clear morning is a real experience. You could actually believe that fairies live here. From the entrance, the trail climbs gently through perfect, untouched forest. It seems like its been there for millions of years, holding an ancient, impenetrable memory. Birds hoot from the treetops, but are difficult to spot through the thick greenery.

As the trail climbs, the view of the valley opens out below you, with ridges of dark green falling away towards the towns below. You walk up from the Pacific side, but it’s when you hit the continental divide that the treat comes. On one side of the ridge, the land slopes down towards settlements, but on the Caribbean side, the ridge gives way to a steep slope falling down into a valley surrounded by undisturbed hills. As far as the eye can see, the earth is covered in thick deep green, undisturbed by roads, houses, even human figures. It’s then that you realise the legacy of this park. Tourists are only allowed to set foot in a tiny section of it, but that section does contain some of the most beautiful forest. The 10,500 hectares that make up the reserve are mostly left to their own devices.

The marked paths are easy to follow and if you time it carefully you can have a path to yourself at least for fifteen minutes or so. Many people take tours, which are excellent for spotting animals as the guides really know what they’re talking about, but it doesn’t leave much space for personal communing with nature. If you are desperate to see a quetzal, it’s worthwhile taking a guide. It’s also worthwhile because according to the administration there are 100 mammal species, 400 bird species and 3,000 plant species in this reserve. The guides are all trained biologists who speak English and Spanish and can answer pretty much any question you throw at them. You will find out about the many species of avocado that grow here, the reproductive habits of ferns and the evil-looking tarantula-wasps. These are so-called because they sting a tarantula and inject their eggs inside it. When the eggs hatch, the lavae start to eat the tarantula alive from inside.

There are trails that lead further on from the triangle of marked trails towards some very little-visited huts, but at the time of writing they were closed and would be for an unspecified time. Closing them consists of putting up a wooden closed sign that is easy to walk past, but be careful if you do choose to go down the paths that they are very slippery and steep. They are also wider than the paths in the forest, making them considerably less interesting. If you sit still for a while, the tranquility does mean that you have the chance of mammals such as nose-bears coming along and snuffling around you for a while.

It should take no longer than a few hours to walk around a good proportion of the 26 or so kilometres of trails in the park. Transport to the reserve is by bus from the village of Santa Elena, with buses leaving town at 6.15, 7.20, 9.20, 11.20, 1 and 2.30, returning at about two hour intervals until 4 o’clock. The cost is 1,000 colones for the return trip.

Entrance is $15.

Santa Elena Reserve

Also a good choice, Santa Elena’s forests are almost as dense and impressive as Monteverde’s, but lack something of the magic. There are fewer tourists, but also less trails. You will be greeted at the gate by the very friendly and enthusiastic Charly, a pet wild pig who was raised by humans and now can’t get enough of them.

Quetzals are a common sight here as well, along with the loud and rare three-wattled bellbird. This bizarre animal has three black things – spaghetti, as the guides call them – hanging off its beak. Take your binoculars and try and see one soon though – their numbers are dwindling drastically. The guides say this is because of global warming. Now that the temperature in the mountains has gone up, other species are climbing to higher altitudes. Predators such as toucans that were never here before now pray on quetzals and three-wattled bell birds, threatening them with extinction.

If you get a nice clear day you have the chance of seeing one of the most impressive views of volcan Arenal available. Take the Caño Negro trail, and look out for a lone bench as you turn a corner. A valley stretches out below, and at the end of it Arenal rises, a perfect cone, whisps of smoke mixing with the white clouds that cling to its summit.

The reserve is managed by the local community in association with Youth Challenge International, a Canadian charity. The charity has a trail named after it, and on this trail there is a thing called ‘the tower’. A large metal construction vaguely resembling a scaffold tower, the lookout point is terribly maintained. Steps are loose, hinges are giving way, and half of the top platform clearly rusted into nothingness a short while ago. Be careful if you want to go up it.

Entrance is $12, guided tours are $15, and can be booked in Santa Elena town. Buses leave from in town and go at 6:30, 8:30, 10:30, 12:30 and 3:00PM returning at 11:00AM, 1:00PM and 4:00PM. It costs 1,000 colones each way.

San Luis Waterfall

If you don’t have transportation to get to this lovely waterfall, be prepared. It’s a good 6 kilometres uphill on the road from Santa Elena towards Monteverde reserve, then another 4 or so steeply downhill after you take the right-hand turn marked San Luis. Then it’s another at least three ascending to the waterfall.

Entrance fee to the little trail is $8, and from the entrance huts the trails is not very long. Reaching the waterfall itself, you catch your breath twice. As you approach, it seems to be a nice thin waterfall falling from a cut in the cliffs into a small clear pool, but a few steps more and you realise it’s twice the height you originally thought, falling in two steps through the carved black rocks.

If it’s a hot day the trip is worth it for a cool down in the pools. If you don’t have transportation it’s usually possible to hitch rides on the roads to and from the waterfall – people are understanding about the hills!

But if you do walk, you get the added bonus of a spectacular view of the gulf of Nicoya. Standing at the lookout point on the road towards San Luis, at first its hard to believe that the shimmering blanket in the distance really is the sea. Dark island float in it, and you can see all the way to the Peninsula on the other side, curving round to make the gulf look almost like a lake.

Santa Elena Town

Small and definitely gringofied, this little community centres on a street full of restaurants. There are some decent eating choices here such as the Tree House, but it’s not cheap. There is one soda for the hard-up. If you didn’t see the animals you wanted to see then there’s always the ranarium, serpentarium, insect museum and butterfly garden, not to mention the orchid nursery.

Monteverde is famed for two things other than the nature: ice cream and cheese. Having actually tasted what cheese is meant to be like, this stuff still doesn’t cut the mustard, though i’d say it’s slightly better than the regular plasticky crap in the stores. Monteverde’s sharp cheddar is not too bad. The other stuff with lots of herbs in really just has a lot of salt in it. The Monteverde cheese factory has a store in it with all of the varieties. It also gives tours.

The ice cream is better – it is very creamy and doesn’t taste of a huge amount, but it’s quite satisfying. Choose something with a flavour you can’t miss, like mint choc chip. It can be bought from the heladeria in the middle of town, Sabores on the road to Monteverde reserve, or at the factory itself.

If you must do a canopy tour, there is plenty of choice around here. Just try to avoid disturbing the monkeys too much with your yodelling when you are swinging through their natural habitat.

Places to stay:

Monteverde Backpackers
Only a year old, this little place is affiliated to Pangea, a San José based hostel, which makes it slightly more expensive at $10 a dorm bed. The house is homely though, with sofas, a TV and two computers with free internet. A friendly, bilingual father-son team run the place and can help out with tours, buses and whatnot. The dorms sleep six and have private bathrooms – there’s usually a good bunch of people around to chat to. A small kitchen can be used if you want to avoid the expensive restaurants, and the supermarket is just steps from the door. Telephone: 2645-5844

Pension Santa Elena
Always full, with people lounging in rocking chairs and hammocks on the porch. This place is slightly cheaper at between $6. Telephone: 2645-6240

Buses to Santa Elena/Monteverde leave San José daily at 6.30 a.m. and 2.30 a.m., returning at the same times.

Hikers who drag themselves out of their sleeping bags in the early hours of the morning, don their woolly hats and strike out towards the summit in the dark can have sunrise at the highest point in Costa Rica all to themselves.

After a groggy two-hour walk and a final scramble up to the peak of Cerro Chirripó, the intrepid walker sits 3,820 meters above sea level (about 12,533 feet), with valleys, lakes, and blankets of calm, white clouds spread out below. There is no sound except the wind and an occasional bird, a world void of human presence. It is rumoured that on clear days, you can see both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts simultaneously.

Costa Ricans take great pride in the activity of hiking the 20 kilometres (about 12 miles) from the little village of San Gerardo de Rivas to the stark peak that provides such a sharp contrast to the beaches and rainforests of the rest of the country.

Some even claim, wrongly, that it is the highest point in Central America – that title is claimed by Volcan Tajamulco in Guatemala, which reaches an impressive 4,211 metres of altitude, easily outstripping Cerro Chirripo.

Foreigners who are not in the know can find it hard to get into the national park. This isn´t the kind of mountain you can just turn up at and expect to climb – oh no, it´s far more executive than that. Ticos make reservations months in advance to ensure their space in the Los Crestones refuge that lies a few hundred metres below the peak.

Backpackers have been known to camp outside the park office gates in San Gerardo de Rivas from 3 a.m. in the morning to be the first in the queue for the ten places that officers say they always have free for the following day.

The walk is worth the difficulty in securing tickets, largely because it provides such a refreshing change to the rest of the country. Instead of packing your bikini and flip-flops, you´ll be needing a scarf, hat, sturdy hiking boots, a portable stove and all the food you want to eat during the time that you´re in the park

The hike technically starts out four kilometres (2.5 miles) outside Chirripó national park and winds its way up through ever-changing vegetation on obvious paths. It´s a friendly mountain, and you won´t need a guide. Cloud forest surrounds the trail for the first few kilometers, and birdlife is plentiful. Among the more interesting species is the emerald toucanet, a bird that is slightly smaller than a regular toucan, with green feathers and a long yellow and black bill.

After about 10 kilometers (some six miles), the trees thin out and are replaced by short flowering bushes, and the clouds disappear. Lizards of every colour and pattern bask on the rocks.

Between the start of the trail and the peak, hikers ascend 2,300 metres (7,546 feet), starting at around 1,500 metres above sea level, about 4,920 feet. Each kilometre is marked with a named sign, which is helpful until you get nearer the top where the kilometres take on names such as “The Burns” and “The Repentants” – accurate, but not very encouraging after six hours of walking.

At the top, the sun is often fierce, and the weather is unpredictable. One minute you can be burning in the hot sun, the whispy clouds floating up from the lower valleys, and the next you can be listening to the sound of thunder chasing you across the hills, the clouds threatening you with a colossal storm. And then suddenly it´s sunny again.

The lodge is basic, but not as cold as everyone says it is. Take a good sleeping bag and several layers of clothing. You´ll be given a bunk in a dorm room, and can use the big kitchen to eat in, but the stoves are usually rented out for use by big groups. Bizarrely, there are two computers where guests can use internet – by far the most modern thing about the refuge.

Various trails lead out from the refuge. They go to the eerie Los Crestones, an outcrop of rocks that resemble organ pipes sitting at the top of one peak, and to various lakes and lesser summits.

Many people reserve two nights in the refuge in order to spend the middle day hiking around the valleys. This may be good for resting the legs, but the most spectacular hike is certainly the one that leads to the summit, which can be done on the second day at dawn before descending the mountain. Some people have been known to hike the entire trail and get back down to San Gerardo de Rivas within a day. It usually takes them about 14 hours, but isn´t recommended unless you´re properly in shape.

Reserving a bed in the refuge
To do this you have to get in touch with the ministry of environment office in San Isidro del General, the nearest city. Call (00506) 2771-3155 or (011506) 2771-3155 if you’re in the states. If they tell you it´s full, you can always try your luck and go to San Gerardo de Rivas anyway. If you have about 5 days to spare and don’t mind turning up at the park office at 6 in the morning, you’ll almost certainly get a place with two nights booked. If you’re limited on time, be advised that when the guards say they always have 10 spaces held for the next day, this is not strictly true. If ten people turn up on a Thursday and reserve two nights in the reserve, the people who turn up on Friday will find there are no spaces left for the next day. And they won’t be allowed to reserve for the day after, as you can only reserve one day in advance. The number of spaces available could be less than ten as well, as it is decided on a daily basis how many extra people will be let up

Getting to the park – Get a bus to San Isidro del General, which is located on the panamericana and is often referred to as Perez Zeledon. Then catch the local bus to San Gerardo de Rivas. This is very cheap and runs twice a day in each direction, one at 5 a.m. and one at 2 p.m. On the way back they are two hours later. A taxi costs about $25 from San Isidro. From the bus stop, the administration office is a couple of hundred metres downhill, and the park entrance is a couple of kilometres uphill.

Chirripo national park – public health risk
Can´t get a bed at the refuge, even though people who´ve been there say there are spares every night? There´s a good reason why not. Chirripo´s septic tank was recently found to be failing, unable to cope with the demands put on it by over 70 people a night.

In order to avoid the park being shut down entirely by the health ministry for posing a public health risk, the park´s administration decided to limit the number of visitors that come every day. Each night, at least 20 of the 60 beds in the refuge lie empty.

At the beginning of April, a group of local businessmen went up to the reserve to do the repairs to the tank themselves. They had already paid for the materials needed to do the repairs, with the help of Banco Nacional, pulling together because of the damage the space limitation is doing to tourism in San Gerardo de Rivas. The repairs cost a total of about $10,000.

But even with the repairs, park administrator Oscar Esquivel says the tank will not be strong enough to support more tourists – it will just be efficient enough to stop the park from being shut down. The locals are now preparing a report with a petition that asks for 75% of the beds to be filled each night.

The Cloudbridge Reserve is a private project to protect and reforest the lush valleys below Chirripo. Various trails weave through the reserve, passing by waterfalls and at one point giving a vista over two waterfalls in the valley below, surrounded by green. You could easily spend a day wandering the beautiful paths, but beware that it rains a lot here – more than at the top of Chirripo, which often has its head above the clouds. Visit www.cloudbridge.org.

Hot springs are the other attraction, but you´ll be more in need of a cold shower after walking up the insane incline to get to the pools. If you’ve already been to Arenal and spent enough money to eat for a week on the entrance to Tabacón, you might be disappointed. There are two small man-made pools set into the rocks, and one of them could be better described as tepid than hot. It is a great place to meet locals though, as it is often packed with Ticos who bring picnic feasts for a family day out, especially at weekends and on holidays.

But one of the best thing to do in San Gerardo is relax on a balcony or in a hammock, watch the many species of colourful birds darting around the flowers that cover everyone’s gardens, have a pizza on a balcony overhanging the valley, and appreciate one of Costa Rica’s most attractive and authentic little towns.

Places to stay:

Casa Mariposa

This is a hummingbird and hammock-filled chill-out house, built next to a valley that drops down to a little stream, and only a few yards from the trailhead. The dorm room’s walls are half carved out of the rocks of the mountain, with beds resting on natural ledges, and a massive boulder almost obstructing the way to the bathroom opposite. Meals can be cooked in the homely kitchen, where there is a communal food basket to rummage through before you set off on the hike. Guests often cook together, as the cosy hostel is perfect for getting to know other people of all ages and nationalities. Everyone usually congregates in the kitchen and lounge, where there are several comfy sofas, and books to exchange or read. The real bonus, though, is the hammock garden. Just uphill from the dorms, three hammocks and various chairs are set under a small roof, with a sweeping view of the valley below. Hummingbird feeders ensure that the little birds are fluttering around you all the time, with the occasional visit from an emerald toucanet, and plenty of butterflies. Greenery and flowers are abundant, and friendly owner John is now working on a project to clean up the stream bed that is near the hostel, and make a waterfall that falls from a cave into a peaceful, natural place for his guests to visit. Telephone: 2816-7573.

El Descanso

If you’re trying to get away from the gringo crowd for a while, this is a very Tico place to stay. It’s much closer to the park admin office too, which makes it more convenient if you need to be down there by 6.30 a.m. to make a reservation. The best thing about it, however, is the homage to Chirripó’s biggest annual event – the Cerro Chirripó race. One day a year, usually in March, a bunch of crazy people get together and run from San Gerardo de Rivas’ football pitch to the refuge and back. Considering it took me 6 hours to get up there and 5 down – and I ached afterwards – I can’t help but respect the balls of these people, some of whom do the distance in less than 3.5 hours. Pictures from twenty years of racing are hung all over El Descanso’s dining room. Owner Francisco Elizondo used to win the race every year, but now that he’s past seventy he falls into the veterans category. He still wins that category. Apparently there is also a crazy gringo with an enormous white beard who runs the thing in cut off denims and bare feet. He, predictably, is usually the last down the mountain. If you arrive at El Descanso and it looks shut, just holler a bit and you will be attended to. Phone: 2369-0067.

“Have you been before?” They started.
“If not, you shouldn’t go alone. Wait until one of us can go with you – it’s dangerous if you don’t know your way around.”
“There’s a lot of crime there. And drugs. Two gringas like you will almost certainly get robbed.”
“Don’t leave the hostel at night, in the dark it’s worse.”

This went on for a while until I became thoroughly irritated and even more determined than ever to go to Puerto Viejo. And when we arrived, we were surprised. It seemed like a laid-back rasta town, with quite a large proportion of hippy gringos living there. Most of the locals looked to be pot-smoking surfers, and everyone was thoroughly pleasant to us.

My point is that a prevailing sense of fear has crept into the Ticos’ everyday life over the past five years or so. I don’t deny that there is certainly crime in Puerto Viejo, and have heard this from Gringo sources as well. They speak of people being knocked off their bikes, their bags robbed at machete-point, and of drug-runners threatening the lives of would-be whistle-blowers. But really, if you go to Puerto Viejo and take the proper precautions – such as not carrying a massive purse and avoiding dark lanes at night – you should be fine.

If a Tico tells you a place is dangerous, it is probably worth getting a second opinion from a traveler who has been there before. Costa Rica is no more dangerous than most other Central American countries – in fact I would say it is less so, especially outside the capital. The paranoia seems to largely come from the fact that ten years ago, crime was almost unknown, and in the last five years it has suddenly become a fact of every-day life. My Spanish teacher tells me that in the ten years before 2002, she only had one student come in and tell her that they had been mugged. Now, she says, it’s more like two a month. Her three children have had their cell-phones robbed five times between them, and the news media has run several stories in the six months I have been here about people who were shot dead because they wouldn’t give up their cell-phone. If someone tries to rob you, as in any country, give them what they are asking for.

I’m told that if you call the police and ask them to come out to a crime, they ask you if you’ve got enough money to pay for their petrol

Ticos will have you believe that crime is burgeoning because of the sudden inflation of immigration into the country by Nicaraguans and Colombians. Ticos tell every tourist that the person who robbed them was almost certainly not Tico. Ticos have more dignity than that, they add. It may also be something to do with the ineffectiveness of the police. I’ve never had the occasion to try, but I’m told that if you call and ask for someone to come out to a crime, the police often ask if you have enough money to pay for their petrol. They’re pretty badly underfunded and underpaid.

Recently, a new security minister called Jeanina del Vecchio was elected and angered a goodly number of people because she said that after taking the post, she realised that the crime situation was not as bad as she had previously thought. This was a sharp turn around from the man she replaced, Fernando Berrocal, who was forced to step down after he alleged that the rise in crime is partly due to the fact that the Colombian rebel forces (FARC) have infiltrated Costa Rica and have strong ties with important government members. Although originally saying he had a list of names, none was ever produced (it’s unclear whether the government pressured him to keep it quiet, or whether he really was being over-confident about his facts), and he resigned from the ministry rather than take a lower-ranking position.

Ticos who support Berrocal’s view are plentiful. Recently a $480,000 stash was found in a safe in the back room of an old Tico couples’ house. The dollars had been there so long that they were starting to crumble in the humidity – about 11 years. The money was only found because of a tip-off from the Colombian government which had in turn gotten the information from guerrillas. A Colombian rebel called Rodrigo Granda put it there, and the couple, who live in Heredia, agreed to look after it as a favour. They say that they thought it contained documents, and didn’t know the identity of the man who asked them to hold it for him, calling him only Ricardo. They are even said to have signed a document agreeing to keep the safe – which had Granda’s name printed on it. They say they failed to read the paper properly before signing it. This argument doesn’t really convince many people, and some take the entire situation as extra proof that FARC has its hooks well anchored in Costa Rica’s social fabric.

But a regular backpacker will probably not come across many FARC-related incidents, and a normal level of wits-about-you that any seasoned traveler should have will stand you in good stead.

Tips:

• Never put your bag on the upper shelf in a bus, even if you think it is perfectly within eyeshot and you would notice if someone took it. We don’t know how they do it, but robbers will still manage to get it. Always take your bag with you at rest stops if you leave the bus.

• The San José Coca Cola terminal and its environs are possibly one of the most notorious places in the country. I got out of a bus and walked down the street to look for a taxi the other day and a policeman stopped me. He told me that if I carried on the way I was going I was running more than a fifty percent chance of being robbed. Go there by taxi, get the bus, don’t hang around.

• Don’t wander around with your laptop. If you have to, put it in a rucksack with a lot of other stuff in it so it doesn’t look so obviously like a laptop. Even taxi drivers have been known to rob people of their laptops. Preferably don’t wander around with your ipod in your ears either

• Don’t ever walk around in San José’s “green” spaces at night. By that I mean Parque España, Parque Nacional, and anywhere else that has trees and looks dark. All sorts hang out in there, from regular druggies to knife-toting flashers.

• As always, look like you know where you’re going, because a lost person is always easier to target. If you do get lost go into the nearest shop and ask for help. And don’t weigh 400 pounds. My boss got his camera stolen right off his face as he was taking a photo because he looks like a fat gringo who can’t give chase

• I’ve heard various dodgy stories about hire cars. The scam is this – you’ve just arrived at the airport, you hire a car, drive it away and a few miles down the road it breaks down. A few minutes later, as you are ringing the police, another car pulls up and robs everything you own out of the boot. I don’t have a clue which car rental companies this may have happened with, but only rent from those which are reputable.

• Obviously, don’t go to the bank and exchange hundreds of dollars. A French guy did this at a bank that I walk past every day. He then left the bank, walked a few steps down the street, and a guy on a motorbike drove up, shot him five times in the leg then stole his bag. Strange how he knew so precisely who to target when only the bank-staff could have told the robbers ….

• My housemate got robbed the other day in Curridabat. He was walking down the road and was about to pass a car with its door open. A man was leaning into the car, ostensibly chatting with the other two men inside it. As my housemate walked past, the man turned and pushed him against the wall, then the other men in the car jumped out and emptied his pocket and took his bag, while shoving a revolver in his face. If you see a similar scenario, with a man leaning into a car, give it a wide berth.

The small population of indigenous people who still remain are hidden, living on reserves that do not belong to them, pushed back into the hills, and surviving in conditions that most Costa Ricans would be shocked to see existing within the boundaries of their own country.

Many don´t get a chance to experience this shock, because Ticos are woefully under-educated about the 1.6% native population that remains.

Indeed, in a recent United Nations survey, 77 percent of Costa Rica’s inhabitants admitted that they did not know that 22 indigenous territories exist within the borders of their country. 73 percent of the very few indigenous people left in Costa Rica live within or close to these territories, keeping the indigenous largely separated from the ´white´ Tico majority.

I made a trip to the Cabecar reserve near Turrialba, and described what I had seen to the tica girlfriend of my housemate. I told her about the fact that the families who live in the village I visited have to walk seven hours up a mountainside to reach the nearest village – which means seven hours to fetch rice to feed the family, seven hours to sell what little produce they can from their farms, seven hours to get to a doctor or a dentist. I described the houses they live in – huts made of cana brava (a thin long twig-like cane) with gaping holes between the cane, roofed with corrugated iron, open fires for cooking spreading smoke through the house. The house has three rooms for 25 people. There is no electricity. They bathe in the river. The toilet looks like a real toilet, but there is a pit instead of a flush, and it is open air, with only a strip of corrugated iron protecting the user´s dignity.

She was shocked. She said that she never knew that there were people living like that in her own country. She was particularly apalled that only 50% of them speak any Spanish. Many do not need it, because they never leave the reserve. The hike is just too far.

I have seen this kind of life before, but never in a country that believes itself to be so far along the road to development, and never with such a high level of ignorance about the conditions people live in on the citizens´ own doorstep.

Scroll down to read more about the trip to the indigenous reserve, and the difficulties their lives entail.

Indigenous people in Costa Rica have yet to develope a proper tourism industry, but there are a few places to go where they are starting their own ethnotourism projects. The community described in the article below is not touristed.

Yorkin reserve

Travel by boat to this remote community near the Panamanian border, where many of the indigenous have identity issues, not knowing whether to call themselves Costa Rican or Tico. BriBri indigenous people live here, and have their own craft tradition. Leaves from Puerto Viejo de Limon or Cahuita, details at http://www.greencostarica.com/rural_tourism.htm.

Kekoldi indigenous reserve

Tour includes explanations of how the villagers use local flora and fauna, and some BriBri mythological tales. Leaves from Puerto Viejo de Limon or Cahuita.

Boruca indigenous

The people of the southern Pacific side of Costa Rica have well preserved traditions, including mask-making and the annual Fiesta de los Diablitos, celebrated in the village of Boruca each December. Set up a cultural tour at http://www.galerianamu.com/eco-ethnic-tours/boruca_tour/

Standing next to her family’s water pipe, 4-year-old Sandra winces at her first encounter with the fresh, strong taste of toothpaste.

Living in her remote home in the jungle-covered Chirripó Indgenous reserve, she is a seven-hour hike away from the nearest shop that sells such things as a toothbrush and a tube of Colgate.

Her unevenly spaced and slightly browned teeth are experiencing this today thanks to a Christmas donation of toothbrushes and small toothpaste tubes from a Western well-wisher.

The art of toothbrushing has just been demonstrated to her and 15 other squatting children by Daniel Montoya, who puts as much energy into the lesson as if it were a revolutionary new invention.

“Brush forward, back, forward, back. How do you say teeth in Cabécar?” Montoya asks through a mouth of foam.

Montoya and his colleague Hector Soto started coming to the reserve after they received an unexpected knock on the door of their Christian mission, Voz Que Clama in Tuis, Turrialba. A Cabécar chief was standing outside, asking them to help his community.

There are few people who will spend the energy to visit the remote community, and the villagers often feel forgotten by the rest of the country.

Indeed, in a recent United Nations survey, 77 percent of Costa Rica’s inhabitants admitted that they did not know that 22 indigenous territories exist within the borders of their country. 73 percent of the very few indigenous people left in Costa Rica live within or close to these territories, keeping them largely separated from the Tico majority.

For Soto, Monotya and their 12 volunteers, the journey here started the day before with a three-hour drive in the back of a truck, up a dirt road to the village of Quetzal.

From there it is a two-hour downhill hike to the valley bottom on trails just wide enough for a horse to pass between the banana palms.

The boulder-covered valley is easier to navigate in the current dry season, but the group still wades through eight streams, some up to their knees.

Three hours of negotiating rivers brings them to the “zip-line.” A high wire attached to tree roots on either side of the riverbank is the only way to make the final crossing of the fast-running Chirripó.

It is a rudimentary little brother to the canopy tours that dot Costa Rica’s eco-lodges, and safety regulations certainly do not apply. A metal runner made of two wheels and two hooks is balanced on top of the wire, while the passenger slings a loop of rope around himself to make a seat.
The rope is looped onto the hooks, and the passenger holds on for dear life as their body swings out over the river.

Carrying the gear across this is the hardest part, and frequently rucksacks, sleeping bags, and work tools fall to their doom in the swift current.

Everything that makes it successfully across the river is carried another 40 minutes to the chief’s house, the end of the journey.

Despite the fact that it is something of an eco-adventure in itself, tramping through some of Costa Rica’s finest mountain scenery with not a house or a car in sight, this is certainly not a tourist destination.

The four or five other people encountered on the long hike are all Indigenous, leaving the reserve to sell bananas or beans, to find farm work or make an emergency trip to the doctor.

Coming straight from the smog, office blocks and supermarkets of San José, visiting this community is like stepping over the border between two completely estranged worlds.

This is pretty much as remote as it gets. There are no incongruous satellite dishes threatening to topple the precarious huts, no televisions, no cars, no newspapers, no radio.

“Welcome to the Hotel Presidential,” Soto jokes as he shows his volunteers into a hut made of thin wooden poles of caña brava — the “best hut in the village.” Light streams through the gaps between the canes, but a raised platform of caña brava across most of the room provides for a sizable group of people to sleep.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” asks Tico volunteer Samya, as she is led towards the bathing area, in a chilly stream just uphill from the huts.

Within her own country, not so far away from her hometown of Tuis, people are living with lavatory facilities that consist of an open-air toilet placed over a deep hole dug into the field. To shelter the bathroom-users modesty, a single piece of corrugated iron leans over the toilet at an angle.

The smell of wood smoke suffuses the small clearing around the collection of three huts. In the three-room house where a family of some 25 people lives, women cook on an open fire in the chimneyless kitchen. The smoke drifts through the house and into the children’s’ lungs, provoking a high incidence of asthma.

Asthma attacks in a place where there are no inhalers are serious enough to call the government’s hospital helicopter, which will also fly out for difficult births. It will airlift emergency cases out of the reserve, but calling it involves a radio, something this community doesn’t have. They must walk an hour to Colonia, the biggest town on the reserve, before they can call for help.

Unlike in other Latin American countries, Indian people here are an almost invisible minority. Around half of Guatemala’s population is indigenous, while Costa Rica’s share represent only 1.7 percent of the population, and for too long the government ignored their needs.

Indigenous people only became official citizens of Costa Rica in 1991, when they were given permission to have a cédula (identification number) with the free social security that implies.

Three years later, the Departmento de Educación Indigena was created by the Ministerio de Educación Publica, in an attempt to provide the same access to education to the Indian populations as those in the rest of the country receive.

Most of the 100 or so children in Chief Arnoldo Segura Cespedes’ dispersed community of 180 do go to school, but the difference in the quality of education is obvious in the Spanish levels of some of the children. 11-year-old Daniel could not answer when asked if he had eaten breakfast yet, and Sandra’s vocabulary extends only to words such as arroz and naranja.

Cabécar is very much the mother tongue. Other Indigenous languages such as Boruca are dying out in Costa Rica, but 50 percent of this reserve’s residents do not understand any other language than their own.

Illiteracy rates in the indigenous territories are still at a third-world 30.2 percent of the population, while the country-wide average outside the territories is a very respectable 4.5 percent, according to U.N. Statistics.

Cespedes cites the intense remoteness from the outside world as the biggest obstacle to the community’s development. He only leaves the reserve every two to three months himself, and some may never leave.

It is simply too difficult to make journeys out of the reserve carrying crops to sell or to return with building materials. This makes Soto and Montoya’s input crucial. Their approach, talking with the chief to decide the best way to move forward, makes a more personal, hands-on difference than central government programs.

Small steps, such as bringing toothbrushes, gradually help to make life easier. The model house, being built with wooden boards next to the caña brava hut, will soon show how houses can be made with chimneys, providing a smokeless room for cooking.

Volunteers from EARTH University will also be reviewing the land, to suggest crops that the fertile land would easily produce, varying the diet of bananas, maize, beans and rice.

While the United Nations Children’s Fund survey demonstrated how little ordinary Costa Ricans know about the Indian communities, it also showed that they are open to finding out more. Nine out of 10 agreed that modern Costa Rica could learn something from Indian culture, with traditions such as respect for elders and natural medicinal techniques.

Small ventures such as the mission provide a cultural exchange from which both populations can benefit.

Toothbrushes and toothpaste are unheard of in some of the reserve’s communities, meaning that rampant decay and gum disease are common. Lack of accessible dental services makes it near impossible for teeth to be straightened, filled or replaced.

“I have seen periodontal disease (gum disease) in 8-year-olds and malocclusions (crowded teeth) in 12-year-olds,” said Aborn. “I saw a 3-month old child with active leishmania tropica, an insect-born disease that causes scarring sores, on her face.

“There are only two dentists for 30,000 people in this area, and some people would have to walk for days to get to their nearest practice. They just want the dentist to pull the tooth out, whether it can be saved or not. Who wants to risk the problem returning, and have to walk another 6 days to see the dentist again?” Aborn delivered the first dentures and did the first root canal treatments ever to be performed on the reserve. He says that the diet of sticky foods such as rice, beans and plantains, accompanied by sugary drinks and sweets, are to blame for the poor nutrition and dental diseases that abound in the area.

“I had a dental practice on Fifth Avenue before I came to Costa Rica. Now I was working with people who have almost nothing – they live in wooden huts and eat rice and beans for every meal. People say they are primitive, but soon I was wondering, just who is primitive? They have a wonderful philosophy of life, and in all these years I have never heard them complain.”

Aborn returned to San José to work, but uses part of his earnings to fund his “campos de trabajo.” He makes the trip, which involves transporting all their equipment to the base camp of Shiroles by kayak, an ancient bus without brakes and on foot, two or three times a year, with a dedicated following of students and specialists who volunteer their time.

Some of the patients have never seen a dentist before, and their first experience of it is a world away from the dental care available in Costa Rica’s cities. Stools and benches serve as dentists’ chairs, overhead lamps have not worked for a decade, and old coke bottles are rigged up as water holders for irrigation tools.

Despite this, Aborn stresses that standards are high, making sure that everything is thoroughly sterilized and that equipment almost reaches the standards that U.S. dentists are expected to achieve. When the base-camp practice opens in the morning, 30 people are already waiting, and people keep coming throughout the day. Mobile units head off to even more remote destinations to set up field practices for those who find it hard to reach the base camp.

During the latest campo de trabajo in January, more than 1,000 procedures were carried out on 400 patients during four and a half days. Each campo costs the dentists around $4,000, which mainly comes straight from their own pockets. Devastating floods in 2005 made things for the reserve residents even harder. The water washed away houses, possessions and food. “They lost what little they had,” said Aborn. “It was desperate. U.N. officials came and assessed the damage, but little was done. People focus on the problems in Afghanistan and Africa, but no one ever hears of the problems in Latin America. I want to wave a flag and say, look, there are problems that need to be dealt with right on your doorstep!”

Since then, Aborn has decided to turn his efforts into an official non-profit organization called Proyecto Talamanca, in the hope that this status will stimulate donations and allow efforts to be reinforced. Aborn and Boza hope that in the future they will be able to construct a health center that will provide a broader range of services, from physiotherapy to nutrition and medical care. A Web page for Proyecto Talamanca can be viewed at http://www.dentalmedicinecr.com under the dentistry articles section.

I went to Corcovado. Oh yes. I spent those three days traipsing through the jungle, carrying everything I needed to live, unable to tell the difference between sweat, humidity and rain, and desperately keeping my eyes peeled for tapirs, sloths, even those little squirrel monkeys would have done. I got bitten to shit by the very many, very ravenous mosquitoes, and discovered no less than 11 ticks in various unmentionable places on my body.

I saw a small, golden-furred anteater. And that was on the truck on the way in before I’d even started walking. I am not a very successful wildlife hunter, it has to be said.

At least, that is what I though until one day as I was strolling through the Universidad de Costa Rica campus in San Pedro.

San Pedro is called a separate town from San José, but you’d be hard pushed to draw the line between them. There is no let-up in the urban landscape. The only vague difference is that there are more young people roaming around San Pedro as it is the student district of the city.

But it was there, as I headed towards the gates near the law building, that I detained myself on the edge of a large crowd that had gathered underneath a tree. They were all gawping at something in the branches, so I dutifully craned my neck in a similar fashion. And there it was. A sloth. Hanging out in the least nature-friendly part of Costa Rica you can imagine. He may as well have been having a snooze hanging from a window ledge in the towering Instituto Nacional de Seguros sky scraper.

At first I had my suspicions that he was animatronic, until it dawned on me that it would be an exceptionally elaborate prank for the relatively small amount of attention the sloth was getting. He was surprisingly active given the reputation his species has acquired, roaming up and down branches, twisting his neck to look around with his strange, smiley face, and presumably trying to figure out his next move. Baffling. What was he doing there?

I asked this to my colleague Pablo, and he said that in fact there are two of them living on the university campus, and they’ve been there for years – at least since his sister was studying there almost a decade ago. He remembers seeing them when he was a kid picking her up from the campus, and is pretty sure the two are a couple – male and female.

So there you have it, San José sometimes beats the back of beyond for easy wildlife access. I must admit that the questions of how they got there and how they survive are still to be fathomed out, but I will make it my mission to do so.

The title of this post is slightly misleading, as I can’t think of any other wildlife than sloths you’d particularly want to see. There are some tremendously noisy birds that mostly hang out in the sport campus of the UCR in Sabanilla, and in Parque Morazán, in central San José. They live in the trees in their hundreds, shit a carpet all over the pavement beneath them, and make a racket. It’s quite unbelievable, especially at sunset when they are almost deafening. I don’t know what they are. To be honest, this isn’t a very well-researched post, but I promise to take on the task of finding these things out.

Animals can also be found at the Zoologico Simón Bolivar, named after a revered liberation leader, but with a mission to keep its inmates in varying states of miserable captivity. My colleague says that the wildest life you’re likely to see are the rats that come and eat the food left out for the zoo animals. Nice.

From my office I can hear the lions groaning. They do not do it every day, and on the days that they are silent, I find myself wondering if they’ve finally succumbed to the horrors of being held prisoner in an underfunded, poorly-maintained, cramped zoo in a country full of colleagues who are allowed to scamper freely through their natural habitats. Ok, not lions, but there are jaguars of whom I am sure the lions are eternally jealous. The place should be avoided at all costs, unless it’s to picket for its closure.

Apart from that, there are cockroaches. Check them out on the pavements at night. They’ll be scurrying from a crack in the slabs to the next unsuspecting person’s kitchen. They get big too, size of a cat some of them. Kidding, the biggest one I saw was not larger than your average rodent.

It has long been said that you have to suffer for beauty. While counting mosquito bites and pulling ticks out of their toes, hikers who have just walked 50 kilometers (31 miles) in tropical heat through the Osa Peninsula might be inclined to agree.

From volcanoes with drive-up access to luxury beach resorts, Costa Rica makes beauty readily available for the tourist. Parque Nacional Corcovado is, on the contrary, a small pocket of undisturbed wilderness that hides its deserted, undeveloped beaches and rare wildlife away from human eyes.

Corcovado lies on the outside edge of the Osa Peninsula, and protects the only old growth wet forest that still remains on the Pacific coast of Central America. The forest is easily comparable to an Amazon rain forest, the tall trees with their impressive buttress roots outstripping the height of those in the Bolivian Amazon. The lush vegetation and the yearly 6 meters (about 20 feet) of rainfall provide the perfect habitat for some of the continent’s rarest creatures.

Puerto Jiménez, the small town that is the gateway to the national park, lies a 10-hour bus journey away from San José. From here hikers take a dawn pick-up truck ride for the two-hour drive around the bottom of the peninsula to Carate.

The colectivo heads past eco-lodges hidden in the jungle, stopping only for small ginger-furred anteaters who amble across the dirt road, safe in the knowledge that on the peninsula wildlife is everyone’s top priority.

Carate is the end of the road, although it is still 2.5 kilometers of beach walking to the park boundary. José, a worker for Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp, often takes pity on hikers and slings their luggage into a cart for his horse to drag down the beach — a service usually reserved for those who want a more relaxing Osa experience in the beach-side camp.

“From here, there’s a long way to go before you hit Sirena,” he says, skeptically eying up the day’s quota of would-be hikers. “People come here with packs that are far too heavy for this trek.” Backpacks start out stuffed full of granola bars, trail mix, dried soup, and other preservable foods that represent an entire diet for the next several days. Tents, water filters and camping stoves add several kilograms to the load.

Carrying everything needed for the duration of a stay in the park is essential, unless reservations for accommodation and meals are made months in advance to land a spot in Sirena station’s jungle lodge. The rangers cook three times a day for the well-off kids who arrive on boats or fly in on tiny planes to Sirena’s grass airstrip, carefully avoiding the sweaty hike.

Walkers make do with the more basic aspects of the park’s infrastructure. This consists of a network of relatively well-marked trails and four ranger stations with space for camping. No food can be bought anywhere in the park, and the water filter is essential for topping up drinking supplies from rivers along the way.

La Leona ranger station is the first port of call on the south side of the park. A ranger takes the $10 tourist entrance fee (It’s $7 less for Ticos) and sends them on their way with a rudimentary trail map and a warning that planning river crossings to coincide with low tide is essential if one doesn’t want to wade in up to the chest.

Although only several dozen tourists enter the park a day, the trail system has been well thought out. The trail that leads north along the coast winds through the trees next to the beach, infinitely preferable to walking 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) on the baking sand. Bursting through the trees to get to the beach for a bit of refreshing breeze is still easy, and well worth it, as the beaches are some of the most untouched imaginable.

Dark sand may not seem as idyllic as the blinding white bays on Caribbean postcards, but the coastline has a natural charm. It looks just as it must have for centuries, since well before the first Europeans landed in the Americas. Massive pieces of driftwood, some the size of entire trees, lie on the sand, and millions of hermit crabs are still the beaches’ rightful kings. The palm trees and dense vegetation that line the coast are only interrupted by rocky outcrops and cliffs, against which the bright red and blue wings of scarlet macaws stand out as they fly above the treetops in their lifelong pairs.

Apart from carrying your house on your back, the toughest thing about this trip is the climate. The almost perennial cloud cover does little to relieve the heat, which is oppressive due to the intense humidity. It’s not even necessary to start hiking to break a sweat. Minor activities like eating will bring it on too.

It is a relief at the end of the first day’s hike to find that Sirena station is in fact perfectly habitable, not overgrown or snake-infested as a jungle station might be expected to be. It is an extensive wooden platform several feet off the floor connecting various different rooms including showers, bathrooms, a camping area, a canteen, and a kitchen where campers can set up their portable stoves and cook themselves a hearty portion of pasta.

Sirena is the perfect spot to spend a day or two immersed in the rain forest that once covered much of Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, but has now shrunk to this 100,000-acre space. Rarely-sighted jaguars prowl through the forest, multicolored spiders hang in their massive webs, and hundreds of different types of birds attract avid bird watchers.

Río Serena, a few hundred meters north of the station, is a prime location for wildlife spotting. Bull shark fins in their dozens dart through the water just a few meters from the river mouth, warning tourists away from spontaneous swimming trips. Six-foot crocodiles bask on the opposite bank, and the long grass by the beach has numerous openings where tapirs have crashed through the undergrowth to reach their hideouts. There is always someone at the ranger station who can point animal lovers in the right direction, and those with sharp eyes can also see three-toed sloths relaxing in the treetops.

Hours can be spent stalking wildlife along the trails marked out around the station, where crossing paths with another person is as unlikely as catching a jaguar unawares. The animals here are entirely wild. Spider monkeys shake the branches and beat their skinny chests, trying to scare humans away from the troop when tourists cross underneath their path, unlike the monkeys that inhabit some of the more accessible parks like Manuel Antonio, who hardly flinch when they see a human. Central American squirrel monkeys also live here, the last place in Costa Rica where these endangered primates find a home.

Night strolls along the beach are popular, as tapir and jaguar tracks are often found in the sand at dawn, but boots are essential as various types of lethal snakes hide themselves in the long grass alongside the airstrip.

In the dry season it is possible to continue the hike along the beach, for another 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) north to the San Pedrillo ranger station. But once there, hikers are stranded unless they want to spend another day or two walking to the nearest settlement, or hire a pricey water taxi to Drake Bay. Not eager to do either of these, most tourists turn away towards the east, following the trail into the jungle. The terrain changes entirely; sand gives way to red, clay-filled earth, and the flat path turns into hilly climbs during the last two hours of the 17-kilometer (10.5-miles) trek. The humidity is amplified by the lack of coastal breeze, and frequent rain turns some paths into slippery mud chutes.

Plenty of streams along the way provide handy picnic spots and places to top up drinking water supplies using a water filter. Los Patos, right on the eastern frontier of the park, is
far more basic than Sirena, with a field cordoned off for campers and basic bathroom facilities. At night, campers get eaten alive by mosquitoes, and there is no wooden platform to save tents from the tropical downpours that hammer the forest every other night.

After a full day’s walk, it can be difficult to find motivation to hike further, but the waterfall a couple of kilometers away is well worth it. The fall is small, but it has carved out a blue pool, surrounded by jet-black rock that looks almost hand-carved in its perfection. Swimming in the cold water is refreshing, but ticks are rife in the jungle, and swimmers can sometimes find them hiding in the most unlikely places.

The exit from the park is only 2.5 kilometers from Los Patos, but the nearest town, La Palma, is another 10 kilometers (six miles) further on. Tourists coming the other way often hire jeeps to drive them through the gravelly river bed to avoid this extra hike, and anyone exiting the park should be able to flag a returning jeep down to save their legs.

The aches should disappear after a couple of days, the mosquito bites will take a little bit longer to stop itching, but the images of Costa Rica as it was intended to be, before the boom in tourism, before logging companies and before cattle ranching, will stay for far longer.

To make reservations at Sirena lodge, email pncorcovado@gmail.com, telling them the dates and amount of people. If they say it is full up, specify that you do not need anything apart from a place to pitch a tent. Often they say they are full when they really mean the lodge is full. If you bring all your food and camping equipment there will usually be space (unless you encounter a pesky Raleigh International group on the way). You can also call the Puerto Jimenez park office with any more questions: (00506) 2735-5036. You are expected to reserve well in advance, and pay the fee into the park’s Banco Nacional account. This is very easy – just print off the invoice they send you and head to a branch of the bank (very common across the country) with the appropriate number of colones or dollars. If you can’t speak Spanish, the invoice makes it pretty clear what the cashier needs to do.

Corcovado map

Distances:

Carate to La Leona: 2.5 kilometers on the beach
La Leona to Sirena: 17.5 kilometers, mainly on a trail beside the beach, with a few stretches in the jungle. Two major river crossings. Note: when you turn inland toward Sirena, you still have almost 2 kms to go. Sirena to Los Patos: 17 kilometers, through the jungle. The last 8 km or so is hilly.
Los Patos to La Palma: 13 kilometers, through river beds and on rudimentary roads.
Sirena to San Pedrillo: 25 kilometers.

Every time I return to Europe after a significant time away, I find that it has become more beautiful. Architecture in Costa Rica can be called functional at the very best, so strolling around the latticed towers of Stephansdom, and past the fine carvings of Museumsquartier reminds me that cities in this corner of the world can be as inspiring and beautiful as any white-sand beach. And you can give me that strudel and a healthy slice of Pont l’Évêque over a gallo pinto any day.

But then, as the rainwater reaches its sloppy fingers up my jeans until it’s nearly touching my knees, and the icy wind whistles past my foolishly un-beanied ears, forcing me to step into a café and pay a staggering 3 euros for a coffee, I come to realise that perhaps I am not yet quite bored of sun, sand and simple food.

I first reached Costa Rican soil after spending three hours in Nicaraguan customs, waiting for my boyfriend’s “irregular” visa stamp to be approved, and getting general insults about being a loose western woman chucked at me by the lolling, bored officials.

As soon as we finally hauled our packs across the border, there was a difference. The passport control hall was air conditioned. A man with a stamp-happy demeanor was ushering people through in a process that took no more than two minutes. And when the bus started its 4 hour journey towards the capital, the countryside was well-ordered. Outside the windows, I saw prosperous looking fincas, pre-fab barns, and not a shack in sight. Was this Central America still, or had I been bundled off in the other direction, unwittingly crossing the Mexican border into the United States?

Well, no I hadn’t, and over the next five months I got to know a lot about the difficulties that run counter to the smooth front that the Costa Rican amantes de la Paz put on for every visitor.

From the outside, it is one of the world’s great lungs; filled with nature, its trees protected by the government’s benevolent green hand, travellers come here to practice consciousness-appeasing eco-tourism. It is also warless, untouched by revolution, guerrilla-free, with an army that was the first in the world to be constitutionally abolished in 1949, and elections that are close to being the freest and fairest in the region. And by that I mean in the entire land mass of the Americas.

It has repeatedly been found to be the Latin American country with the highest quality of life, its 4.5 million people living under a system where, theoretically, everyone receives education and health care on a welfare system. Ticos – this is how Costa Ricans unfailingly refer to themselves – are proud to have a literacy rate that excludes only 4% of the population, putting this developing country in the ranks of the first world powers. It also has an excellent life expectancy – around 78 years – and only a recorded 0.3% of the population have HIV, half the percentage in the United States.

But, Ticos have this habit of making the best of everything. They are intensely proud of their small country, as well they might be considering their ability to avoid the kinds of human disasters that are waged all around them, and will do almost anything to hang on to their international image.

While working as a journalist in San José, covering topics that range across the country and throughout the levels of society, I have reported on things that shock even those who have lived here for years.

There are tourist beaches whose water is contaminated with enough human waste to put it at a level 1,000 times higher than the level considered safe for a human to swim in; racism sees black people denied jobs and discriminated against in every day life; indigenous communities are hidden away in the mountains, living without electricity, basic medical help or balanced diets, with 50% of the population unable to speak Spanish; the crime ranges from regular shootings to massive drug smuggling operations; and of course there is the free trade treaty with the United States, possibly one of Costa Rica’s bitterest battles since the short war that led to the destruction of its army.

There is still much to love. And I feel privileged to have been afforded a deeper, if far from comprehensive, view of the country than the average visitor, or even long-term resident, sees. I believe that for travel to mean anything, it needs to be informed by context, including a knowledge of current affairs, and this is what I am going to attempt to provide. Apart from the topics listed above, there will be, I hope, informative sections on history, culture, travel, and the big dark beast that is San José. Within these, you should soon be able to find information on the latest museum/art gallery exhibits, next week’s concerts, what to do in San José to make the most of a bad city, what the TLC really involves, where the cleanest beaches are, who’s the best Costa Rican music group, and where to get the best chocolate brownies you’ve possibly ever tasted in your life (it’s in a cafe called Bread and Chocolate, in Puerto Viejo de Limón).

This site is aimed mainly at people who are passing through, who are looking for an accessible source of information about the country, so they will be able to more easily recognise what exactly it is that’s going on around them. Of course, everyone else is also more than welcome to pass through and peruse at their leisure, ask questions, leave feedback, and help one another in the search for the best that Costa Rica has to offer.