Five Shitty Things No One Tells You About Costa Rica

Some travel website thought my rants about Costa Rica were worth publishing, because I was writing something different from the usual happy, smiling green tree frogs, cute tree sloths, "Pura Vida" bullshit.  I submitted one blog post; they published it, paid me, and I spent the money on a bottle of Flor De Caña Rum to celebrate my success.  

Not surprisingly, the post comments were split 50/50 between: "You wrote a well-researched, informative AND funny article," and "You're an ignorant asshole, gringo."  I responded to the negative comments in Spanish.

Following this, the website requested a write-up to be titled, Things Nobody Ever Tells You About Costa Rica.  This is the result.  Even though this article is a series of true stories, it must have scared them off, since I haven't heard from them yet, but my irritated Tweets prompted them to finally publish it.

Maybe you won't be offended by my Five Reasons Costa Rica Sucks (the real title,) Five Shitty Things No One Tells You About Costa Rica, an even better title they chose.  After reading it again, I decided to edit it and add more information in order to shut down the haters I expected to get.

Too late.  It got published before the additional edits.

It wouldn't have mattered anyway.   People today have Internet ADHD and just have the patience to read 140 character Tweets before making a well-informed, "Y U SUK, LOLZ" opinion.  Judging by the posts, most readers got halfway through the first paragraph of the article before writing profanity-filled, misspelled, Wikipedia-researched comments.  They vehemently defended Costa Rica's rose-tinted tourist wonderland image, and most assumed I was an ignorant redneck who hadn't traveled anywhere outside of the "First World."  Apparently, clicking on my blog link with 2 years worth of travel posts was too much effort...

Enjoy the complete version, with further edits if I ever feel motivated.
   

Article For Matador Network:

Everyone told me I live in "The Happiest Country In The World."  So why after 2 years in Costa Rica am I paranoid, depressed, alcoholic and ready to shoot the next person who calls me, my friend?  My concerns started before my flight had even landed at the haphazard concrete and steel structure they call Juan Santamaria International Airport.

I thought I would have a nice, quiet flight with an empty seat next to me.  Not quite.  Right as the last boarding call was announced, a sweaty, extremely hairy kid sporting a tie-dyed shirt and Birkenstocks rushed into the plane and slumped down next to me.  He gave off an odor of marijuana-tainted apathy, and most likely planned to live in some organic commune in the middle of the jungle with a ragtag bunch of other idealistic hippies who hate "the system," but ironically made enough money from it to escape.  After we took off, he pulled out a tinfoil-wrapped package and asked me in a conspiratorial tone, "Do you eat brownies...Y'know, special ones?" 

Mmm, tasty.

Going through customs always makes me paranoid.  Doing it with weed-induced altitude sickness makes me want to lash out at first sight of the menacing, gun-toting customs officers who greet me at the airport.  This dirty hippie gave me a fitting introduction to the many problems I would encounter while living in paradise.

1. Naive Tourists: Tourists like my tie-dyed friend hear many anecdotes praising Costa Rica as the veritable utopia of Latin America, a part of the world known more for drug trafficking, violent crime, kidnapping, and poverty.  They assume that if the travel industry calls it "The Switzerland Of Central America," then surely it must function as efficiently and safely as that little quasi-neutral European country.  I stepped out of Juan Santamaria International Airport with a hopeful smile, thinking that at the terminal exit there might be an easily visible, well-marked bus stop with regular buses to the San Jose city center.

Nothing.  Smelling my gringo scent, I was greeted by 524,003 short men with comical English offering me "very good prices" to San Jose.

2. What Public Transportation?: The taxi drivers were telling me there was no bus, the station was far away, it was too late and other such fanciful lies.  Gracias a Dios, I speak Spanish.  I found an honest person who directed me to the bus stop, which is hidden on the opposite side of the large parking garage.  There was no schedule.  Buses come every "20 minutes or so."  Eventually a bus took me to the central Alajuela-San Jose Bus Station.  

Notice I said "Alajuela" Bus Station.  San Jose does not have one, or two or even three central bus stations.  At the time of this writing, there are about 25 different stations and stops to various locations around the country.  Efforts have been made to centralize the transportation, but the greedy bosses who own the individual bus companies are not ready to give up their control so easily.  This usually means having to take a taxi from the Alajuela-San Jose Bus Station to another station in order to transfer to that bus to beautiful sun-kissed Malpais.

3. Taxi Vultures: Taxis are a necessary evil for tourists.  You do not have to find one; they will find you.  You can have fun negotiating prices with illegal "pirate taxis" but, like pirates, they are bloodthirsty and will rape and pillage you.  If you prefer riding legally, find a taxi that is red and has a clearly marked, inverted yellow triangle with black call numbers.  In local slang, the taxi meter machine is called La Maria.  Be sure to tell the driver to turn it on.  He will smile and commend you on your knowledge of Costa Rican tiquisimos, and later complain to his colleagues that some gringo knew this code word.

Taxi drivers do not even know their way around the city, or they pretend not to know when a tourist gets in the vehicle.  One night I went with my lovely blond French friend to a club called Mas Tequila in the San Pedro neighborhood where I lived.  I told the driver the address in Spanish: "200 Meters Southeast of the Flag Rotunda, Boulevard Dent, Plaza Antares."  He drove around the Flag Rotunda to Boulevard Dent then...drove right past it on the same road we came from:

"Hey! We just drove past Mas Tequila."

"No, no, no. It is in Barrio Dent."

"What? Uh, no.  We just came from Barrio Dent. Turn around.  This shouldn't be more than 3000 Colones"

"You aren't from here.  You probably don't know."

"I've lived here for one year and I work in San Pedro neighborhood.  I eat lunch at Plaza Antares."

"What?  You don't believe me??"

He angrily pulled the vehicle over and stepped out.  He went back to the trunk, and reached in to get...something.  I doubt it was tequila.  At this point my blond French friend jumped out of the taxi and started apologizing to the driver.  Her sexy French-accented Spanish relaxed him for a moment.

Ooh la la.  I slammed a rojo (1000 Colones) on the passenger seat then walked away before it got complicated.

   

4. The "Green Season": Why take taxis?  Well, out of the 12 months of the year in Costa Rica, it's raining for approximately 15 of those months.  In the tourist industry, this period is called the "green season," because "never-ending-depressing-rainy-season" doesn't sell as well, and India already owns the legal copyright on "monsoon season."  Taxis are the best way to avoid getting soaked if you visit Costa Rica during any month that isn't named January.

On the plus side, hotel rates are cheaper during the "green season," which is great as you will be spending most of your vacation in them.

  

5. But There's No Military, People Are Peaceful?:  There's another good reason to take taxis.  It's safer than walking the streets after nightfall.  I come from St. Louis, an American city which twice won the dubious award for "Most Dangerous City In The USA," (We're #1!! Woo!!) and I have never been assaulted there.

Witnessed a murder scene in front of my apartment, yes.  Had my car broken into twice, yes.  Had a man offer to suck my dick for crack money - well, naturally.  But never physically assaulted.

During 2 years in happy Costa Rica, I was robbed twice: once with a knife, and another time with a gun.  The first time was expected, as it happened in San Jose, the urban capital city.  The second time was surprising, since it happened with another person on a road in the jungle on the outskirts of Puerto Viejo, a small, relaxed Caribbean coastal town - appropriately enough on my last night in Costa Rica.

This is nothing.  All my Costa Rican friends can outdo me with their own armed robbery stories.  They tell these stories as casually as the latest soccer scores between the big teams, Alajuelita and Saprissa.  One of my friends has been robbed 8 times in her brief 24 years.  This is why she buys the cheapest mobile phones; she expects them to disappear on a regular basis, like that left sock in the dryer.

Of course, nothing bad may happen to you in Costa Rica, especially if you take an all-inclusive, package tour where the worst thing that will happen is a wicked hangover due to an excess of poolside Piña Coladas.  For the rest of the normal backpackers without big expense accounts, good luck, and never-ending Pura Vida.

San Jose To Bocas Del Toro: Not All Who Cross The Costa Rica-Panama Border Are Equal

My Argentinian friend was visiting me in Costa Rica.  I took a few days off of work to travel with her to Bocas Del Toro, Panama.  With our limited time, Bocas looked like the best option for visiting a beach outside of Costa Rica.  My last visit there had been fucked by a credit card issue which had left me broke for 3 days and stuck in a hostel.  I was determined not to screw up this time, but disaster is a good friend of mine.

We arrived at the Caribe Station 45 minutes before the bus departed in order to buy a ticket to Sixaola, at the Costa Rica-Panama border.  Magic rumors exist that you can reserve advance tickets in your name for Costa Rican buses.  Perhaps this only applies to nationals.  Every time I call the bus companies they tell me "this is impossible."  My Costa Rica friends have told me that even though I speak Spanish, my gringo accent (and name) gives me away as a foreigner, and the buses won't reserve the tickets.  My Argentinian friend, with her obviously Argentinian accent, seemed to have the same problem.

It was lucky we arrived when we did.  By astounding coincidence, I ran into my Spanish friend, at the station, and he was on the same bus as us.  We became an odd team of three: a Spaniard, an Argentinian and an American.  This atypical tourist team would prove how conditional Latin border police can be with different nationalities.

San Jose to Sixoala is 6 hours by direct bus with one 20 minute stop.  It was a 6am bus, so we spent most of the trip sleeping.  Or rather we slept until we left the main highway at Limon.  After that the bus bounced up and down a dusty, rocky trail which followed the coastline to the border.  It was too humid, dusty and scenic to continue sleeping.

Another border town.  Ugh.  Walking from Sixoala's bus station to the border station requires forging a path through a puddle filled parking lot.  Once you clear the parking lot, there's a large ramp with stairs on the side leading up to an old railroad bridge crossing the River Sixaola.  The crossing isn't crowded, just don't step between the wooden boards.  It's a long fall into the river.

According to my Spanish friend, Sixaola is a better place to cross the Costa Rica-Panama border than Paso Canoas in the south.  He had to endure a nearly two hour wait there and mass bureaucratic confusion.  The border station at Sixoala had no more than a dozen people waiting in line.  The three of us got through customs and were taking pictures on the crumbling bridge in under 20 minutes.

Once we entered Panama, things got weird.

The border office is open from 8am until 5pm.  There's no need to worry about the hours, however; the line isn't very long.  In fact when we got there we didn't really see a line.  People were milling about in the hot sun in loose clusters outside of a long, low building with two offices: one for migration and one for customs.  The offices are at the top of a long ramp that goes down to the village of Guabito.  A few policeman halfheartedly kept the clusters in a semi-organized state of minor confusion.  It wasn't necessary.  The heat and humidity was too intense for people to do anything other than suffer quietly.

The three of us joined the masses to wait our turn.  On rare occasions people would step out of one of the two office doors in the building.  The police would indicate to whoever was closest to the door that they could enter.  I noticed one of the doors had more tourists (read: white people) gathered outside of it.  The "policemen" near this door had uniforms, but did not carry identification.  I smell Mafia.

Panama has a specific requirement for tourists entering the country, which I will hereafter refer to as a "scam."   When tourists enter Panama, they need to present proof that they are leaving the country again. This is theoretically to prevent foreigners from entering the country and then staying permanently.  In reality, this is a load of bullshit.  Panama border police know that most tourists are passing through briefly to visit spots like Bocas del Toro, Boquete, San Blas Islands, etc and returning to Costa Rica.  They don't have a specific return date so they only buy a one-way ticket.  Here is how the scam typically plays out.

Tourists enter the first office.  They present their passport and visa (if necessary.)  The migration official then asks:

"Are you returning to Costa Rica?"

"Well, yes, of course."

"Do you have proof.?"

"(Blank stare) ...What?  I'm going to Bocas del Toro for a few days then returning to Costa Rica."

"You need proof.  You can buy a return bus ticket to Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica outside the office."

"If I punch the police, you can grab his gun..."

Conveniently enough, there is a small stand at the bottom of the ramp that sells bus tickets back to Costa Rica.  When I say "tickets," I actually mean "one kind of ticket."  The ticket goes from Guabito to Hone Creek, Costa Rica (I believe) which is a completely useless village located 30 minutes by foot from Puerto Viejo.  It cost twenty-two dollars, but of course this price is subject to change.

Our traveling group had different contingency plans to avoid this scam:

1. The Spaniard had saved his purchased return ticket from his previous trip to Panama through Paso Canoas.

2. The Argentinian had her flight schedule which showed she was leaving Panama in order to get her flight out of San Jose, Costa Rica en route to Argentina the following week.

3. I had my Costa Rican Social Security card to prove I was a working employee who had to leave Panama in order to return to my job in Costa Rica. (Most Costa Rica nationals aren't asked to present proof of leaving Panama since the border police assumes they will be returning.)

These preparations don't mean anything.  Our entering the country was totally dependent on the whims of the border police.  Latin American border police hold power like the Wizard of OZ.  If the guy hadn't got laid last night, he could be grumpy and very well tell us all to fuck off and buy brand-new return tickets.

After some time sweating in the line/cluster, we were allowed to enter the first office to see if the Almighty Migration would let us enter Panama.  The Spaniard presented his Spanish passport to the serious official.  He looked at it for second then broke into a big smile:

"We have a champion here!"

Spain had just won soccer's EuroCup 2012 the day before.  The official called some of his coworkers over and they all began congratulating  for "his" victory.  His 3 month old return ticket was accepted and his passport was stamped, no questions asked.

This ridiculous ceremony had already happened with the police on the Costa Rican side.  He rolled his eyes.  He is a leftist who prefers to spend his time camping in the woods miles away from television and civilization.  To put it simply, he is a Spaniard who doesn't give a shit about soccer.  Regardless, shouts of, "We have a champion here!" would become a tired, running joke for him the duration of our trip.

Oddly enough, I am an American who was ready to chat about Andres Iniesta incredible contributions to the game.  I even visited one of the stadiums during my visit to Lviv, Ukraine the previous summer.  This doesn't mean shit to the border patrol; to them I am just another gringo on vacation.  I presented them with my passport and Costa Rica Social Security card, explaining that I am a resident, not a tourist.  They asked me where I worked, how long I had been in Costa Rica, where I was going and so on, por favor.  Somehow it worked...this time.

Now Argentina presented her passport and flight schedule papers.  The official didn't look satisfied:

"We need proof you are leaving Panama."

"Of course I'm leaving Panama.  My flight leaves San Jose, Costa Rica for Buenos Aires, Argentina.  How else can I take a flight from San Jose if I don't leave Panama??"

That sounds logical.  But international borders operate in a mysterious world where logic changes every 30 seconds.  Possibly the official felt like following protocol that particular day.  Possibly every third person had to be turned down that day.  Possibly he didn't like Argentinians.

She attempted to argue some more.  Our Spanish EuroCup "champion," tried to help her.  I kept my mouth shut.  None of it mattered.  The official sent us down the ramp to the small bus ticket stand.  She again tried to argue with the ticket vendor to no avail.  Chema and I offered to pay for part of the ticket if she would just buy it.  She was furious.  The fact that I had been through this before was the only thing keeping me from losing it too.

We returned to the migration line/cluster with a purchased bus ticket.  The contentious migration official stamped her this time.  We moved to customs, which was fairly easy except for the excessive checking of my guitar case for invisible drugs.  You are given useless yellow stamps in your passport which are supposed to cover local Guabito providence taxes.  There doesn't seem to be any order to how many you receive.  All that's certain is that you have to pay for each one, so the less the better.

Getting through migration and customs should be the worst part, but no one is that lucky.  Once you finish border formalities and descend the ramp, millions of hungry, screaming vultures swoop down on you.  These pirate taxis offer you a million great deals to take their car or truck shuttle to Almirante, the port to Bocas del Toro, for a "very good price (usually $20)."  You can choose to hang around and bargain with them and most likely get ripped-off.  Or you can ignore them and walk 100 meters past the ramp to a parking lot where a colorful local bus drives by about every 20 minutes.  For about a dollar this bus takes you to Chiangianola, where another cheap bus continues on to Almirante.

After years of crossing international borders, I've learned how to fight off the border vultures.  Fighting off patroling border police is a different matter.  Their guns don't worry me (taxi drivers have guns too.)  What worries me is their ability to throw you in jail over a nonexistent law violation that will only be refuted when a real American lawyer shows up.  By then it's too late.  Big Juan Pablo has already made you his new gringo bitch.

Scenic Changiablahblahblah

I am sure Panama's border police work in tandom with the taxi vultures.  We had cleared a path through the crowd of annoying taxi drivers and were almost to the bus parking lot when we heard a distinct shout.  One of the police was closing in on us and asked us if we had our return tickets out of Panama.  Despite the stamp in my passport, I did not actually have a return ticket.  I didn't expect my luck with the Social Security card to continue.


Fortunately, our Spanish champion did the talking.  After more Spanish soccer "We-have-a-champion-here" bullshit, the police let us go.  We jumped on a psychedelically-painted bus to Changiablahblahblah and paid the dollar and some change fare.

Taking two buses to Almirante that total less than three dollars is not only cheaper, it's slower.  I consider that an advantage, because the road has plenty of scenery that requires time to soak it all in.  Highway "" winds through a mountainous region that opens onto deep green valleys and occasional soaring views of the Caribbean Sea.  While we took pictures of the scenery, several of the taxi shuttles roared by our dumpy bus at a breakneck speed.  I doubt the tourists inside had time to snap photos, much less breath.

Changianola, a little town with a big name, was a brief break during our slow trip to Almirante.  There's no reason to hang out here unless you have a particular interest in Chiquita Banana, which is headquartered here.  One of the original Banana Republics.

The bus from Guabito dropped us off on a dirt driveway in front of the town's concrete block central market.  After getting off the bus, we walked straight inside the market.  On the other side is a large platform where the buses to Almirante stop.  There are also plenty of taxi vultures ready to offer more "very good deals" to Almirante as well.  Ignore them, buy a greasy Panamanian empanada and wait for the next bus, which stops in front of the empanada vendor.

Greasy Panama Empanadas

The scenery improves during the second half of the voyage.  Our odd trio of a Spaniard, an Argentinian and an American attracted considerable attention from the Panamanian passengers.  We chatted with them ("We have a champion here!) and received some advice about the Almirante stop.  There is no official stop; just tell the bus driver "Almirante/Bocas" and he will let you off.  More taxi vultures will be waiting to offer you a ride to the dock where boats depart for Bocas Del Toro (notice a theme here?)  They are scheming assholes because the docks are no more than 500 meters from the highway.  Additionally there are boat vultures that will bargain with you for a private ferry to Bocas Town.  The dock at the end of the road (go figure) has fixed schedules and prices at around seven dollars.  It also has an additional boat that departs late at 6:30pm.

We got off the bus at the appropriate random dusty area.  There were no signs, but a lone road snaked away from the highway towards the water.  The walk was short and was only delayed by random guys trying to sell us good deals on private ferries to Bocas Town.  After shaking them off, we arrived at the dock with official prices and departures every half hour.

The ferry company asks for name, identification and nationality.  We wrote this information down on an old notebook then waited for the next boat.  After 20 wet minutes on a big speedboat, we awkwardly docked in Bocas Town.  There were no taxi vultures waiting for us, finally.
.

Taking The Ferry By The Banana Republic

  

           

La Bodega De Chema: How To Make Costa Rica Craft Beer

I have pointed out before that the beer in Costa Rica sucks.  What are the solutions to this problem?

You can be a typical expat and complain about it.  You can switch to liquor or wine (always a good solution.)  You can pay expensive shipping fees and risk broken bottles in beer-soaked cartons.  Or you can make your own beer.

This Is Not Beer

If you are living in Costa Rica and want to make something new for your pint glass, La Bodega de Chema is the place to try your hand at homebrewing.  Chema is a brillant Costa Rican who studied engineering in Rochester, New York.  While living there he fell in love with American craft beer.  When he returned to Costa Rica, he realized he was stuck drinking the same old, boring Imperial and Pilsen again (boo!) and had to find a way to bring tasty craft beer home.

The result of his efforts is La Bodega De Chema.  It isn't a bar or a restaurant, but a beer education facility.  In this little room in a quiet part of San Jose, you can sample Costa Rican and foreign craft beer, buy homebrewing products and materials, and enroll in one-day homebrewing classes taught by Chema and his brewing team.  Experienced brewers will be excited to see this course is taught using the all-grain method, and not with malt extract (mainly because imported extract is really expensive in Costa Rica.)

I was too late to enroll in his inaugural brewing class in May of 2012, but I did get a place in the second class in the second week of June, 2012.  A 5 hour class costs 20,000 colones, or approximately 40 dollars.  This price not only includes the hands-on brewing class, but also a brewing instruction manual, several beer tastings, a discount on La Bodega's products and two bottles of your own beer when it is ready 2 weeks later.  You also get to study your Spanish for 5 straight hours (what, don't you speak Spanish??)

I was the only gringo in the course that day.  My Spanish is far from perfect, but making beer doesn't require much listening.  Just watch and learn.  I will break from my usual long ranting, sarcastic style and present this course in simple, step-by-step pictures and videos.

All you need to make beer are grains, hops, yeast and water.  Start by grinding the grains.  You can do this with a plastic bag and a rubber hammer, or use this convenient grist:

 Now you have malt.  You have to soak the malt in hot water to start fermentation, which produces the most important part of the beer, the alcohol!!  We did this in a cooler fitted with a complex, handmade plastic sieve at the bottom.  It helps to have technical skills (there's a reason many engineers are homebrewers.)

It takes around an hour for fermentation.  We used this time in the most productive way possible, by drinking beer!  We sampled Imperial, Costa Rica Craft Brewing's beer Libertas and Segua and Germany's Erdinger.

The result of the hot soaking malt is a boozy soup called wort.  You have to separate the liquid wort from the grains.  Chema sends the used grains to local farms for cow feed.  How pleasantly organic.

While we are separating the liquid wort from the grains, we have to constantly take samples.  We check the samples for alcoholic content with a little glass stick called a hydrometer.  If it's too strong, you will have to water it down.  As a typical alcoholic I don't mind a 10% alcohol beer, but for the mass market 4% is a little easier to handle.

This wort has alcohol and looks like beer, but it still doesn't smell like beer.  We have to boil the wort with hops to get that lovely beer smell.  What time, what type and how much hops you add all depend on the style of beer.  I'll save that part for the beer geeks to argue about.  Most Costa Ricans just aren't ready to drink Quintupletripledipple-Dry-Hopped, Barrel-Rolled, Sour Imperial Monarch Butterfly, Double-Ds IPAs...or whatever ridiculous, over-hyped shit they're making in the United States now.

While the wort is boiling, several other things are happening.  Chema's last class prepared some hopped wort which has been fermenting for the past few weeks.  We have to add sugar to this prepared wort and mix it.  This starts carbonation, which gives the beer that happy head we love so much.  We used natural sugar; Costa Rica still doesn't have a lot of those fancy brewing products yet.

We were also sanitizing bottles while the wort was boiling.  These sanitized bottles will now store the finished, carbonating product.  To properly ferment, the bottles need to be sealed airtight with caps.  Bottling the beer is probably the most physically strenuous process in homebrewing.  Don't expect it to burn off your beer belly though.

We have added all the hops and the wort is finished cooking.  Now comes the complicated part of cooling off the mix rapidly without infecting it.  This is another part where being an engineer helps.  It's usually enough to cool off the pot in a cold water bath, but Chema constructed a nifty copper tube device connected to a water hose.  It runs cold water through the beer to cool it off even quicker.  This is the part where my technical skills would fail...

Finally we have beer.  Well, not yet.  We still have to wait 2 more weeks for the bottled product to finish fermenting.  If you've been observant, you see we're actually drinking the beer made from the previous class.  Either way the end result is the same.  I have two new bottles of Cahuita Pale Ale to drink.  It's not Imperial or Pilsen, Gracias a Dios!

I am aware that this is not a complete course on brewing beer, so please beer geeks refrain from writing comments about details I've forgotten (e.g. temperatures, IBUs)  I am an alcoholic traveler, not a brewer.

Costa Rica Before Ecotourism: Why Is Everyone So White Here?

This was supposed to be about Guayabo National Monument, but it turned into a highly subjective, poorly researched lesson on Costa Rican history.

A Primitive Diquis Lawn Ornament

Where are all the Mayan and Aztec ruins in Costa Rica?  Other than the occasional giant, stone Diquis sphere being used as an oversized lawn ornament, the indigenous presence is decidedly absent here.  Somewhere beyond all the zip-lining, scuba-diving, turtle-watching and other hyphenated, modern ecotourism (hyphenated?) activities, there has to be some ancient history in this gringo-manufactured paradise.

Modern Costa Rica has everything today because of what it didn't have before.  Tropical rainforests, pristine beaches, smoldering volcanoes, untouched wildlife: these exist in every Latin American country.  What set Costa Rica apart from the beginning was a lack of gold, silver and other precious minerals.  These formed the economic foundation of the giant Aztec, Maya and Olmec indigenous civilizations that developed elsewhere in the region.  Those guys stayed away from the poor, gold-deprived lands of present-day Costa Rica.

How did this affect modern Costa Rica?  As rapper Notorious B.I.G. once famously stated: "More money, More problems."  These precious minerals also attracted Spanish European colonists, AKA conquistadors.  They weren't very happy to see "uncivilized" heathen, brown people possessing precious gold and silver which should -according to their Catholic God- rightfully be theirs.

The Spaniards went on a divine campaign to kick some serious indigenous ass in order to get their hands on the Bling-Bling.  Hundreds of years of Spanish ass-kicking (along with the help of imported diseases) eventually resulted in a very hierarchical, military colonial system throughout most of Latin America.  Spanish Europeans were on top, mixed mestizos were in the middle and (as always) the brown people stayed on the bottom.  Not surprisingly, there was some resentment.

Costa Rica came out pretty lucky...historically speaking.

Costa Rica Had No Bling-Bling

Of course, pre-Costa Rica had some brown people, but what few remained were almost completely destroyed by Spanish military and diseases.  There weren't indigenous people left to form hierarchies.  Perhaps you've noticed Costa Ricans are pretty "white?"  This lack of gold, plus the challenging geography of the Central and Talamanca Mountain ranges, resulted in Spain giving the area low-priority status on its Bling-Bling treasure hunt.

A few of the more laidback, peaceful Spaniards found they enjoyed Costa Rica's fertile Central Valley and its quiet beaches.  They decided to take a little siesta while their gold-hungry, bloodthirsty kin continued indigenous ass-kicking annihilation throughout Latin America.  Fighting?  Military Campaigns?  Mae, that's so much work... These relaxed dudes set up small, family farms and pretty much stayed out of each others' business for the next couple hundred years.

Pura Vida.  This laidback, friendly farmer's attitude persists to this day in Costa Rica.  It explains why the country was quite happy to abolish its military in 1948 and continue chilling out on the beach.  Meanwhile other Latin American countries' histories of hierarchical, military colonial rule resulted in long festering resentment and a general, small child's "It's-Not-Fair-Wah-Wah" crybaby attitude.

Ironically, people attempted to solve this problem by continuing their Spanish oppressor's tradition of colonial-style, ass-kicking by means of a series of military juntas and coup d'etats that changed with the frequency of a woman's mood in the worst stages of PMS.  Costa Rica became attractive to American and European tourists since they didn't have to worry about their tranquil, all-inclusive beach resort being suddenly turned into a military base for another egotistical, black sunglasses-wearing dictator waving around a copy of "The Communist Manifesto."

I am simplifying this a little.  Research names like Braulio Carrillo and Jose Figueres Ferrer for more thorough information.

Anyway, Costa Rica's peaceful history has made it today's standard for ecotourism.  Ziplines, trekking, turtle-watching and other environmental-friendly, artificially created activities form the backbone of the tourist industry.  But its lack of minerals and the indigenous people that originally depended on it means it is one of the few Latin American countries that lack spectacular ancient ruins such as Teotihuacan, Copan and Macchu Picchu.

There is one ancient ruin in Costa Rica: Guayabo National Monument.  I was going to write about it here, but I have already gotten way too far off track.  In true Costa Rica "Pura Vida," fashion: it can wait until tomorrow.

Guayabo National Monument

          

"Teacher, Do You Like Our Bitches?": Teaching English In Costa Rica

A year of decadent, dangerous Costa Rica hostel management is over.  I ungraciously return to a quiet life of English Teaching to support my traveling/drinking addiction.  I had already spent two strange years teaching in Thailand and Slovakia before, so it had the feeling of accidentally bumping into an old ex.  The familiarity feels good at first, but after a few moments you remember why you broke up in the first place.

Teaching English abroad is an exercise in humility.  You realize how little you know about the very language you've been speaking since you were a child.  You pathetically try to correct students' grammar errors and questions without screaming out: "Dammit, because I speak English, that's why!!!!"  You have to keep a straight face when students pronounce "beaches" as "bitches."  Your local coworkers quietly resent you because they had to put in years of education to get the same job you got simply by being a... dah dah dahdah: NATIVE SPEAKER!!!! (cue applause, shouts of, USA! USA! 'Murica! 'Murica!)

If you don't take students' errors too seriously; however, it can be a very funny job.  And I do mean funny...not fun.  The ESL teachers know what I'm talking about.
  
My interview with Berlitz, which coincidentally happened the same day I got robbed, went well and I started training the day after I left Castle Tam Hostel.  Ever the cynic, by the time I'm one day into training I already see problems with teaching in Costa Rica, as compared to Thailand and Slovakia.  My salary is lower than it was in both of these countries.  Given that Costa Rica has the highest cost-of-living for Central America, this means I'm sitting above the poverty line, but still sitting at home for two weeks doing nothing until payday to make rent.  Remember that alcohol factors importantly into my budget.

My awkward work schedule means 4 hours of teaching at 6 in the morning, followed by a 6 hour empty gap, then 4 hours of teaching until 9 at night...Saturday mornings included.  Even though Berlitz is an international language school, none of the administrative staff speaks English, and it's only by virtue of speaking Spanish that I'm able to wade through the paperwork involved with getting hired.  Fortunately, I am part of the government healthcare system, but that is not exceptional since Costa Rica has a social healthcare system anyway.

Berlitz is a giant, global American-based company, which is its justification for charging students an arm and a leg for 'professional language services.'  Unfortunately it's encumbered by local, self-serving Costa Rica-based labor practices, so all of this money is rarely used in a professional way.  My teacher training was a perfect example of this; two weeks of American-style corporate jargon, pretty colored pamplates, fancy, scientific-based teaching theories and the official Berlitz Method©®℗ - which did nothing to prepare me for the real classroom.  I've had 2 years of teaching experience previous to Costa Rica, so I spent most of the training catching up on sleep and spitting out funny anecdotes from my previous jobs.  The new teachers thought I was a genius.  I felt like Bill Clinton at a grand testimony defining the meaning of the word "is".  Bullshit taken to an art form (he was a teacher too.)

The training did have free pizza and soda.

At the end of two weeks, Berlitz assigned me a 40-hour work week at their San Pedro Equus center then promptly forgot about me.  I was disconcerted to find out that my manager was from England -since everyone thinks British English is better than American English- but when I saw his blue scorpion tattoo, missing teeth and bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey prominently displayed on the shelf, I felt strangely comforted.  When I walked into the teacher's office, I was surprised to hear only the sounds of Spanish.  Isn't this an English language center?

The next year became a mire of forced Berlitz Method©®℗ lesson planning, 5am workdays, bad grammar mistakes and intravenous coffee injections.  Classes were full of nervous, awkward long silences and freakish, blank stares followed by bursts of incomprehensible sentences with comical Hispanic accents.  It felt like watching the old Cheech & Chong sketches, but the students weren't stoned.  I wished I was.

The first 3 months sucked horribly.  After that the wounds healed, leaving just a dull, numb feeling that only hurt when it rained.  It rains a lot in Costa Rica.

I won't write much about the year I worked at Berlitz.  I'll leave that to the studious ESL teachers who take their jobs seriously.  Teaching paid the bills (barely), and I made some really good friends from working there who frequently shared the same hangovers with me.

And now I know the most beautiful bitches in Costa Rica are in Guanacaste.


Some People Came Here Because They Thought There Would Be Practical Advice For Teaching In Costa Rica.  HaHaHa.  If You Want To Work On The Beach, Don't Expect To Get Paid.  Here's Some Links For Schools (With Salaries) In Beautiful San Jose:

Berlitz: http://berlitz.co.cr/

Prolanguage: http://www.prolanguage.org/

Centro Cultural Costarriccense: http://www.centrocultural.cr/

Idioma Internacional: http://www.idiomacr.com/

Intensa: http://www.intensa.com/

Universal de Idiomas: http://www.ingles.co.cr/

Universidad Latina: http://www.ulatina.ac.cr/

Believe it or not, if you have any questions about teaching in Costa Rica, I will be happy to answer them.


         

Return To Costa Rica And The End Of Hostel Management

January was half over and so was my holiday.  There were still fresh memories of Missouri red wine, snow-covered hills and holiday parties in my mind, but it was time to leave that and return to work in the sweltering 'winter' heat of Costa Rica.  I wondered how the owner, Jon, had taken our fight over the robbery and if there would be any repercussions.  He hadn't answered any of my emails.  While I was in the United States, I continued to check my Castle Tam Hostel work account to keep track of guests that were arriving and leaving.

One day before returning, I opened the work email up.  I typed in the shared password.  The email didn't open.  I tried again.  Again it didn't open.  I've been typing it in daily for the past year, so I didn't see any reason why I would forget it.  Still I checked my notebook where it was written.  I typed it in letter for letter, and still no success.  Dammit, Jon.  That sonofabitch had changed the password.  Rather than telling me to my face how he wanted me gone, he was simply going to squeeze me out of the hostel business...

I returned to Castle Tam in the late sunny morning.  January is high tourist season in Costa Rica, and I fully expected to find guests hanging outdoors on the porch or in the lobby.  To my surprise, the place was completely empty.  I walked through the garage bar and found it empty as well.  I called both Jon and Manual.  There was no answer.  I shouted their names.  Silence.  Not even a guest was around to see me.  The bright, tropical sun shined in through the glass door of the porch, but the eerie silence inside made the place feel lifeless. 

I was inside, so at least I knew Jon hadn't changed the locks yet.  I checked my room for any things I may have forgotten, then unlocked the secure office door behind the reception.  My other suitcase was already packed in there, and I had a few important documents in the safe.  The safe code I also had committed to memory.  Would he have changed it?

I spun the lock to the right and left and the small steel door opened quietly.  I grabbed my documents then stared inside the safe.  All our profits in large bills were taken from the reception cash register at the end of the day and guarded here in envelopes marked with the bills' denominations: twenties, fifties and hundreds for American dollars; ten thousands and twenty thousands for Costa Rica colones.  Once or twice a week, Jon would take the envelopes to deposit in his Costa Rica bank account.  He had not taken the money out yet this week.

For a moment, I stared inside the envelopes.  There was a security camera directly on me, but no one was around in the hostel.  Although it fit Jon's military style, I highly doubted he was hiding in a room watching me on video at that moment.  Normally he would be in the garage.  Besides I knew where the videos cables were connected and could disconnect them if I wanted to.

I was sitting there with at least five-hundred dollars in my hands.  I thought back to the past few months when Jon had stopped talking to me, his indifference to me being robbed and the following morning when he had raised a fist as if to hit me.  As if being robbed was my fault.

Before the hostel, we had hooked up with sexy European girls, happily terrorized other hostel guests and staff in Nicaragua and partied at Rocking J's Hostel epic birthday party.  During the hostel's beginning we had crafted a mad revenge plot on a scam artist who robbed us that eventually landed him in jail; changed the property from a creepy dump for transient, gringo whore-mongers into a proper, lively youth backpacker hostel; held live concerts for guests and planned for an eventual European sister hostel.  Through it all we had developed a private, sick politically-incorrect sense of humor (the worst of the political left and right) that no one else understood.

This video was from the good times.  What had gone wrong in the last 6 months?

The easy answer would be marijuana.  Jon came from a conservative family, and had been in the military until just before he left for Costa Rica so - to the best of my knowledge - at 26 years of age he had never smoked weed before we started traveling together.  Certainly he behaved as if he had never smoked; to this day he still can't roll a joint.  In the past year he had gone from gingerly inhaling small blunts we shared to hitting 3 or 4 bong loads everyday by himself.  I have no objection to marijuana (indeed, I support legalization), but this was far too much even for me.  He already had a guarded, structured military personality and this only grew into full-blown paranoia when he was high.

...But I'm lying to myself.  As with most men who think too highly of themselves, our greatest downfall is women.  It was a guest.

While Jon made sure guests were paying for their stay, I made sure they were enjoying their stay.  He has a great mind for numbers, which is why he kept track of the finances; but his people skills are lacking, which is why I always handled marketing and publicity.  This entailed taking guests out to tour the city, seeing cultural activities, eating at restaurants and drinking at bars (a lot) in hopes they would recommend us later by word or in writing.  Naturally, many of these guests were single women.

She arrived from the Netherlands for a semester abroad in Costa Rica.  Her plan was to stay at the hostel for a week or two until she found an apartment to share with other students.  Jon was determined to get every penny (Colon?) out of her possible.  She had barely unpacked her bags when he started spitting out his long-term stay options: student pricing, long-term monthly rates, privates with hot water blah blah blah...  I saw it from a more human perspective.  At some point while he was rapping, I got his attention and whispered, very business-as-usual, "If you really want her to stay longer, just fuck her right."

And that is what I did...the asshole that I am.  While Jon stayed in drinking and smoking, I took her out and we hooked up that same night.  She said she had just gotten out of a long-term relationship and had no desire to start anything serious.  Like a fool, I believed her.  We had our fun, and as predicted within two weeks she forgot about moving to a student apartment.  By then I had moved on to another girl.

...no fury like a women scorned.  She couldn't accept it.  She went after Jon, and he was willing.  Initially, I was happy for him.  When we started the hostel, we shared fantasies of young, horny university girls on vacation in Costa Rica showing up at our door and looking to behave badly...preferably with us.  I was perfectly OK with "hostel groupies."  I did not expect him to fall for one girl so bad; and I did not expect her to change him so much.

She had her revenge.  They locked themselves in the garage bar for hours some days.  Whatever she said and did to him in there was worse than any drug.  Within a few weeks Jon's conversation with me dried up to pure business talk: no politics, no sports, no sick, politically-incorrect jokes.  All of my faults (I have many) became magnified through her: any error I made in calculating profits or construction, any inappropriate comment, or any woman I brought back became another problem.  Just to make a point she cooked meals for Jon, the employee Manual and other hostel guests, but never for me.  Her hatred for me turned into his hatred.  I ignored it to the best of my ability and kept working, but this invisible wall continued growing between us.  I was getting irritated, tense and less motivated to work.  One of the cardinal hostel rules we agreed on was, "No free rooms for sex," and the day when she whispered to me with a smirk that she hadn't been paying for the past month, I knew I had to leave.  The business was finished...

I sat in front of the open safe and thought of these past bitter months.  The money envelopes were in my hands.  I could just rob this damn hostel, disappear, and never be heard from again.  Even if I were caught, criminal justice is slow in Latin America, I have connections and my clean record would work in my favor.  But I couldn't.  Revenge doesn't motivate my life.  I left the money in the safe.

With my bags in hand, I walked out the front gate, dropped my keys in the mailbox and left to figure what I would do with the rest of my life in Costa Rica.  I haven't returned to Castle Tam since.

Why I Don't Work At The Hostel (Or First Time Getting Robbed In Costa Rica) Part 2

I awoke before 8 o'clock.  My flight was leaving just after noon and our personal hostel taxi was already scheduled to pick me up at 10am.  My suitcase and guitar were already packed.  I had no memory of packing them last night.

I wondered why I would have packed in such a rush when suddenly all of the events from the previous night rushed back to me: the motorcycle chase, the man with the knife, the glint of a gun, the stolen backpack and the final frantic sprint to the door that ended with me bursting in the door screaming and receiving a blank and emotionless stare from Jon, the hostel owner.  I didn't have much hope for him, but I thought that today we could talk about it.

All of my anger and adrenaline from the assault disappeared overnight.  That morning I felt small, scared and confused.  Something had changed inside of me, and I knew I would never feel right in Costa Rica anymore.  I wished my flight back to the USA had been one-way, as I had no desire to return to Castle Tam or Costa Rica.  I needed a morning shower to clear my head so I walked from my room across the small lobby to the nearest shared bathroom; the same lobby where I had burst in angry last night.  I stepped into the bathroom, took off my shirt, and then realized in my bewildered, dazed state that had forgotten to bring my towel with me.  I still had my shorts on, and looked back into the lobby to see if any guests were around.  It was clear so I quickly dashed to my room for a towel.  With towel in hand, I returned to the bathroom.

At that moment Jon walked through the lobby.  Unlike the previous night, he did not stare at me blankly, but came straight up to me with a grim, dark look on his face.  He stopped no more than a foot in front of me, and said in a controlled but unmistakably angry tone:

"Why aren't you wearing a shirt inside?"

I was unfazed.  After months of virtual silence between the two of us save for updates on new guests, he had not stopped me in the middle of the lobby for a military lecture on appropriate dress code.  Whatever bad blood had been building up between us over the past few months was about to be spilled at that moment.  Oddly, although we were seething, we still stayed professional and kept our volume down so as not to disturb guests.  Our conversation was over a year ago, but I remember it well.

"Oh, C'mon! This is not about my shirt!"

He snapped, "What was all that noise about last night??"

"I was robbed right outside the door last night by two men! No more than 50 meters from the door.  I was running inside from a motorcycle!"

There was a pause.  He was ready to explode but continued in the same tone.

"Look, I know you had a bad night, but this is a place of business, and you don't do that."

I thought to myself: Bad night...  

Bad night!?  A bad night is having a little argument with your girlfriend.  A bad night is drinking a little too much and getting sick.  A bad night is watching you football team lose after being ahead.  A bad night is not being held up by two men with a knife and a gun, getting robbed and watching your life flash before you eyes.  I didn't if he had been in the Navy.  Military training doesn't mean you can't show some humanity.  I hissed through closed teeth:

"Look, when you have knife in your face and someone's threatening your life, let me know if you'll be calm."

Jon didn't respond, and I didn't wait for his response.  I walked past him towards the bathroom.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him turning after me with his hand raised up in a clenched fist.  For a moment, I thought we might brawl right there in the lobby of Castle Tam; but he turned back and marched the opposite direction through the lobby.  I finished my shower and returned to my room to wait the final 20 minutes in silence before the taxi driver arrived.

I had one suitcase and my guitar for the short Christmas trip back to the USA.  I briefly considered gathering my other bags and leaving Castle Tam forever, never to return again; but my stubbornness told me to wait and decide when I returned in January.  I was still by title the "manager" and had a set of hostel keys, access to the safe and the passwords to our online resources such as email, website and booking engines.  Surely Jon wouldn't change the locks or passwords while I was gone...

Why had things turned out so bad?  I thought on it later. When we started the place in April we planned to make it a Costa Rica success and I would carry our legacy on to a partner hostel in Europe.  Now I felt almost as unsafe inside these walls as I did outside where I got robbed.  Instead of support from a friend, I received more aggression and someone who seemed to think it was my fault for getting robbed.

The taxi was here.  I needed to go home and forget Castle Tam and Costa Rica for a while.

First Time Getting Robbed in Costa Rica (Or Why I Don't Work At The Hostel)

(This is not a happy, whimsical Costa Rica "Pura Vida" story about feeding Capuchin monkeys on the sun-kissed beaches of Manuel Antonio National Park.  If you're not interested, stop reading now.)

Things were getting worse between the owner and I at Castle Tam Hostel.  All forms of joking, story-telling and pleasantries had ceased in the past few months.  Our conversations were reduced to strictly business and I felt an intense, growing tension that was sure to break soon.  I knew something would happen, but I did not expect it to happen in the form of our hostel's first weapon assault, which involved me.

I was looking for a way out of the hostel since I had returned from Europe.  I had found it in an interview with Berlitz Language School on the day before I was to return to the USA for a short Christmas holiday.  The interview went well, and I was asked to start training for a part-time teacher position in January when I returned to Costa Rica.  That evening I celebrated the job interview over dinner with a French friend of mine who had recently moved out of the hostel and into a house in the same neighborhood.

We dined on home-cooked food and shared a bottle of wine to toast the Christmas season.  Spirits were high and I felt elated that if things somehow didn't work out at the hostel, at least I had a Plan B.  It was almost 11 o'clock and I knew I had to return to be ready for my flight the next day.  Safety is always an issue in Costa Rica, and my friend asked if I would need a taxi to take me back.

I thought about it for awhile.

She said the few blocks up to the main road were quiet but there were security guards along the way.  I generally didn't worry about San Pedro at night.  The hostel owner and I felt secure that the San Pedro university neighborhood was safe compared to many other places in San Jose.  It was part of the reason he chose the place, and we told guests that it was safe to walk in the area.  I left my friend's house feeling apprehensive but made it to the main road in 5 minutes.  I passed the familiar 'Mas X Menos' supermarket, the BAC Bank and the still-pounding music from the university bars of 'Calle de La Amargura.'  In another 10 minutes I was turning of the main road onto the last 3 blocks to the hostel.  One left, one right, one more left and I was there.

It was just after 11 o'clock and I saw Castle Tam's big green and black sign at the end of the street.  I was home and felt safe.  I slowed my pace a little.

There was shouting behind me.  It took a second to realize they were shouting at me.  I turned and saw a small motorcycle with two men approaching me.  They had masks on. 

Years of living in St. Louis and Chicago, plus all the Latin America horror stories, told me what was happening.  I started running.  The hostel door was no more than 100 meters away.  I pulled my keys out while shouting "Help!" and "Socorro!" in the hopes that someone would hear me and open the gate.

The motorcycle outpaced me quickly.  Fortunately San Jose has extremely deep street gutters made for the massive deluges of the rainy season.  If not for that the motorcycle could have easily driven on the sidewalk in order to cut me off in front of the gate.  Instead it pulled up right beside me.  One of the men jumped off and pulled out a large knife.  He began yelling, "Hijo de puta! Damelabolsa, hijodeputa!" To my own surprise, I turned directly at him and started yelling in his face.

He looked surprised and stepped back a little.  I certainly had no intention of fighting him, but angry adrenaline took me and turning on him allowed me to keep him in my sight as I continued running -sideways- towards the hostel door.  Why was I acting this way?  Rather then feeling outright fear, I was enraged that the first time I should be robbed happened after a life of far more dangerously stupid situations and on the last night before returning to the warmth of my family for Christmas.  Without thinking, I heard myself shouting in Spanish at the guy, "No, no, no! Que queres conmigo?  No tengo nada!"  I also forget that at 6'1", my above-average American stature makes me tower over most average Latinos.  This thief only came up to my chest.  Perhaps it was the adrenaline rush, but now my would-be attacker appeared as scared as I was.  He stayed a few feet back from me and started running sideways too in a mirror image of my trajectory.  I kept an eye on his knife as we continued our ridiculous crab-walking dance for a few more meters toward the Castle Tam sign.

Meanwhile my brain was processing what he was yelling in Spanish.  I have a fairly good propensity for speaking Spanish, but my listening skills (as in English) are a little slower.  "Hijodeputa!" was of course "Sonafabitch," which any basic Spanish speaker knows.  In any foreign language we always desire to learn the dirty words first...motherfuckers.  "Damelabolsa!" eventually translated as, "Gimmethebag!"

I forget that I had a small backpack.  It was a silly thing; one of those little backpacks with strings for straps that barely carries more than 2 books.  It was a Captain Morgan promotional item I had acquired from Mr. Captain Morgan during a night out with hostel guests at a bar.  All it carried were my written notes from my Europe Trip and some books, but the robbers probably thought that I, being a stupid white gringo, was carrying a valuable laptop computer inside.

The hostel gate was very close.  Surely someone inside would hear me and come outside, thereby scaring off my attackers.  The guy with the knife was still at a safe distance yelling, "Damelabolsa!" But he was closing in, and I started feeling afraid.  Then I noticed the driver of the motorcycle reaching into his pocket.

It was something dull and gray that glinted a little.  My first thought was "GUN!"  Although I might have a chance against one small guy with a knife, taking a bullet at close range would mean certain death.

I threw my backpack directly at the knife-man's face.  He stumbled backwards into the motorcycle and I bolted the last few meters to the gate with my keys in hand.  I unlocked the gate quickly, slammed it behind me and briefly turned around to see my assailants.  They were emptying the backpack and shouting in frustrated disappointment that they had found no valuable laptop inside: "Hijo de puta! Hijodeputa, gringo!"  They accelerated the motorcycle in my direction, but I was already inside the interior hostel door.

I burst inside the hostel, screaming in anger and looking for blood.  My words streamed out in a mix of Spanish and English that sound like neither language, "Me robaron-they robbed me-hijodefuckin!" Milastnoche-this hadto-pasarme. Noquiero-estarinetsefuckingcountryCostaRica-jamasnomore."

Our Mexican employee was on the lobby sofa making moves on a cute Mexican guest.  He got up and tried to calm me down while the girl ran away from the raging gringo.  He told me sit down and my blood-lust anger quickly subsided into fear and despair.  My clenched fists relaxed and I finally noticed how much my hands were shaking.  In my blind rage, I had also unknowingly kicked the trashcan across the room.  I was still babbling in Spanglish when the owner came out of his room.

He looked at me in a daze.  He didn't say a single word.  He walked to the reception computer, checked his email and silently returned to his room.  Not. A. Single. Word.

I couldn't believe it.

My anger returned immediately and I was shouting in Spanglish, "See...this is why I can't work here...He doesn't even ask what happened, if things are OK or should I call the police...all he gives a fuckaboutismoney. We used to be cool...How the fuck can you work in hospitality he doesn't care about people....!?!?"

I trailed off... I needed to sleep and see if maybe things would be better in the morning.

They didn't improve.  What happened the next day ended my time at Castle Tam Hostel.



      

Costa Rican Addresses Don't Exist

You saw our pretty new black and green sign.  Think that's enough to find us?

Sorry. It's not.  I'm sure you're thinking, "I'll just tell the taxi driver the address and he'll find it on a map."  First let's pretend the taxi drivers aren't crooked and won't try to rip you off.  Here's the address you will give them to find us:

Costa Rica "Street Sign"

 "100 meters west of Roosevelt School..."
"A large white house on the corner with a black sign and flags..."
No, this isn't 1864.  Costa Rica still uses cardinal points and landmarks instead of real numbers and street names.  Take a quick walk around San Jose and you notice city maintenance forgot to put numbers on the buildings and only put up about half of the street signs.  Several years ago, there was a national vote to implement addresses, and the people actually voted it down.  


Here's a brief sampling of real "addresses" in San Jose in increasing order of difficulty (with links):
  1. Skating Rink San Pedro: 50 meters east of the Hispanic Fountain
  2. National Theater: 2nd Avenue between 3rd Street & 5th Street
  3. Hotel Del Rey: 1st Avenue & 9th Street, 1 block southeast of Parque Morazan
  4. Soda Tapia: East Sabana 42nd Street, 2nd & 4th Avenue in front of Colegio Luis Dobles Segreda
  5. Costa Rica Language Academy: Barrio Dent from Autos Subaru, 300 meters north and 50 meters west on Ronda Street.

I won't bother with the pop quiz because I know you'll fail it.  Finding your way around San Jose gets more complicated due the fact that traffic is atrocious and crossing the street requires balls of steel and a little luck:

This was mostly filmed at the rotunda in front of Mall San Pedro close to Castle Tam.  I had to brave this crossing in order to find the previously mentioned Costa Rican Language Academy, where one of our guests is studying Spanish.  Between this and the novel-worthy directions, a 10 minute walk turned into a 1/2 hour voyage of twists and turns and near-death driveby collisions.

The positive part of this long search for the Costa Rica Language Academy was the discovery of one of the illusive street signs that lay hidden in San Jose like pirate's treasure.  The search continues...

Note: As of 2013 another effort to install road signs has begun.  Let me know if you see them.  Foreigners will probably use the signs, but locals will continue to resort to the old system of landmarks and cardinal points.