A Costa Rican Contrast

3rd Nov 2009

One could eas­ily sit and spiel for 500 words over Costa Rica’s stag­ger­ingly beau­ti­ful land­scapes and idyl­lic coast­lines. Not to men­tion the country’s vast array of flora and fauna, wide range of activ­i­ties and not for­get­ting the seduc­tive pace of life and laid back Ticos (Costa Ricans) that truly emanate the ‘Pura Vida’ (pure life). Yet there exists an illu­sion with this idea of ‘paradise’.

Whilst sell­ing Costa Rica as the idyl­lic tourist des­ti­na­tion I realise from my trav­els that the con­se­quences of such influ­ence have already scarred the sur­face. I trav­elled to Costa Rica in the sum­mer wet sea­son and again at Christ­mas — the true peak tourist sea­son for Amer­i­cans. Undoubt­edly tourism is the country’s main source of income; the Costa Rican econ­omy relies after all on the influx of the exter­nal dol­lar and due to its geo­graph­i­cal posi­tion, the con­se­quen­tial influx of Amer­i­cans. Yet until I had seen it for myself, I hadn’t realised the extent of which of the con­trast, and I hadn’t quite antic­i­pated nor favoured the dif­fer­ence when I arrived.

My expe­ri­ence in the sum­mer allowed me to fall for Costa Rica and the warm hos­pi­tal­ity of the Ticos. Whilst still using tourism as a way of life they remained laid back as the chilled mix of Latin and Reg­gae cul­ture col­lided with true force and the aban­doned free­doms of salsa, rum and fies­tas became a rit­ual and a virtue! Sure, there’s a con­stant pres­ence of Amer­i­can retirees and expats but it didn’t tip the bal­ance. Then I returned at Christmas.

Expect­ing to see my new Tico love inter­est rekin­dled I was thrown into a world I did not recog­nise. Sure the humid­ity had inten­si­fied but so had the pace of life and with it the ‘gringo’ pres­ence. I was the only Eng­lish  woman in the sum­mer and but far from being the only west­ern woman now. We are all guilty of the rush to grab a piece of bliss when one can but surely to do so to the extent at which you alter the dynam­ics of peo­ple and place is beyond the point of tourism? Classy des­ti­na­tions become crowded and locals become labour­ers. I felt Costa Rica, but mostly my local Tico friends, had been dis­placed by rude, dom­i­nant and mate­ri­al­is­tic Amer­i­cans that quite hap­pily lived up to their Gringo pseu­do­nym with a pas­sion and unfor­tu­nately to them a  pleasure.

You can’t blame the locals for adapt­ing to their audi­ence and though try as I may you can’t blame the American’s for grab­bing their piece of bliss, but yet again we are wit­ness to a fight between eco­nomic or cul­tural demise. Nev­er­the­less, if you’re after the authen­tic Costa Rica it is well worth a visit,  but pre­pare to expect a bit of rain, head out in the sum­mer months and enjoy.