If
San Salvador were hosed down, all the shacks cleared and the people re-housed
in tidy bungalows, the buildings painted, the stray dogs collared and fed,
the children given shoes, the trash picked up in the parks, the soldiers pensioned
off -- there is no army in Costa Rica--and all the political prisoners
released, those cities would I think, begin to look a little like San José.
In E1 Salvador I had chewed the end of my pipestem to pieces in frustration.
In San José I was able to have a new pipestem
fitted. . . [Costa Rica] was that sort of place.
PAUL
THEROUX, THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS
In his highly
entertaining incisive book The OldPatagonian Express, describing his
journey south by rail from Massachusetts to Tierra del Fuego, Paul Theroux
portrays a litany of places one might want to avoid. But Costa Rica is
different. One of his characters sums it up. Freshly arrived in San José, the
capital city, Theroux finds himself talking to a Chinese man in a bar. The
Asian -a Costa Rican citizen - had left his homeland in 1954 and traveled
widely throughout the Americas. He disliked every country he had seen except
one. “What about the United States?" Theroux asked. "I went all around
it," replied the Chinese man, "Maybe it is a good country, but I
don't think so. I could not live there. I was still traveling, and I thought to
myself, 'What is the best country?' It was Costa Rica - I liked it very much
here. So I stayed."
At first
sight, Costa Rica appears almost too good to be true. The temptations and
appeals of this tiny nation are so abundant that an estimated 30,000 North
American citizens and an equal number of other nationals (constituting more
than two percent of Costa Rica's population) have moved here in recent years
and now call Costa Rica home, attracted by financial incentives and a quality
of life among the highest in the Western Hemisphere. Pensionados and
other foreigners in residence seem to have known for quite some time what
travelers only a decade ago began wising up to: Costa Rica isn't simply one of
the world's best-kept travel secrets but also a great place to live.
For years travelers had neglected this exciting yet peaceful nation - primarily because of a muddled grasp of Central American geopolitics. While its neighbors have been racked by turmoil, Costa Rica has been blessed with a remarkable normalcy - few extremes of wealth and poverty, no standing army, and a proud history as Central America's most stable democracy (elections are so trouble-free that crowd control at polling stations is handled in part by schoolchildren). Of the 53 presidents who have reigned since the nation won independence from Spain, in 1821, only three have been military men and only six could be considered dictators.
Ticos - as the
friendly, warmhearted Costa Ricans are known - pride themselves on having more
teachers than policemen, a higher male life expectancy than does the United
States, an egalitarianism and strong commitment to peace and prosperity, and
an education and social-welfare system that should be the envy of many
developed nations. Even the smallest town is electrified, water most everywhere
is potable, and the telecommunications system is the best in Latin America. In
1990, the United Nations declared Costa Rica the country with the best
human-development index among underdeveloped nations - and in 1992, it was
taken off the list of underdeveloped nations altogether. No wonder National
Geographic called it the “land of the happy medium."
This idyllic
vision, however, doesn't take into account the country's problems. The political
system is mired in cronyism and corruption that Ticos are only now beginning
to acknowledge. One-third of Costa Rica's 520,000 families live in poverty.
Traffic fatality statistics are frightening. Theft and petty fraud are endemic.
Deforestation outside the national parks is occurring at a rate
faster than in the Amazon. And the state of the roads would be a joke if it
weren't such a deplorable embarrassment.
Despite its
diminutive size (the country is about as big as Nova Scotia or West Virginia),
Costa Rica proffers more beauty and adventure per acre than any other country
on earth. It is in fact a kind of micro continent unto itself. The diversity of
terrain - most of it supremely beautiful - is remarkable. Costa Rica is
sculpted to show off the full potential of the tropics. You can journey, as it
were, from the Amazon to a Swiss alpine forest simply by starting in a Costa
Rican valley and walking uphill. Within a one-hour journey from San José, the
capital city, the tableau metamorphoses from dense rainforest to airy deciduous
forest, montane cloud forest swathing the slopes of towering volcanoes, dry
open savanna, lush sugarcane fields, banana plantations, rich cattle ranches
set in deep valleys, rain-soaked jungle, lagoons, estuaries, and swamps
teeming with wildlife in the northern lowlands. The lush rainforest spills down
the steep mountains to greet the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, where dozens of
inviting beaches remain unspoilt by footprints, and in places offshore coral
reefs open up a world more beautiful than a casket of gems.
Costa Rica's
varied ecosystems - particularly its tropical rainforests - are a naturalist's
dream. Unlike many destinations, where man has driven the animals into the
deepest seclusion, Costa Rica's wildlife seems to love to put on a song and
dance. Animals and birds are prolific and in many cases relatively easy to spot
- sleek jaguars on the prowl, tattered moth-ridden sloths moving languidly
among the high branches, scarlet macaws that fall from their perches and go
squalling away, coatimundis, toucans, brightly colored tree frogs, and other
exotic species in abundance. That sudden flutter of blue is a giant morpho
butterfly. That mournful two-note whistle is the quetzal, the tropical birder's
Holy Grail. The pristine forests and jungles are full of arboreal sounds that
are, according to one writer; “music to a weary ecotraveler's ears.” You can
almost feel the vegetation growing around you. There is a sense of life at
flood tide.
The nation's
12 distinct ecological zones are home to an astonishing array of flora and
fauna - approximately five percent of all known species on earth in
a country that occupies less than three ten-thousandths of its land area -
including more butterflies than in the whole of Africa, and more than twice the
number of bird species in the whole of the United States - in colors so
brilliant that their North American cousins seem drab by comparison. Stay here
long enough and you'll begin to think that with luck you might, like Noah, see
examples of all the creatures on earth.
Scuba divers,
fishermen, golfers, spa addicts, kayakers and whitewater rafters, hikers,
surfers, honeymoon romantics, and every other breed of escape artist
can find his or her nirvana in Costa Rica. The adventure travel industry here
has matured into one of the world's finest.
For better or
worse, Costa Rica has also burst into blossom as a contender on the international
beach-resort scene. The nation boasts a number of supremely attractive resorts,
civilized hotels, and rustic lodges and cabinas where, lazing in a
hammock dramatically overlooking the beach, you might seriously contemplate
giving up everything back home and settling down to while away the rest of your
days enjoying the never-winter climate.
Fortunately,
as yet, Costa Rica has no Acapulcos or Cancuns scarring the coast with endless
discos, concrete beachfronts, and vast high-rise condominiums: Costa Rica's
progressive conservationist tradition and dedication to development with a
genteel face have helped keep rapacious developers at bay. (This seems to be
changing, unfortunately. Although Luis Manuel Chacon, the country's first
minister of tourism, vowed to allow no buildings "taller than a palm
tree"' to blight the beaches, mega resort complexes are sprouting along
the jungled shoreline like mushrooms on a damp log.)
The country is
finally having to face a paradoxical problem - that of being loved to death. As
the word spreads, more people come, and more big developers are drawn.
I hope it will
be many years before Costa Rica is spoiled, and I urge you to go now.