Pura Vida – 2 Weeks in the Land of Ticos

“Live a good life and at the end is not the years in the life that is important, it is the life in the years�.

Abramo Lincoln
Approved by Roberto


Republica de Costa Rica, a reasonably prosperous country, was our vacation place this summer. A country where the national motto is “Pura Vida� (that literally means good life, pure life, a life full of fun with family, friends, and nature). Family is central to the natives of this land, and Sunday is designated as family day, where practically the whole of country’s commercial activities come to a halt, and all one notices is families out and about, kids in neat dresses holding hands with parents, couples out for a walk. This may be the last summer vacation we will have as a family, as my older son starts college this fall, and would probably want to do other stuff during his summer breaks. What could possibly be more boring than schlepping along with parents and learning about cultures and stuff? Knowing him, he will like to explore places that invoke his intellectual curiosity, or where his friends take him. For now we made him settle on the forests of Costa Rica. Technically he is not an adult yet, and it’s nice to be able to tell one’s kids, who’s the boss. Life has a habit of coming full circle.

We wanted this to be the funnest vacation ever. Pura Vida to the max!

The plane ride is only about 5-hour from JFK to San Jose, the capital. Once out of the airport, the natural beauty of the place violently shakes you. You forget that you were in a nutty place only a few hours ago. Unless you have a real expensive camera, photographs do no do justice to this part of the world. It has to be experienced in person. As a frequent visitor to the Mediterranean, I have developed a repulsive habit of judging places by using Greek isles as standard-bearers of natural magnificence. Well, just like always before, I was proven wrong – this time with a knockout punch smack between the eyes. This place is certain to become among our favorite places to spend a week or two when we can. I should add that I have never visited a place that I did not like, and I have not liked any place more than I liked Costa Rica, even though, we only visited a small part of this beautiful country, a country one third of which is designated as a national park. I am certain that the more of it I get to experience, the more I will like.

Here is a little history and present of Costa Rica, and little taste of the places we visited.

Cristoforo Colombo, on one of his many voyages, in early 1500s stopped there and a crowd of native inhabitants greeted him. Later, the Spaniard Gil Gonzalez Devila named the place as Costa Rica, or Rich Coast (because of its abundance of minerals). Spain ruled for 3 centuries. The habitat in the area dates back to 10,000 years with many matrilineal societies where women had roles of chieftain, healers, and hunters. Spaniards, like other colonists, brought African slaves to work the land. Today, the country of a little over 4 million is overwhelmingly of Spanish decent and natives refer to themselves as Ticos (85% by figures available), (Tico for men, and Tica for women). Most Ticos are ‘Mestizo’ (mixture of Spanish and Native Indians), followed by Blacks, and then a handful of ‘Zambos’ (mix of African and Native Indian). There are scattered and small populations of Jews, and a very small Chinese community, that are descendents of the people that were brought over in the 19th century to build rail road. There also is a very small Quaker community that moved here from the US at the time of Koran War Draft, because going to war is against their pacifist beliefs. The Quakers own some dairy businesses. In San Jose there is a very small Lebanese community. On the Caribbean side of the country, there is Afro-Caribbean population. We did not go to the Caribbean side, where majority of country’s Black population lives, we have read and heard about racism that has more historic dimension to it (much like the US). There are also approx 50,000 Americans who have retired in Costa Rica. Catholicism is the predominant religion, followed by Evangelicals. I noticed that people were not overtly religious and didn’t care about the religious stuff if that interfered with Pura Vida.
We had heard about crime and theft, but nothing happened to us during our visit.
Futbol (soccer) is a national passion. Every town and village is built around a futbol field. One of our tour guides mentioned that “we Costa Ricans love futbol but we suck at it�.
Costa Rica has very progressive laws, but it is only recently that women have made gains in commercial and political arenas. There are very stringent laws against sex discrimination and harassment. Despite all this, one still feels the “machismo� associated with this part of the world. In some parts there is teenage prostitution and visitors are warned in many places that sex with children under 18 is a major crime, punishable by years in prison with hard labor. That still doesn’t stop some ugly men go there for that purpose.
The caste system in Central America is fascinating, with every shade being categorized as something. When asked about my caste, I told the bartender that I was a Pakito from Las Panjobos. That generated a laugh and a free Imperial (local beer). Costa Rica gained independence from Spain in 1821, along with Mexico and other Central American countries. Unlike its neighbors, Costa Rica has been a democratic country, with only two episodes of dictatorship; one in the late 19th century and one early 20th, followed by a very brief civil war, lasting only 8 weeks. This can’t be said of Nicaragua, Panama, and El Salvador. It has the most stable of regional governments, and the economy relies mostly on ecotourism. It has pretty decent living standards and a well functioning health care system - hospitals are aplenty. Costa Rica has no Army. The currency is Colones. The name was changed from Peso to Colones in 1980 to honor Cristobal Colon (Columbus’s name in Spanish).

There are two seasons in this tropical country – rainy and less rainy. It’s a country of lots of volcanoes, some active, most dormant, and lots of mountains. There is so much to see and to do; depending on how much time one has. It’s a paradise for nature lovers, ecstasy for hikers, and seventh heaven for those who love to chill out on a beach. For beach lovers, the possibilities are endless, as Costa Rica offers Caribbean Sea on one side, and the Pacific on the other with some of the world’s most beautiful beaches, mostly white sandy with palm trees. In short, there is something for everyone. One of the major challenges in family vacations is to plan activities where everyone can have a good time, and no one feels left out. Screaming and shouting some mornings by my teenage boys works as an alarm clock for us. “Daddy, we don’t want to go there�, “Mommy, I don’t feel like walking through stupid stores all day�. “Daddy, can we hang out by the hotel pool all day?� “Daddy, what’s so cool about going to see a volcano?� “So I can throw you in it� is my answer.

My two boys are poorly conversant in Spanish, and my wife near fluent. I on the other hand don’t have a clue, except for Por Favor and Muchas Gracias, however I picked up a bit more on this trip. I didn’t let my linguistic impediment stop me from having Pura Vida. Costa Rica does not get many Pakistani visitors, so I felt a bit of curiosity by natives in some places. Costa Ricans are very hospitable. In villages people opened their doors and poured their hearts out. My boys, with their Spanish skills charmed the girls their age.

San Jose

There is not a lot to this city, and most travelers stop here only on their way in or way out (only a handful of adventurous ones spend a few days learning everything about this city). One day in San Jose is more than sufficient. The town center has a couple of old historic buildings, a national theater, an old colonial hotel, and a central market, and that’s really about it. And yes, a very nice museum of pre-Columbian arts and life. Other than that, there are some office buildings, a few hotels. San Jose is a valley, surrounded by mountains. We only stayed in San Jose for one day each on both ways. While there, we took a guided tour of a coffee plantation and learned a lot about coffee – from harvesting to brewing a perfecto cup of java. Although with only about 2% of world’s production, Costa Rica produces the best coffee, attributed to its rich volcanic soil. Stupid me tasted some 6 varieties of coffee (not because it was free, but because it was out of this world) and that helped me stay awake for the next 74 hours. If you are ever in San Jose, try Tin Jo and Café Mundo, two of the hippest places in town. Tin Jo, a small restaurant of about 20 tables has a kitchen that churns out from Indian to Cantonese to Malay to Japanese to Thai with equal skill. I will talk about the local cuisine (nothing much to talk about) later. Our next stop will be in the region of Telaran.

Santa Elena and Monteverde (Green Mountain)

We arranged for a car with a driver through our villa owner Michael to take us to Monteverde. Michael’s is an interesting story; he came to Costa Rica as a young man from California 30 years ago, and never left. The trip is only about 80 miles. Michael warned that the last 20 miles will be the worst road we had ever taken. He was wrong; it was worse than that. The path littered with boulders the size of Volkswagen. Yep, the last 20 miles of the road was unpaved, rocky, and only a narrow path leading to the town of Santa Elena (imagine two vehicles face on in some tight spots). It took us 6 hours to get there. The natives of that region intentionally kept that track unpaved to keep it out of bound of developers to build hotels, etc. It’s amazing what people can achieve. The drive thru the country was beyond scenic with impossible amount of beauty and nature confined in one place. We had a full one week here to explore Monteverde. The town of Santa Elena has a new-agey feel to it, with lots of funky bars and a mixture of backpackers and high end travelers. There are all sorts of accommodations (but no big hotels) and there is ton, literally tons of things to do. The main reason people go there is to explore the cloud forest. There are hundreds of verities of plants, trees, insects, birds, animals. There are plants that have parasitic relationship with other plants, there are trees that eat other trees, and there are plants that grow on trees. We learnt so much about ecosystem and we will now see our environment with a different pair of eyes. Along the way we visited many sanctuaries of wild life, from butterflies to howler monkeys, from nocturnal frogs to iguanas. Most of the time there was spent doing nature stuff. My younger son, who turned 16 on this visit, went for a 10 mile run every morning at 5am had sprained his ankle on a run which prevented us from taking a volcano tour.
The restaurant worth mentioning is de Lucia (owned by a Chilean character- who speaks like 15 languages, a must visit place if you are there, and the food is not bad either, a fusion Latin Italian). Sofia is another nice place, with some local taste, and my hang out place Moon Shiva, an awesome bar/restaurant with live Sitar music played by Santos (an Argentinean) accompanied by Tabla machine. Santos and I became friends, and my older son and I hanged out at Moon Shiva most evenings for a couple of hours – he for music and I for music and a lot of liver damage.

One week of nature was all we can take, and our next stop will be the coast in the region of Nicoya.


Playa Samara

If you are married to a Greek and your vacation does not include at least a few days by the ocean, there can be some serious consequences, if you know what I mean. The drive from Santa Elena to Playa Samara was much smoother than our earlier drive. Samara is a beach town on the Pacific and it is known for beautiful beaches and is a place favorite with surfers. We stayed at villas managed by Roberto (an Italian). His story is pretty much like that of Michael’s. He made amazing dishes. One night, we were eating for 4 hours straight. This part of our vacation was purely chilling, going to beach every day. My boys took surfing lessons and became pretty good surfers by the time we were ready to leave. While in Samara, we took several short trips to nearby villages.

Guaital – a small village some 50 km from Samara, known for its pottery in pre-Columbian Chorotega style. The tribe that makes the pottery is descendent of indigenous 500bc tribe with very unique features. They number only in dozens and this tribe in old days practiced cannibalism – like many other tribes. The pottery is beautiful. We saw the whole process, and picked up a few pieces. On the way, we stopped for lunch in Santa Cruz, a pretty happening place with lots of bustling stores and commercial activities.

Nicoya – A beautiful colonial town with an old 16th century Church, with central produce market worth a visit.

Puenta La Amistad - we spent a morning to take a cruise of the River Tempisque, with amazing wildlife. We saw so many verities of birds with names so hard to pronounce. Although Costa Rica is a small country, it is host to approximately 5% verity of the planet’s wildlife. The other attraction there is a “friendship� bridge built over the river that reduced the crossing time from 2 hours to about 5 minutes. The bridge was a present of the people of Taiwan to the people of Costa Rica, and was opened in 2003. I later learnt that Costa Rica has no diplomatic ties with Taiwan, because China is doing a lot of developmental work in the country.


Food

Costa Rica has only one or two main national dishes – Gallo Pinto, a mixture of beans and rice is the main dish, eaten from breakfast to meal time. A few simply fried or barbequed meats and plantains, and Arroz con Pollo and Arroz con various meats (rice with chicken, etc.). There are all kinds of restaurants serving all international cuisine – pasta to burgers to Mexican. Tropical fruits are delicious and are available wherever you go. I wasn’t too crazy about local cuisine, but I loved the freshly squeezed juices. It is only fair that one place cannot have every thing.

It was, as always, a wonderful vacation. I spent a lot of one to one time with my boys, learnt so much about the teenage stuff they are going thru, and books they have been reading. One day my 16 year had fun doing a lot of driving on mountain roads on a dirt bike. Another day, my older son and I drove to go to see a beach (Islita) considered to be the most beautiful beach in the world, but we had to turn around because our 4 wheel drive couldn’t cross the river that was higher than usual. The story about Islita is that some expats built a very luxurious resort there (1000 dollars a night – a lot of Hollywood people go there for vacation) and made the beach off limits to locals. That didn’t sit well the locals, and they threatened to kick the owners out of the country, and within days the beach became public. Nature should not belong to only a privileged few. Anyhow, the place is still hard to get to; many take boats or helicopters to reach there. We turned back without seeing beach, but to me being with my son and talking to him was a treat like none other.