Pura Vida
Well, we are back from Costa Rica. We managed to work out a reasonable mix of exploration, cultural experience, the usual tourist stuff, and straight-up tropical honeymoon relaxing. We spent all our nights at Marriotts, using the hangover points of my wilder consultant days. But we did our best to “escape the compound” as we put it and see a bit of the country as well. We tried twice to see volcanoes and were met with heavy clouds at both, but did get a very nice view of one from the plane. We hiked through three national parks. At the first (Manuel Antonio), we saw hundreds of monos (monkeys) along with hundreds of men (and women, and children, and every other mix of Homo). At the second (Carara), we saw only un mono but very few people and lots of birds. At the third (Tapanti), we saw no animals but absolutely no people either and did a gorgeous two hour hike straight up into a cloud forest in the rain, on a barely maintained trail where puddles and roots were our footholds the whole way. It was slightly reminiscent of the Inka trail, but definitely the densest jungle I’ve ever been in… a perfect end to our trip.
So other than the parks, we spent the obligatory time hanging out at the pool, walking on beaches, riding zip-lines through the canopy, and finding little locals-only beach bars. The last activity is where the “escape the compound” mentality came in. We were staying at an extensive beach-side resort, but next door was Herradura Beach, a local hang-out. There were two ways to get there, a 20 meter wade across a stream at low-tide (sometimes ankle-deep, other times chest-high) or a 1,000 meter trek sneaking through the golf course, over condo terraces, and past the security gates. After trying the latter, we stuck with the wading option for the remainder of our trips.
We also spent a day walking around the capital, San Jose, and found it quite pleasant. The core downtown area contains several deteriorating but tranquil parks and squares, filled with presidential busts, tight pants, war memorials, moss, pigeons, art deco cow sculptures (much like Chicago did a few years ago), and office workers. We visited three museums (all with similar themes highlighting indigenous jade, gold, and stone craftwork) and the opulent Teatro Nacional.
It was our honeymoon after all, so I can’t claim that we got just a great sense of the people. The people we encountered were proud of their country, boasted about their Intel plant and hospitals, were pretty cognizant of the fact that they regard Nicaraguans the way some in the U.S. regard Mexicans or Italians regard gypsies (they’re willing to pick the coffee and bananas and other manual work that natives won’t do, but get a disproportionate share of the blame for the crime). The country has a fascinating history of deep democratic traditions, occasional vote-rigging, blatant racism, and pioneering pacifism (the army was abolished after a revolution in 1948 and the country learned of their independence from Spain via the mail). Political parties seem to have copied the most popular ideas of the other, thus blunting the divisiveness of ideology somewhat. The one taxi driver we discussed politics with was thrilled Obama was our candidate.
I’ve posted a few photos on Flickr and will see when I have time to post a few more.
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credence33) wrote,
We tried twice to see volcanoes and were met with heavy clouds at both, but did get a very nice view of one from the plane. We hiked through three national parks. At the first (Manuel Antonio), we saw hundreds of monos (monkeys) 
along with hundreds of men (and women, and children, and every other mix of Homo). At the second (Carara), we saw only un mono but very few people and lots of birds. At the third (Tapanti), we saw no animals but absolutely no people either and did a gorgeous two hour hike straight up into a cloud forest in the rain, on a barely maintained trail where puddles and roots were our footholds the whole way. It was slightly reminiscent of the Inka trail, but definitely the densest jungle I’ve ever been in… a perfect end to our trip.
So other than the parks, we spent the obligatory time hanging out at the pool, walking on beaches, riding zip-lines 
through the canopy, and finding little locals-only beach bars. The last activity is where the “escape the compound” mentality came in. We were staying at an extensive beach-side resort, but next door was Herradura Beach, a local hang-out. There were two ways to get there, a 20 meter wade across a stream at low-tide (sometimes ankle-deep, other times chest-high) or a 1,000 meter trek sneaking through the golf course, over condo terraces, and past the security gates. After trying the latter, we stuck with the wading option for the remainder of our trips.
It was our honeymoon after all, so I can’t claim that we got just a great sense of the people. The people we encountered were proud of their country, boasted about their Intel plant and hospitals, were pretty cognizant of the fact that they regard Nicaraguans the way some in the U.S. regard Mexicans or Italians regard gypsies (they’re willing to pick the coffee and bananas and other manual work that natives won’t do, but get a disproportionate share of the blame for the crime).
The country has a fascinating history of deep democratic traditions, occasional vote-rigging, blatant racism, and pioneering pacifism (the army was abolished after a revolution in 1948 and the country learned of their independence from Spain via the mail). Political parties seem to have copied the most popular ideas of the other, thus blunting the divisiveness of ideology somewhat. The one taxi driver we discussed politics with was thrilled Obama was our candidate.
