Trip to the other side of the world returns
Costa Rica paints the most
striking picture with paradise like nature parks compensated, actually over
compensated by poverty ridden cities, where people literally hide behind fences.
Every building, store, house is protected by a fence with crushed glass on top, barbwire,
electrified fence or sometimes all of the above. I haven’t seen any tar
pits or moats with crocodiles, but then again I didn’t venture myself beyond
the gates.
Our guide tried to reassure us
that the architecture was part of the local culture, but walking the streets of
San Jose made crossing Ferentari at night (those who don’t know this part of
Bucharest should try it) like kids play. Is that kind of watch your back
sensation that you get from the first day and follows your everywhere there is
people around.
Breaking into the vault of the
FED must have been less troublesome than the procedure we had to go through
when we decided to go inside an electronics store to ask for a memory card
adaptor. First, we had to wait for somebody to unlock the door which happened after
1 minute or so of close scrutiny through the glass window. One of the three
guys let me in after probably deciding we were not a threat and asked me to
state my business. In the meantime his two other friends were watching tense,
prepared to jump in case I would have decided to attack them with my sandals or
dirty kleenex cause that was my most dangerous weapon at the time. When they realized
they didn’t have the stuff we wanted they hastily showed us the door and
quickly locked it behind to make sure we don’t come back for more questions. This,
by the way was happening midday in a store situated in a populated neighborhood
that had DVDs as most valuable merchandise.
To clear all doubts on safety,
one of the maids decided to steal a 100 euro bill from our hotel room. We were
ready to book it as impairment when the money was returned to us by the hotel
manager. Turns out that there is only one bank in whole Costa Rica which exchanges
100 euro bills and fortunately for us keeps records of its customers. Clearly,
that was not one of her best days.
Apart from that the capital
looks very colorful and alive. Markets and streets are busy with shoppers,
people playing games or door less Mercedes busses made probably before Karl Benz
decided to join the show.
Long reach of US is making its
presence felt though the ATMs where you can get local coin (weird looking
banknotes with animal imprints) or American dollars, name of hotels or the
proud speech the waiter gave us at a touristy terrace in the middle of the
capital where JFK himself apparently had a beer of two.
Coffee tastes like nothing you
have ever tasted before, thing is you cannot get more than 5 kilos out of the
country so we made sure we drank as much as we could during our stay. With
fruits is the same story, pineapple is amazing not only through taste, but also
to my surprise I found out that it grows below ground.
Volcanos have always fascinated
me. Since I discovered National Geographic on tv I was always on the lookout
for such shows, pictures, adventures. Sheer force of Mother Nature, reshaping
landscape in a matter of moments with red molten streams of lava is a reminder
of how brief is or it can become the human episode on Earth. And, if there is
one thing Costa Rica has in high supply (besides crocodiles) is the volcanos,
so naturally that was one of the first things I went to see.
First one (Irazu) lacked the spectacular
and drama, from the eruption point of view that is. Craters were huge though
and since we wanted to catch a glimpse from the edge we had to drive to over
3000 meters. Altitude was something that slipped our minds (too much coffee I
guess) cause we should have figured out that even in the hottest summer, when
you get to over 3 kilometers above sea level you’re gonna need warm clothes or
some lava heat. So after trembling our butts off, we decided to give a shot to
another one more active.
Last
one was Poas - its steaming crater hiding the sun in midday. Smell of sulfur was
almost unbearable. Pretty good representation for the gates of Hell, assuming
it has an entrance. Made me think twice about cursing on the way back.
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