This morning as I walked along the main road along the beach in Acapulco a sidewalk rep for a tourist cruise approached giving me the opening lines of his spiel. I kept walking, saying in Spanish that I was leaving today but otherwise giving him no more attention than I give most of the shop owners calling out "¿Algo especial, amigo?" or "¡Barato, barato!¨ But as I walked off I heard him say in English, ¨Do you have a temperature, friend?¨ My immediate thought I leave to your imagination. But on further reflection I realized that the tour-boat rep was right. I had a bad attitude. People come to Acapulco to have fun, and I wasn´t having any.
Of course, part of the problem is that I´m here with my SHU group so they can have fun. These students have shown that they can work well together, I´ve seen their ability to deal collectively with issues and have been impressed. Most of them have done well in their classes at Universidad Internacional. But they can also, individually and collectively, call into question the notion of legal majority at age 18. We traveled to Acapulco with a gorup from conservative and Christian Bridgewater College and the two groups contrasted sharply. Yesterday, for every excursion, Bridgewater had assembled ahead of time, and Seton Hill assembled late. On our return from the exclusive beach where we spent much of the day, the Bridgewater students watched as the last of the Griffens straggled onto the bus from the restaurant where I had run to find them.
But Acapulco dramatized part of Mexico today that I would have understood at second hand from Cuernavaca. Acapulco is one of Mexico´s world-famous resorts. La Tortuga, where we stayed, is an older hotel--undoubtedly an eye-popping marvel in its day. My balcony provides an incredible view of the bay and also of the bars and discotheques that line the main road. But Tortuga´s hey-day probably came about the same time as Jane Russell´s. Budget sensitive tourists who stay there mix with Mexican families on vacation. The same holds for the beach across from the hotel. Mexicans mix with the great white tide yearning to para-sail and tan.
In Acapulco all the world is divided into two parts, residents and tourists. Last night I had supper with the three guys from our group. Afterward we visited a supermarket (Super Gigante) which, like supermarkets in California offer a variety of liquors, but unlike California it also offers Cuban cigars. The four of us hailed a cab for the return trip to the hotel and I was in the midst of establishing the fare when another cab pulled up and the cabby approached us telling us that our cab was not allowed to serve us. It seemed strange to me that a cab from another town would have driven into Acapulco, but before I reazlied how lame that ideas was five (5) more cabs arrived, surrounded the first cab, and all of the drivers got out to join the dispute. We decided to walk. Soon enough another cab picked us up and we learned from the driver that blue cabs serve exclusively tourists. Yellow cabs--the type we had almost entered--can only serve residents. The only mystery that remains is how so many drivers could more or less instantly have so quickly identified four white males including a tall Irish kid and two blonds, all of wearing shorts and sandals and standing outside the Hard Rock Cafe, as tourists.
But an even better example of the role that tourism plays not just in Acapulco but in Mexico generally came from our night out at the Palladium. This is a well known discotheque in Acapulco that were given the chance to visit with a discount off of the hefty cover price. (When Hector, our guide, asked who wanted to go, everyone in the Bridgewater group said ¨no¨ simultaneously and everyone in the Seton Hill group said ¨simultaneously.)
The Palladium is something to see. It sits on a hillside and the side of the club facing the bay is made of glass. The tiered semi-circles of tables surrounding the dance floor end at walls covered with graffiti and projection screens. It offered all the spectacle you could ask for--lights, smoke, fireworks on some nights, and really, really loud music. It was the kind of place where you could have as much of any drink you wanted as long as it had alcohol in it. The kind of place where you never had to light your own cigarette. Where, when you washed your hands in the bathroom someone turned on the water for you, squirted soap in your hands, and handed you paper towels. As usual, I had one drink, but I never finished more than a third of a glass before another full one appeared.
The Palladium offers a metaphor for Mexico today. Lots of Mexicans serving lots of Americans and well-off Mexicans. Except for the servers, the discotheque could have been anywhere. The music, the setting, the spectacle all had the goal of making tourists comfortable enough to leave dollars and euros in Mexico. I approve of the goal, but bout that the Palladium or any number of world-class resorts will have much impact on the real problems of Mexico´s economy. A few blocks from the Palladium Mexicans live like they do in the rest of the country. Family members all work together to accumulate enough to keep from falling further behind the rising cost of living.
Of course, tourism continues a long tradition for Latin America. Guaman Poma, a Quechua-descended chronicler of the conquest of Peru, wrote in the century following the conquest that when news of the New World empires reached Spain the cry went up throughout the country, ¨Plata y oro,¨ ¨Silver and gold.¨ Latin America´s resources have since then proven irresistible to the developed countries. In addition to their abundance, the gold, silver, coffee, and oil are also conveniently located in the midst of a cheap labor market. Today tourism to Latin America inspires the cry, ¨sol y playa.¨
I´m sure that readers of Blue Monkey will quickly agree that the distinction between culture and civilization still carries the taint of ethnocentric and racism. German intellectuals from the romantic era to the Nazi interlude took for granted that Germans possessed a special civilization (Kultur) that set them apart from other people. Western Europeans generally saw ¨primitive¨ peoples as falling short of civilization if, indeed, they were capable of attaining it. Anthropology appeared in the late 19th century as a science of culture, that is, the study of people that the Europeans had colonized.
But the old distinction still has some life to it. Civil society appeared when economic surplus enabled large groups of people to live in dense settlements. The surplus made possible impressive accomplishments--hierarchical structures in government, religion, the military--paid for through the expropriation of labor. Teotihuacan, the destination for the SHU group last weekend, displays these accomplishments in its dramatic remains. Two large pyramids still stand there, apparently the sites of religious rituals and accompanying human sacrifice. But enough of the rest of the city remains to show that the people there laid out broad, straight avenues, lived in stone homes with something like indoor plumbing, and practiced a lively commerce. Civilization can stand for the most significant collective accomplishments of a people.
Culture, on the other hand, is the way people live day to day. On this trip my students have become the most ardent researchers into this field. Especially some of the young women have taken advantage of some of the, well, advantages offered by residence in Cuernavaca: the lower drinking age, the plethora of discotheques, the abundance of Mexican young men who want to meet foreign women for friendship. My operative education theory is, as long as they´re speaking Spanish when they go out, they are doing homework.
The students can, and will, share their own stories. But one of my male students developed a generalization from his empirical research that is worth sharing. ¨Mexican girls won´t let you get close to them when you dance. You get too close, and they back off or slap you. Mexican guys like dancing with American girls because they can really close in on them. ¨He´s a careful student, so I´m sure his insight is valid.
I value the research of these students. It would be easy for a shallow observer to conclude that cultural differences did not exist--to believe that one had somehow stumbled into a very, very poor part of California. After all, you can hear American music and see advertisements for American goods everywhere you go, and you can go to Wal-Mart of Costco to buy those goods. The climate and terrain closely resemble southern California. And Mexicans apparently do all the work. No wonder it feels like home.
The group from Seton Hill arrived in Cuernavaca without incident on Saturday, January 1 and quickly settled into the program here at Universidad Internacional. The families who came to the school tp pick up the students all seemed pleased to meet their new ¨hijos¨(well, mainly hijas) and the students obviously reciprocated the warmth. By the next day, when we went on an excursion to Taxco, I overheard one student say that her cheeck was raw from kissing new acquaintances. By Monday most had become adept at calling taxis and asking before they got in, ¨¿Cuanto cobra a...?¨ and then negotiating adjustments if the prices quoted is not the usual 25 or 30 pesos.
I, however, haven´t been kissing all of my new acquaintances because 1) a lot of them are men and 2) I´ve met a lot of people in three days. Mainly I´ve met administrators at the university. By Tuesday, I had met the head or orientation, the director of relations with families, the course coordinator (because almost all 12 of my students have to have schedule adjustments), the head of the Spanish department, the principle administrator, the financial coordinator, and at least five more administrators whose functions I never really grasped. Most have assistants. Some have several.
Let me pause to explain that the University Internacional is a large, well-run, and very successful language institute. It offers courses in Spanish from the most basic to very advanced, and also courses in Mexican and Latin American history, culture, and literature. There are also courses in English for Mexican students. But university should not confuse visions of any institution so grand as, say Seton Hill with its 2,000 students. At this moment the student population here is 180, and in the peak season (during the summer) it reaches 500.
My rough estimate (counting assistant and secretaries) gives the university something like 40 or 50 administrators. In my view that makes the UI organization a bit top-heavy. One of my fellow directors (who lives at the residence where I live) shares that view when we discussed this briefly. He has brought students here for many years, so he knows this program well and obviously values it. But in discussing the organization of the school of the selection of families to care for students he makes it clear that operating decisions are made through personal relationships and with a view to spreading the advantages of the school as widely as possible.
Of course, it´s also true that in Mexico there seem to be many hands turned to not that many tasks. For instance, the absorption with security here results in the usual walled residences decorated with razor wire and warnings about walking the streets after dark. But the presence of private security guards also surprises me. When I walk the quarter mile to school in the morning, I pass two or three private guards between my residence and school, and at the school there are five more. Or, go into any shop and you find lots of clerks to help you buy whatever the store has to offer--one to greet you, one to show you the goods, one to ring you up multiplied by every ten square feet in the store.
UI itself provides yet a further example, drawn from a little higher in socio-economic scale. Recall that the university has 500 students at its maximum. But it employs 400 people. That, means, of course, that class sizes are consistently small--no more than five to an instructor in a language class, and often classes are one on one. I´m sure these examples can be extended to most types of employment and can´t surprise us too much in a country that suffers from 51% poverty rate and struggles with widespread under- and unemployment.
Alma Guillermoprieto has compared the network of reciprocal relationships developed by the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) during its 70 years in power to the hierarchical systems typical in pre-Hispanic society. PRI extended benefits to those with fewer resources in exchange for support, creating a pyramidal structure of society and state power. But I wonder if the Aztecs explain the administrative system at UI. One of my fellow directors suggested something different when he characterized the system at the school as ïmperial.¨The imperial system that the Spanish brought to New Spain included a flourishing bureaucracy--one that survived in full force into republican Mexico. Mexico´s late-nineteenth-century president/caudillo, Porfirio Diaz, recognized that one major condition for revolutionary instability in Mexico was empty pay envelopes for army officers and bureaucrats.
Of course, I don´t have on hand any Aztec or Spanish organizational charts. But I can provide a suggested historical analogy. One of the odd features of my current sojourn in Latin America is that I continue to read Balkan history. Charles I of Spain, under whose rule Mexico was conquered, was the first Habsburg to rule Spain, and event though Habsburg rule in Spain ended in 1714, it continued in the Austrian empire to 1918. The meddling of Austria-Hungary in Balkan matters is well known (if nothing springs to mind, read any textbook explanation of World War I). Misha Glenny´s The Balkans (2000) gives this telling example of Habsburg governmental process. When the Austrian Empire occupied a contiguous portion of the expiring Ottoman Empire in 1878, ¨just 120 Muslims administered Bosnia and Hercegovina, Thirty years later...a grand total of 9,533 bureaucrats were running the two provinces.¨ (268)
So, the Habsburg dynasty connects the Balkans and Universidad Internacional? Depend on it! And that won´t be the last connection, either.
This is more of a coda than anything, but at least you can see how the trip ended.
San Jose también
June 4, 2003
On Monday I rode the bus back from Manuel Antonio to
San Jose. As is the case when you go anywhere in CR,
you go over a lot of mountain roads. San Jose and
Manuel Antonio cannot be more than about 100
kilometers apart, but the trip took three and a half
hours. Once off the bus I hailed a taxi and asked the
driver, Carlos,to take me to Hotel Aranjuez. As we
went he asked if I had a reservation, I said no so he
called them. He gave me the phone. The man on the
other end said there were no rooms left. So, Carlos
recommended another hotel and we headed to that one.
It turned out to be pretty nice, just a little more
expensive, so I´m at Hotel Vesuvio. But I can´t shake
the idea that Carlos called his brother or some other
shil to tell me there were no rooms in the inn.
Yesterday I took a tour to Volcan Poas. This
continues to be an active volcano, though it has
settled down in recent years. Tourists can walk from
the visitors´center about half a kilometer to the rim
of the crater. This is one of the largest craters in
the world, but many visitors who walk up to the rim
end up not seeing much at all. Especially in the
rainy season, haze can completely obscure every detail
within the crater, or hide it completely. It can look
like you are standing on the edge of a fog bank.
Period. I know this because it fogged up pretty well
while I was there.
Before that happened, though, I had a great view
across the crater and into its depths. About one mile
from the point that visitors use, there is a lake
filled with rain water and heavy metals from the
volcano. It has a turquoise color. In front, and on
the sides, there are steam sprays from volcanic
activity. It can seem so beautiful, though of course
it is set in the midst of the crater where nothing
lives.
Nearby is another crater, this one from an inactive
volcano. Visitors cannot go very close to it. It is
filled with highly acidic water, though in this case
the lake is surrounded by jungle.
Well, there is not much left to report. I leave for
home tomorrow. I´ve been taking care of a little last
minute business, making sure to patronize the
establishments I´ve used consistently in San Jose.
The doorman or owner or bouncer (I cannot figure out
his actual role) at Bar Goya knows me by sight and
always greets me. I go there regularly. I´ve never
seen any tourists there other than myself, and they
treat me very well.
That´s all for now.
Another beautiful interlude at the beach, another rainforest. There is no way I can make this sound unattractive.
Ecotourism III: Rainmaker
June 1, 2003
Homemade sign in Quepos (or, test #1--translate this
into any language): "Aquí su lava car."
I was able to take a break from my time at the beach
for more self-improvement yesterday. I took the tour
of Rainmaker, a virgin forest preserve about 45
minutes by van from my hotel. It cost quite a bit (by
my standards), but yesterday morning there were only
two of us on the tour.
The tour guide was Nathan, a very knowledgeable
wild-places guide who spoke fine English from five
year's residence in Hawthorne, California, not far
from my hometown. Whereas Eduardo had a talent for
annoying the local wildlife with his noises, Nathan
walked slowly looking for stuff to show us. A lot of
it was plant life-the bengay tree, the jackass
bitteroot, elephant ear parasites, bromelia.
But Nathan's specialty is the reptile, and he took
great pleasure in grabbing lizards and pulling a coral
snake out of its burrow to show us. We saw three
different snakes, in fact, the coral being the only
non-venemous one. The others were a green-eyelash
viper and a fer-de-lance. We managed to find a sloth
in the wild, and too many different kinds of birds to
name.
Rainmaker is not only an interest place because it is
virgin forest, but also because it has suspended
bridges that allow you to see the forest from up high.
I had been on something similar in Monteverde, but
here the bridges are suspended from the treees
themselves, and the bridges are the swinging and
bouncy kind of suspension bridges.
Nathan also provided interesting background on the
history of the area. Quepos and the area nearby grew
up due to investment from the United Fruit Company.
The company is best known for bananas, of course, but
the banana here suffered from a parasite that ruined
production. So the company brought in African palms
that produce the coconut oils that are supposed to be
so bad for cholesterol. Teak stands are also common
here, and fields of beans and rice. The country is
fairly flat along the coast, though in Rainmaker
preserve you are in the hills and the preserve runs to
the top of a 600 meter or so mountain.
Nathan said that when Costa Ricans build towns they
first build the houses and then their church; then,
just like the Puritans in colonial New England, they
build their soccer field and canteen.
Rainmaker, of course, is a rainforest. So how rainy
is that. If Nathan can be believed, that means 93
inches of rain per month(!) in the rainy season and a
parched 40 inches or thereabouts in the dry season.
So, what is the rainy season like. Now that I've had
two weeks of it, I'm an expert. In Costa Rica, it
means having the nicest Pennsylvania July day you can
imagine and the rainiest July day you can imagine, but
having them in the same day. That doesn't really
quite get at it because the rain comes down
torrentially, often with thunder and lightening, but
my experience has been that the rain comes with
nothing like the violence of a summer thundershower.
So how bad an idea was it to come here in the rainy
season. Well, I've had a couple of gloomy days in
Monteverde, and I've been drenched a couple of times.
But of the four days here at Manuel Antonio, only one
has been rainy during the day. Today (yes, I was back
at the beach) the weather was calm, sunny, not humid.
It has been that way a lot.
But I'm leaving here tomorrow, heading back to San
Jose.
Tourism 2
My last posting about tourism ended abruptly because I
thought the storm passing through would take down the
electricity here.
I was just about the deal with the toilet paper issue.
One of the things that everyone knows to take to a
third world country is toilet paper because, well, you
never know. It is worth noting that when I first
visited Europe, toilet paper was recommended for that
trip, too (I didn't mention it in my transition list
because I was trying to just keep to medical
supplies). Apparently, world economic development is
running consistently ahead of my travels. I hardly
ever found a place in western Europe that called for
my handy roll of Scott. A few years later, when I
traveled behind what was still the iron curtain, I
found that socialist production had made toilet paper
available to the masses. And now, I'm happy to report
that I have yet to find a place in CR (or Peru, for
that matter), that has not had a supply on hand. That
isn't to say you shouldn't have a packet of Kleenex
with you, but I obviously went overboard by bringing
along two dozen packets. [Note: CR and Peru both
require that toilet paper not be flushed, as conduits
are quite small.]
Sign outside an establishment in Quepos
(Test#2--qustions follow):
"Heladeria y Cafeteria
Pizza y Spaguetti House"
Question 1 (5 points): What does this establishment
do?
Question 2 (45 points): Identify that language.
I haven't run into Opal again since leaving
Monteverde, though I feared she would be on the same
bus. I continue, though, to travel in the tourist
bubble. The language, here at least, is English.
Ticos I encounter in the tourist bubble take for
granted that I want to speak English and will do so
even when I speak Spanish to them (and it is no longer
because my Spanish is worse than their English-in
fact, usually it is better). The currency is the
dollar. Some tourists don't even bother to change to
colones.
I've encountered my share of unattractive types.
There is Mr. Unhappy, who stays at this hotel. He
says he'd like to come live here because his current
home, Long Beach, California, has become a "slum."
Also staying here is the Texan. He really is from
Texas, but you can figure out what are his most
endearing characteristics by taking advantage of the
negative stereotypes you have about Texans.
I've mentioned Quepos several times. It is a bigger
town than Manuel Antonio, kind of ugly. There are
some nice shops and restaurants there, though, and
Sara and I have gone there every day for one thing or
another. To give an idea of the mixed message that is
Quepos, you can have a nice, custom designed coffee
drink at a very nice cafe looking out toward the
beach. But, because Quepos is lower than sea level,
what you see is not the beach but a functional but
unattractive dyke.
One of the shops that caught our attention in Quepos
was the Cafe Botanico. The sign outside, a very old
sign I should say, said: "Cafe Botanico Travel
Books." We looked in and found Costa Ricabranded
souvenirs (shirts, etc.) but no cafe, and no books.
After our ecotour adventures [one rainforest, one volcao], we headed for the beach. I can't think about Manuel Antonio without wanting to return. Maybe it isn't too good to be true, but it sure seemed that way.
Tourism 1
This short posting is just to offer a few ordinary
details about travel here in CR. It has only a little
to do with the people, climate, terrain, economy, or
culture.
Sign outside (painted on the wall) of a restaurant in
San Jose:
It's Tipican
Restaurant of
Costa Rican
Exellent Food
Wellcome
Most common foods: black beans, rice, potatoes. The
"typical" dish that most restaurants offer is a
casado. This is a plate of black beans, rice, a
vegetable and/or salad with a fried meat dish,
chicken, beef, or fish. A popular breakfast food is
gallo pinto, black beans with rice, something I hope
never to have to eat again. The sauces here, at least
the ones I've tried, are fairly common, though
coriander is used an awful lot.
Housing
I've already talked about home construction here.
Traveling around the country, I've seen a lot more
use of concrete for homes. Rebar is, accordingly,
quite common. Some people use it in creative way, as
in the bars used to protect windows from entry. I've
seen church buildings with rebar crosses.
The steel or sheet metal roofs I described earlier are
pervasive. They make a lot of sense, I guess. They
keep the rain out. You don't have to worry about them
collapsing under layers of snow. And if a hurricane
blows them off, they are easy to replace.
But more valuable, I'm sure, will be some sense of the
housing available to me as I've traveled. The most I
have paid for lodging was $35 in San Jose (this was
for a double). The first night they put us into a
room with no window and a fluorescent light with a bad
ballast, so it kept blinking while it was on. Light
off, you were in the black hole of Calcutta. I
foolishly did not ask for another room until the next
night, so am still having trauma flashbacks. The next
night they gave me a room with window, a.c., three
beds, and fully functioning fixtures plus some nice
extra furniture like a desk.
The least I paid was in Monteverde, a room for $10 per
person that had a little more than enough room for the
bed and a private bathroom ($5 rooms with shared
bathroom were available, but sorry, I'm past the days
when I'd have pondered that option). I wasn't too
happy with the room. The hotel was at a corner, and
the traffic in Monteverde arrives one car at a time.
Manuel Antonio
May 28, 2003
May 28th I joined the Ticos and surfers headed for the beach. Rather than another tourist junket, I took public transit, i.e. the bus. This was a full sized Mercedes Benz bus and this driver took it over roads where I would not even consider taking the Saturn. How bad are the roads? See my last posting.
As we dropped from Monteverde toward the coast we could see clouds below us, lying in the valleys like lakes. The ridges below us looked as though they had less vegetation and less agriculture, but as we approached I could see more cattle grazing.
After three hours or thereabout we made it to Puntarenas, on Costa Rica's Pacific coast, where the line ended, and there I waited one and a half hours for the next bus to Quepos. That was another three hour bus ride, not memorable except that a couple of kids threw up and passengers were shouting for "bolsa!" The conductor, who obviously dealt with this kind of thing before, made his way back through the standing passengers to the mess and seemed to take care of it.
At Quepos I had reached the end of my bus travel. I had a reservation at the Mono Azul (Blue Monkey) Hotel. This is run by an American couple and has (so far-this is my third night) mainly American guests. But it is a wonderful place to be even if it were in a less wonderful location. The hotel is by far the nicest I've had in CR, very efficiently run by the family and Tico staff. The owners have developed a program called Kids Saving the Rainforest and offer summer camps and other educational programs on the rainforest. They have an active program of rehabilitating injured animals, most evident from the two (2) sloths who are at home in the dining area. The restaurant here is all open air and the food matches the quality of the hotel. There are two pools, my room has air conditioning, and did I mention I'm a short bus ride from the beach. I'm paying $25 a night, plus a little extra for the a.c.
Stats:
Number of people seen consulting guidebooks other than Lonely Planet: 3
Number of people seen consulting Lonely Planet guidebooks: 407
My goal here has been Manuel Antonio, a national park. It runs along the coast with a little peninsula that juts out into the pacific. The day after my arrival (and after taking care of some laundry chores) I headed to the park. On the bus I learned that here the double yellow lines on winding, hilly roads serve no traffic control function and are purely decorative. The bus drops you at something that looks nothing at all like the entrance to a park. You stand beside a public beach and have to guess that the park is in the direction that the bus was going when you got off. You cross a sandy stretch to an inlet that is covered with water, so to continue you have to decide what shoes and clothing get wet. Finally, after passing the test you arrive at the park entrance and pay a kind of stiff entrance fee to walk in.
What you walk into is jungle. This is the aforementioned peninsula, so you continue through jungle with beaches on either side, though you can only just see the one and the other not at all. Finally, if you were me, you end up at a tiny beach separated from where you want to go by rocks and ocean and if you are prudent (i.e. not me) you turn around and follow the trail to the right place. But I made it.
So began my dilemma. Here I was in a place where the jungle goes all the way to the ocean, with only a strip of beach dividing the two. Sand crabs, hermit crabs, and crab crabs skitter across the path, and lizards are pretty common. If you look up you likely see white faced monkeys, and iguana are common here. I set up my spot and quickly got into the Pacific only to find it gentler and warmer than I expected from a childhood of going to Malibu and Costa Mesa beaches.
The dilemma? Well, how does a world view contain a place this nice? There is nothing that I know of in Martin Luther or John Calvin about tropical paradise (though it is true I don't have my Institutes of the Christian Religion along to check on this). You can kind of fit original sin into a landscape like northern Europe in winter. I comforted myself by thinking that minus malaria meds, this might be pretty inhospitable. But it was an exercise of rational thought of a kind that I haven't been doing too much of since arriving in CR.
It is true that as a tourist I'm not meeting my Ticos. I did have a short talk with the woman who took my laundry. But at Manuel Antonio I had other significant interactions with the local fauna. The monkeys here are quite bold. Given the chance, they will grab anything from unattended beachcomber belongings that looks like food. One tried to get into my bag, and the other tourists helpfully stood around and did nothing. An iguana came within about a meter of me as I ate lunch, but was intimidate when I leapt up a shouted "Yow!" He moved about a foot away, but at least I could eat my lunch in peace. And a raccoon calmly walked over and eviscerated my bag of trash and would not be intimidated or leave until he was certain it contained nothing edible.
I went back to Manuel Antonio today (sunburn notwithstadning), but it was cloudy and began to rain and then, after a couple of hours, to rain hard. Everyone retreated to a shelter except for some Russian tourists who stayed in the water (I guess thunder storms don't stop you from swimming in Odessa).
Supermarket names
In La Fortuna: Super Christian #2
In Quepos: Super Gordo
Reflection on the first day of fall, 2003
Even when we were still at the beach, I told Sara that if she had not come along on the trip I probably wouldn't have put a beach into my itinerary. I remember very clearly thinking, "I have a girlfriend on this trip, so we'd better include a beach." That astonishes even me, now, as I think about how good that time at Manuel Antonio felt. But all that Calvinism, or whatever, still dominates my thinking. When I travel, the goal is to connect with the real people, to find some cultural insights that I wouldn't get from National Geographic, and to experience the place in a manner that is mainly comfortable but not really pleasurable. Sara is good for me in the same way that traveling with my children is good for me, in that it forces me to open myself to new experiences.
After leaving San Jose we plunged into the world of Ecotourism. This remained a theme until the end of the trip. After all, when Sara and I planned the trip, we wanted to see a) one rainforest, b) one volcano, c) one beach.
Ecotourism I: La Fortuna and Arenal
May 25, 2003
Note to Ruth and Esther: Costa Rica is all about
taking nature walks.
In San Jose I consulted with a travel agent whose name
(as God is my witness) was Irving. He had various
tours that he would have willingly line up for me, but
I chose instead to take the mass transit option, a bus
from San Jose to my first destination, La Fortuna and
the Volcan Arenal. Irving offered a bus trip there
for $38. ¨It´s a little more expenisve than public
transportation,¨ said Irving. The bus I took cost
just over $3. So, yeah.
It also took four hours to go not very far. The
terrain here is mountainous, as I´ve mentioned, and we
spent quite a while climbing out of the central
valley. As we did you could clearly see the hillsides
intensively cultivated with coffee. Lots of people
live in the Valle Central, and most of them apparently
have opened roadside restaurants to supplement the
family´s income.
But once over the top of the mountains around Valle
Central the scene changes dramatically. There are
many fewer people living there and the hills are
cleared of trees and open instread as pasture. These
hills are STEEP, so the cattle have to acquire some
fairly important mountain climbing skills if they want
to graze.
We had a layover in Ciudad Quesada whose multiplex was
showing six US movies, including Matrix Recargado and
Jackass. Okay, it´s my culture too, so I guess it
should be good for everyone in the world. After
Ciudad Quesada the terrain flattens out and alongside
the road you see groves of banana trees and also
coconut trees. The altitude also drops and when you
step out of the bus you step into a very humid, warm
climate. So, a complete change of climate zone in a
trip of probably about 100 miles (probably less).
Arenal proved so good that I should have left for
Pennsylvania the next day. My hotel, Las Colinas, was
inexpensive. Since I seemed to have been the first
customer of the day, I got the best room-third story,
balcony with view of the volcano, the reason for
visits to this place. [Here is a map of the area of Arenal and Monteverde.]
Arenal erupted in 1968, wiping out two villages. It
remains active and has had some major eruptions since
the first big one. But the main thing it does not is
to blow ash occasionally, and send out a pretty steady
stream of red hot rocks (different from the liquid
lava in Hawaii). During the day you can see what look
like wispy clouds along the edge of the mountain.
These are molten rocks pushed out from the volcano
mouth and rolling down the mountainside.
But to really appreciate this, you need to go on the
volcano tour, and to do it right you need to go with
Eduardo. I´m sure there are guides who are more
knowledgeable or otherwise interesting. But Eduardo
makes these great noises, as when he was describing
the first eruption of the volcano and trying to
demonstrate what people heard on that morning in 1968.
This begins with a van trip to a point within the
Arenal park reserve, then a hike through rain forest
for about 45 minutes. On this trip Eduardo made
noises that attracted a response and challenge from a
macho howler monkey. We saw the challenger, and also
wife and child. Later we saw spider monkeys, too.
And about a million mosquitos, but the reason there
were so few is that it was too humid for them.
We walked to a point as close to the volcano as you
can go without violating prudence. It shot up several
nice plumes of ash for us. Then we waited for night
to fall. When it gets dark you can see the red of the
rocks, and suddenly the volcano starts looking like a
National Geographic special. We watched the lava flow
for about 20 minutes after dark (it darkens early
here, about 6). Then we headed for the hot springs,
complete with swim up bar. From there you can have
your Imperial and watch the lava flows. It´s all part
of the package.
Ecotourism Ia: Ecotourists
I have not taken many tours in my travels, and when I
do I always find that I don´t feel comfortable with my
role as a tourist. Yesterday, when I cast my lot the
mass transit travel to La Fortuna I was still living
with Costa Ricans. But when I signed up for the tour
to La Fortuna I left Costa Ricans behind and am now in
a moving community of ecotourists. I have lots of
ambivalence about that, though I can´d very well avoid
it if I want to see some of the things in CR that I
came to see. You will all be relieved to know that I
have some thoughts about this that I will gladly share
with you.
Yesterday´s volcano extravaganza included one or more
persons from Switzerland, France, Canada, Israel, and
the Netherlands. Inevitably, there were several
Americans, among them one whose name was, let´s say,
Opal. She first caught everyone´s attention by
disappearing in the rain forest. When we finally
caught up with her she said that she had wanted to
walk by herself.
Opal was probably 27 or so. Sara was of the opinion
that Opal dressed to impress, in this case very short
jeans and a midrift baring halter top. But, to be
fair, I was the one person in the group with not only
long pants but also a long-sleeve shirt. At any rate,
when I had the pleasure to chat with Opal a bit she
told me that she had decided to leave her home, Santa
Barbara, CA and find another place to live the year
before. She ended up in Vermont, a decision I can
understand. But she had been appalled by how cold it
was there during the winter. I can understand
that-I´ve been waiting for them to do something about
that.
The problem in Opal´s view is that, ¨Basically I live
in paradise.¨ Well, that means she´s never been to
Greensburg, PA, so I can understand her having this
false view. But then she went on to say, ¨It´s
basically the same in Santa Barbara as it is here,
except that we don´t have the humidity and we have
different animals.¨ Suddenly I lost the ability to
respond or say anything at all. We had just hiked
through a RAIN FOREST and Opal was folding that into
her knowledge of California. If I had been able to I
would have said, then, that Costa Rica was just like
New Jersey except it lacked the Sopranos.
Later, at the hot springs, Opal was quite taken with a
large, shaved-head endomorphic (looked a little like
Buddha) extrovert named (by me) Mr. Happy. Before I
left Mr. Happy had a circle of people around him in
the pool that surrounded the bar, and he was holding
forth in a way that drew other people out and allowed
him to talk a lot about himself. So, fine, I left
along with my group minus Opal who stayed to make cute
with Mr. Happy. I was convinced she would be sold
into white slavery, but I saw them both the next day.
Ecotourism II: Monteverde
May 27, 2003
The distance from Arenal volcano to the cloud forest
at Monteverde is not that great, at least as the crow
flies. But, at this writing, no crows are offering
transportation for tourists. So, you can take the
mass transit bus for a couple of bucks. This has to
make its way around lake Arenal (an artificial lake
created by the government for electricity
generation-survivors of the lost villages from the
eruption were moved to the shores of the lake). This
takes pretty much all day.
Or, you can opt for tourist transport, known both in
Fortuna and Monteverde as Jeep-Boat-Jeep. In the
event, it turned out to be Toyota Van-Boat-Toyota van.
But the idea is the same. You are driven to the
lake, then take a boat across, then a van to the next
place, in my case Monteverde. In travel time, this
took three hours. I naively expected that non-paved
road on the Monteverde side would be about as long as
the unpaved road on the Fortuna side, so about 50
meters. Life is full of surprises. The Monteverede
side was a two hour van ride over rock and dirt roads.
Only when you arrive in Santa Elena (where I am now)
is there any pavement, a total of about 100 meters.
How rugged is this travel? I asked the van driver,
when I saw him again today, how long the vans lasted.
The engines go about 7 years, he told me, but the life
expectancy of everything that connects to the road can
be calculated in days. The suspension gets an
overhaul every month and the tires are changed every
three months. In a nice turn of phrase that I never
knew about until I came here he said, ¨Los caminos son
muy pero muy duros.¨ How bad are the roads? Mail
carriers ride dirt motorcycles.
After renting a room for the next couple of nights
yesterday, I plunged again into ecotourism. There are
two ways of seeing the cloud forest that are very
popular, neither of which involves the usual practice
of walking in and around inside of it. The one I
tried yesterday is known as skywalk (the is a Spanish
term, apparently). You walk through the cloud forest
on suspension bidges at a level that is very high,
almost as high as the tops of the tallest trees.
Because the terrain is very hilly you also walk along
pathways on foot, but you don´t have steep ascents or
descents. These cloud forests are so dense and humid
that in the rainy season the tops are generally
shrouded in clouds. The trees, some of them, grow to
incredible heights. If you know the movie Lion King,
you have seen the Tree of Life. This is a huge tree
tightly surrounded by suckers and vines. The preserve
I walked through had many of these.
All day long yesterday it had looked like rain, and
there was even thunder and lightening. But my day at
the volcano had gone off without a weather hitch, so I
assumed that there would be no trouble witht he
weather. Please take time to read the following
Note to self: If you go to a tropical country during
its rainy season, you will get wet.
The rain started almost simultaneously with my
stepping foot on the walkway, and continued through
the entire 3 km. It grew harder as I walked, and even
though I had an umbrella I got plenty wet. It wasn´t
cold but it was pretty miserable by the end as I
squish squished off the last suspension bridge. I´m
delighted to have taken the walk, though at the moment
I finished I had other thoughts about it.
This morning at 7:30 a van picked me up for the other
popular cloud forest viewing excursion in these parts.
This is known in Spanish as canopy tour and is
something you may already know about. It involves
suspending tourists from steel cables with
rockclimbing equipment and letting them glide along
the zipline to the next station. One zipline leads to
another. When this began, the lines were short and
kind of slow and I began to wonder if I´d invested my
tourist dollars wisely. But as the lines became
longer and faster, I converted. This isn´t a slam
dunk. When I´ve seen the Harry Potter movies, I´ve
been pretty disturbed by the flying scenes. But on
one of the longest and fastest and highest of the
ziplines, I looked around and thought, ¨I´m Harry
Potter, I´m flying.¨´{Plus this tour included a
Tarzan swing, in which you hang on to climbing ropes
and do what every child wants to do-jump and swing.
Later in the day I walked toward the village of
Monteverde. The roads are described above, so see
that if you have forgotten. But because of the road
situation, drivers don´t really have a right - left
commitment. The traffic is light, so they move freely
back and forth as they drive depending on the
potholes. The careful pedestrians takes account of
this. (How bad are the roads? A typical family
vehicle is an ATV.)
I visited two art galleries and ended up at lunchtime
at a vegetarian restaurant with a cloud forest view.
No, it wasn´t quite the same as sitting in the hot
springs and watching the lava flow, but it was pretty
good.
The adjustment to life in Costa Rica went very smoothly for me. Uncharacteristically, I didn't fall ill, and I managed to avoid other disasters. Here are some observations about the town where I lived during my first week.
Heredia I
May 19, 2003
In spite of my reading to prepare for the trip, I continued to expect Costa Rica to be some version of Cusco. [Click here to vist my account of the trip to Peru.] After a little more than a day, I think I might be over that. The airport was my first surprise. The airport in Cusco was about as impressive as the one in Wilkes-Barre, and about as up to date as when I last flew through WB, in 1989. The airport in San Jose(actually, it is located in Alajuela, about 10 miles from the capital)is very modern.
Also, even though I knew I was flying into a tropical country, I wore a polartec fleece jacket. Cusco, after all, is not that far from the equator. But Cusco is at 3300 meters; San Jose is only 1100 meters. The temp was a balmy 81 degrees F when we landed, and although it cooled off at night I spent most of my first night under a single sheet (instead of the four woolen blankets I used in Cusco).
I am living for this week in Heredia, a few miles from San Jose. The country here is hilly, perhaps even mountainous if you are reading this in New Jersey, but the hills here are lush with trees and bushes. There are no snow capped peaks in the distance, or anywhere that I know of in CR (though I am probably wrong). This really looks like the tropics--there are palm trees and yucca trees (real trees, not the bushes that we have in PA). Mornings, the sky is clear and sunny. Afternoons it clouds up for the inevitable downpour. This is the rainy season that Costa Ricans (who refer to themselves as Ticos, so that is not some racist slang if you see me using it later) call winter.
Those of you who have read other notices of mine, or who have talked to me about places I have visited in the past, may be expecting me to reveal that Costa Rica looks in many respects like Southern California. No, no, no--I have finally found a place in the world that I cannot compare to my patria. The terrain, the ambiences, the weather--nothing here reminds me of So.Cal.
That said, you have to bear with what follows. I've only been to a few places, so I have to use some comparisons. The city has nothing of the flavor or look of Cusco. Cusco appears to have existed for centuries, which, in fact, it has. It is a city of white buildings and tile roofs. (Please refer to my web site on the Peru trip, and if you don{t have the address write me at this address and I will try to find it.) Heredia has survived for a few centuries, too, though not as many as Cusco. But it looks less grand, less solid. Roofs here are mainly sheet metal (galvanized steel, I assume, though David Spurlock will have to offer his judgement on that). There are, in fact, some tile 'treatments' here--roofs or roof decorations that look like terra cotta. In fact, there are more sheet metal, shaped and painted like roofing tile.
So, what am I saying? The city looks a little insubstantial. Many of the neighborhoods look like rally bad S.Cal neighborhoods. Small houses in varied colors, microscopic yards. Security fences or walls or both front all private homes. But this appearance nudges me toward a deeper appreciation. The homes in Cusco were often mudbrick covered by plaster. Here the houses are concrete. Most homeowners also seem to have cars. In fact, there are quite a few auto repair shops and parts shops between my family's home and this internet cafe on the other side of town. And, get this, the tap water here in central CR is perfectly safe. Heredia, in other words, is more prosperous than Cusco. So, may be that prosperity often looks insubstantial when it reaches the middle class.
After I arrived yesterday a young woman who has been living with my family showed me around town. Amber is from North Dakota, and you can hear a Garrison Keillor type brogue when she talks. We walked across town, finding the places I would need to take care of business, including this internet place. Amber gave me a good tour, and was very helpful in providing information about Heredia and Costa Rica. But I am already re-evaluating some of what she told me. As we passed the Oscar Arias Sanchez (former pres. of CR, winner of the Nobel peace prize) stadium I looked across the street to see some guy urinating against a low wall. This is so common in Cusco that is probably an important part of Quechua culture. So I asked Amber, 'Is it common to see people urinating out of doors?' Amber: 'I haven't noticed anyone doing it.' Later I asked if Tico men wear shorts. Yes, she said, 'but women never wear shorts. Only the very young ones, like the students at the university.' I noted that as interesting, though it didn't appear to call for any change in my plans. This morning on my way to school I saw four Ticas in shorts. They weren't students.
Enough for now. I have a ton of homework to do yet.
Heredia II
May 22, 2003
Now that I have grown pretty comfortable in Heredia and know my way around, I'm at the end of my time here. Tomorrow I move my base of operations to San Jose so I can began to see other parts of the country (all transportation runs through San Jose, so in CR
you hav to know the way...). But, in the interest of letting everyone relax, because I know that won't be easy until you have this, I'll give you some kind of account of what my day is like here.
Scariest thing I've seen so far: TV ads for Amway.
After breakfast, I walk the mile or so to my school, Intercultura of Heredia. When the brochure says "curso intensivo" it ain´t whistling Dixie. I work
for four solid hours. Of course, that was the deal in Cusco, but the teachers there interpreted their charge a little loosely. Sometimes it meant four hours, sometimes it meant a little less. Here, the calculation seems to be four hours or a little more. Also, since the only other student in my level works for the institute teaching English, he often has other things to do. Since I have no pressing outside engagements, i´ve had a private lesson for about half of what will be twenty hours of instruction.
Zeyda, the teacher, is from Nicaragua. She is very well educated and her Spanish, at least in class, is crystal clear. She is never in the least discouraging or arch about my Spanish. On the other hand, she does not wax euphemistic about my "problemas de concordancia." She has a way of saying "no" that gives the word the weight of its most fundamental meaning. Obviously I can´t reproduce it here, but suffice it to say that with Zeyda "no" has
at least three syllables.
After emerging from the class at 12:30 I walk about ten feet to a nice restaurant that manages to put a five course meal (drink included) in front of me for about $2.50. By 1:30 I´m back at the institute for the Latin dance class-yes, me in a Latin dance class has disaster written all over it. As if to add a few extra touches to the disaster message, the class goes for two straight hours. I´ve improved, but I doubt that I´m ready to retire from SHU for a new career as
a gigolo.
3:30 I head home, and if I´m lucky I will miss the afternoon downpour. I do homework (because Zeyda is a great believer in homework-it gives her a chance to say "no" quite a bit as we go over the tragic consequences of my attempts at indirect object pronouns). I also watch a good deal of TV, since this gives me another chance to study local and international Spanish culture.
Although my madre here is a wonderful person, we don´t see much of each other except at meals. She is pretty quiet, has her family (children and children in-laws and grandchildren) to keep her busy. We chat a little at dinner and watch news. Then, of course, it is time for my social life. |parents may want to have children leave the room at this point in the program.
Hand lettered sign that I read from the bus to San
Jose: "Neuroticos Anonimos"
(By the way, I´d like to thank all of my readers who
commented on my OCD behavior after reading my first
posting.)
Unlike Cusco, Intercultura Heredia has a bumper crop
of older men. There are five of us, and I am by far
the youngest. All the others are either retired or
working on getting retired. Since I´m waiting for
another democrat in the White House, so the country
will have a chance for peace and prosperity, I have
some time on my hands.
To avoid confusion, I have become best amigos with the
only one of the five not named John. Hal is a
minister in the Unity church. I´d never heard of this
church, but it seems to have no set beliefs, at least
none that he has been able to share with me. So, we
get along very well. Plus, as if to provide gilding
for the lily, Hal has written a self-help book. Hal
is a bit behind me in Spanish, though he has some of
the same survival techniques that I have honed to
perfection. We were sitting in the patio during the
rest period (no, not part of the four hours total of
instruction)when one of the instructors walked by and
smiled at him, saying something that I didn´t catch.
Hal smiled back and waved and said, "Oh, sí, sí," then
as the woman walked on he turned to me and said, "What
did she say?"
So, my big night out this week was attending an
Intercambio with Hal. At the Intercambio, Spanish
students speak Spanish to English students who in
their turn are speaking English. I had a great time
talking with Esperanza, a Colombian lawyer who moved
with her family to Costa Rica four years ago. She
struggled to maintain her part of the deal, speaking
English even when it obviously frustrated her.
After the Intercambio Hal and I walked to the Parque
Central, then to the University district where we
enjoyed a couple of beers. It was my birthday that
night, so Hal picked up the tab.
On our way back we passed a building with a sign for
the Nueva Acropolis. This turned out to be a combined
school and social center, part of a network of such
places offering classes and events. Either because we
looked totally harmless but at the same time earnest
and openminded (Hal has this effect on people-I know
I don´t) the hombre who I thought was security struck
up a conversation with us and took us inside where the
woman who seemed to be the director spoke to us
briefly and provided some literature.
(Preview)
Gabriel (speaking in unaccented English): "Do you
know where you are standing? You are standing on the
border of the red light district of San Jose! If you cross that street, your protection cannot be guaranteed."
In the summer of 2003 I traveled to Costa Rica for several weeks. What follows will be the journal of my trip that I sent to friends as I traveled. This first entry deals with my "transition" from the U.S. to Costa Rica. As I set out on long trips, I'm always at my most neurotic. See for yourself.
Transition
May 19, 2003
Preparing for a long trip always sends me into a mood I refer to as jittery depressed. I spent the day before the trip wondering about every possible thing I might have done wrong to prepare for the trip and making fetish purchases to try to settle myself down. (As I later learned, the collapsible umbrella was a good purchase.) Many of my supplies, of course, I had made days or weeks before. I was inspired, by way of reflecting on the project of travel, to try to recall the kinds of things I took on my first big trip out of the country, in 1973 (I know--it's hard to believe I was even alive then). I decided to keep the list to medications.
2003
chapstick
ibuprofen
sun block
Pepto-Bismol
Immodium (for real emergencies)
antihistimines
Fosamax
malaria meds
glasses
sunglasses
razor
blades
shaving cream
1973
chapstick
aspirin
razor + blades (never used)
These trips always affect me in a big way at first. My body rebels at all that time in the plane, and I lose much of my ability to regulate sleep and body temperature. In compensation, I guess, I acquire an enhanced ability to get sick and to whine. At least my readiness to self-medicate has improved over the years.
Only two items worth noting from my notebook on the day of travel.
Minor blasphemies uttered: 3
Note to self: Bloody Mary mix is NOT 'just like V-8.'
I thought there would be more, obviously, since I was keeping track. But, against all expectations, the trip to Costa Rica went very smoothly.
