Costa Rica Intro 

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I've always heard about how beautiful Costa Rica is and how they are totally into ecology, etc. I've also read that many Costa Ricans speak English.

Well, we haven't seen much of it yet, but what we have seen is definitely gorgeous. The coffee plantations are amazing, and eventually, we'll get ourselves to one of those lava spewing volcanoes. We hope to get to a beach tonite.

The ecology part is curious. Costa Rica is definitely eco-tourist oriented. They know their ecology is their biggest resource and they definitely play that up for the turistas. What's funny though, is that no one recycles here. They do reuse glass beer and soda bottles, but most times, when you buy a drink in a glass bottle and finish it, the only thing you can do with it is throw it away. Ditto for plastic. We met an American guy who said he had tried and failed to start a paper recycling business here. He said Costa Ricans talk about ecology but they don't really understand it when the rubber hits the road in every day life.

The buses spew all sorts of black smoke everywhere. The cars aren't so bad. Many of them are new.

We're totally amazed by the concept of money here. The current exchange rate is 236 colones to the U.S. dollar. You can get a huge plate of rice and chicken here for about 400 colones (about $1.25). Beer runs 150 to 300 colones, but as Eric says, it's not like we're drinking Anchorsteam: the two main choices, Imperial and Pilsen, are sorta like Bud (no offense, Ted). Coffee usually runs 100 colones. A 2k taxi ride costs about 200 colones. The two-and-a-half hour bus ride from San Jose to the Carribean coast costs about 700 colones (350 colones extra for bikes). So basically food and transportation are very cheap.

Rent is cheap too. If you don't mind not having a phone, you can get a room in the town of Alajuela (about 15k from the capital, a pleasant little place with about 40k residents, and the place where Oscar Arias grew up) for about $150. If you want a phone and seguridad (security--from burgulars), the cost is $250. Hotels are cheap too--we started out paying 5,000 colones a night, or about $20, and in smaller towns since then we've paid 2,000 to 3,000 colones.

One major downer: there's very little camping available from the road. Everywhere you go, you're either in someone's backyard or on a banana plantation. We haven't set up our tent once as of this writing (Sept. 19, and we arrived Sept. 7).

Medical tip: If you have no dental insurance and you need a lot of work done, buy yourself a ticket to Costa Rica, get all the work done there, and use the few thousand dollars you saved to go hang out at the beach for a few months. We met a California surfer guy who drank too much tequila, fell down, and knocked off one of his crowns and almost lost another tooth. He got everything repaired for $165, and he didn't even have to call ahead or wait in line. Then again, the power went off three times during his surgery. He was very pleased with the work.

But other things are more expensive than they are in the U.S. Toasters, sneakers, toys, etc., all cost a little more than back home. Cars are supposed to be a lot more expensive--ie $70k for a car that would cost $40k in the U.S. We don't know how true that is since we haven't stopped at any dealerships. But we do know, because the ticos (Costa Ricans) tell us, that you have to pay 100% sales tax on new cars. Where does the money go? It certainly doesn't go to the roads, which are scarred with trenches and bicycle-eating potholes.

The cost of bicycle parts is odd too. It cost us 1,000 colones for inner tubes for my mountain bike, but only 1,650 colones (around $7!) for an awesome knobby mountain bike tire, which I need for these roads. I was so pleased I bought two.

The other amazing thing about money is that even though the stores are full of things that cost 5,000 colones, people treat them like $100 bills. At one soda (like a restaurant, but cheaper), we paid for our 1,200 colones meal with a 5,000 note, and watched as the proprietor asked all his customers for change. We are trying to break as many 5,000 notes as possible before we get out to the countryside where we've heard it can be impossible.

As for language. I should start by saying that Costa Ricans don't really need to speak English, anymore than U.S. residents need to speak Spanish or Cantonese. I mean, I don't think they should have to speak English.

Well, it turns out, most of the ones we've met don't. They can say "dollar" and "hello" and maybe a few phrases. Probably if they were forced to, they could actually get by in English. But they are reluctant to try, for fear of embarassing themselves. So if you want to talk to "ticos" as the Costa Ricans call themselves, it's up to you to embarass yourself by trying your broken Spanish.

Eric doesn't speak Spanish, but he does speak fluent burrito. He can confidently order a burrito with black beans, salsa, hot sauce, and sour cream at the burrito place near our old apartment. He can also ask for beer. And he can say please. That's the extent of his Spanish. As for me, I took a crash, pass/fail, zero credit Spanish reading course in graduate school nine years ago. It's the only course I ever failed.

However after a week here, we are both picking up a lot. We can basically read menus and signs and simple bits of text. I can have very basic conversations with people about where we're from, where we're going, the weather, etc. Eric can have very very basic conversations about some things. So we are getting along surprisingly well.

Of course, a little knowledge is a bad thing. We could be completely misunderstanding people.

One more note on navigating. Costa Ricans don't navigate by streets or addresses. They just use landmarks. The streets are named but most don't have signs. So instead of an address, we'll get directions like, 100 meters north, and 50 meters west of the legislative building. We are slowly getting used to this. It took us an hour to navigate five blocks to our bed and breakfast in San Jose yesterday.

next: Arriving in Costa Rica

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