Do They Exist?

Dear Readers, I have been neglectful of you these past weeks. As you know September is my (crazy insane) busy month. And so I’ve been celebrating it’s busy-ness by working on Saturday nights, working on both Mexican and U.S. national holidays, sleeping 5 hours a night instead of 8, working some more and by not blogging.

But today it all stops. Today we pack the bags and find the passports and walk away from our lives. Today we fly to Costa Rica.

Since making the decision to take this trip we’ve been greeted with various reactions from others. Some people say “ooohh Costa REEEKaaa!” As if it were Mars, as if it were the most exotic place on the planet, as if it’s streets were paved in gold. Others say “[pause] oh, well, uh, have you BEEN there before? Well, it’s OK once but I wouldn’t go back.” (By the way, we have not been there before.)

But the best comment I’ve heard is “los Ticos no existen” (the “Ticos”, meaning the Costa Ricans, don’t exist).

Apparently some visitors to Costa Rica feel there’s something lacking in the culture there. Well, I live in Cancun, where it’s easier to find a plastic surgeon than a bookstore, so you don’t need to explain a lack of culture to me. And it’s true that Costa Rica doesn’t seem to be known for its music or art or food or for its cultural traditions.

But other visitors to Costa Rica think of it as an ecological wonderland. Costa Rica has coasts on both the Caribbean and the Pacific and it has volcanoes and mountains of over 12,000 feet (3900 meters). Costa Rica has only about 0.1% of the world’s landmass but it has about 5% of the world’s biodiversity. About 25% of Costa Rica is protected land. And Costa Rica has set a goal for itself to become the first developing country to become carbon neutral, a goal they hope to achieve by the year 2021.

In learning what I have about Costa Rica it looks to me like the Ticos do exist. It looks like they are busy setting lofty goals, passing forward-thinking laws and protecting their land. Maybe that’s why they are not known for making music and art, maybe they are busy doing other things?

Anyway, I won’t know if they actually exist until I get there. So I’ll let you know.

– NPR Story: Costa Rica Aims to Be a Carbon-Neutral Nation
– Wikipedia: Costa Rica

If I have cell phone coverage in Costa Rica (not holding my breath given how mountainous it is there) I will be sending text Tweets to my Twitter account so stayed turned:
– Twitter: RiverGirlCancun’s Tweets

Similar Posts

• Oscar Cadena in Costa Rica
• Costa Rica Trip Report – Part 1
• Random Notes on Costa Rica
• Is friendship a Mexican thing?
• Out of my Orbit

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 9:18 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.