Expat Community > Costa Rica

fredosilva
Joined 2015
Posts: 18

My Trip this to Costa Rica Aug 2015

9 years ago

My trip to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica this past week in August was a huge let down. I researched and planned for it for months; read the books; talked to missionary people via Skype; emailed real estate people, participated in Expat forums online etc… only to find out that much of what I had been told online and read about in books was not the “Pura Vida” that everyone raves about. From San Jose, their busiest town where all their homes have bars over the windows and businesses are strung from one end to the other with barbed wire wrapped in coils of razor wire, to the poor who live in the surrounding towns and villages with dirt floors in huts and shacks made of concrete block with metal roofs and corrugated metal patchwork … Costa Rica is truly a country that on the surface appears to be doing quite well in cities where McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Applebee’s and Wal-Mart have all moved in to take part in the charade of the country’s growing commerce that is mostly dependant on the money that comes in from so many tourists from all over the world… from packs of well-off 20 & 30 Somethings… with their pockets filled with Colones, clothed in T-shirts and sandals, laced with tattoos and piercings to thongs and surf boards, toting their pot pipes and back packs… to the expat retirees who are looking to buy into a piece of the pie… hoping to live out the rest of their lives in luxury while the poor all about them continue to wilt… without little help from their government who doesn’t seem to lift a finger to assist them. The tourists flit from zip lines in the rain forests to white water rafting down mountainous rivers to trekking up volcanoes and exploring the beaches while most of the population lives in squalor. The heat and the humidly along the shore line is far worse than anything I’ve ever experienced. And even though the country does have its pleasantries and cooler climates up in the mountains where it’s always raining… there is as much danger in the jungle as there is in the local traffic… with no regard for personal safety; where the washouts and the potholes can literally destroy your car if another vehicle doesn’t take you out first. It just wasn’t what I expected. There’s so much chaos and poverty mixed in with the laid back serenity and beauty of the country that it can easily become overwhelmingly depressing. Unfortunately for me, the small one street town of Manzanillo whose beaches are littered with trash and debris with no shells or signs of life among the dead reefs was very disappointing, including the town of Puerto Viejo inundated with tourism amid so much poverty and strife. From San Jose over to Limon and all the way down to Manzanillo… the beauty of the country was simply a backdrop to the terrible conditions I encountered while visiting there. In short, it wasn’t the “Pura Vida” I had bought into while researching Costa Rica from the States at all. Rather it’s more like “Pure Hype!” So, I cut my trip short and returned to the United States where so many of us, including myself, take so much of what we have in the USA for granted. Peace & Love, Alfredo

William Russell

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My Trip this to Costa Rica Aug 2015

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