Coinage

Aaaah... the good old coin system here. Costa Rica uses the colon (with an accent on that last o) as currency and, as in many other countries in S. America, the currency is constantly dropping in value as compared to the US Dollar. This causes the necessity of frequently redesigning and releasing new coins into circulation, with evidence of inflation each time. A coin worth 20 colones gets sucessively smaller each time. The huge version of the 10 colones coin is about the size of those Liberty dollar coins and has got to be worth less than the 2 cents (USD) it is worth. But since it was made just fifteen years ago, I suppose they are reluctant to take them out of circulation. The result is a huge array of coins all worth the same ammount mixed with several versions of other coins of varying ammounts - all being used at the same time! Oh, and sometimes you end up getting back Dollars for change, too.

I'll try to get a picture of all of them up here some time soon.

Corruption

In regards to the huge debate in the US now considering illegal Mexican immigrants, I've always felt that an ideal solution to all the border control problems would be to remove the borders completely. I've figured that the border results in the US taking advantage of poverty in Mexico. Wouldn't the world be wonderful if there were no borders creating such disparities?

Lately I've been realizing, however, how unrealistic such a solution might be. Corruption in government - in all countries - naturally prevents any such Utopia. I've been considering how corruption in government perhaps creates a need for borders.

San Jose is well known for it's high crime rates. I've been told that Costa Rica has the same amount of police as they did fifty years ago. A solution to the crime in the city seems obvious.

When I asked a San Jose native the other day why he figured there was such crime in the city he explained that the cops here simply aren't paid enough. At least a large majority of them are corrupt. He said, "There are people that could be good cops, but they all have jobs elsewhere!" He elaborated, "So the people that end up being cops are the people that don't have anything else to do." Perhaps that is a bit cynical, but it definitely shows an interesting aspect of the politics down here.

On the bus to Nicaragua I had some further insight. About 3 km from the border the bus stopped and let off a bunch of people who ended up walking down some dirt trail away from the road. I asked the guy beside me where he though they were going and he said, "They're going to Nicaragua... they just have to hike a ways to get around border control." The bus had already been stopped and checked by border control, and so I asked how they had gotten by them! He replied simply, "Oh, they just paid the cops a bit so there wouldn't be any problems."

On the way back from Nicaragua I saw another funny incident. After I had gone through all the hoops at the border and gotten on the bus headed toward the city, I was surprised when the bus stopped at the same trail. All of a sudden about 20 or 30 Nicaraguans came out of a shack and boarded the bus. One of them ended up sitting by me, and I had a chance to talk to him a bit. I asked him how people are so easily able to cross the border illegally and he told me that they just needed to contact someone with the police to set everything up so that they don't have any troubles with the border control farther down the road - for a small fee, of course.

Now, I suppose it is easy to complain about the unfamiliar differences in government here (and I'm not saying that there is no corruption in my government - it's just different there), but it is difficult to see any solutions. I suppose that's the same way everyone around here feels. They do live well, for the most part, anyways.

So that's a bit of insight into how things are down here. It's still paradise, just with its fair share of the real world.

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

So after sitting around the hostel trying to fight off some virus I picked up in Nicaragua, I decided I had to ship out to the Caribbean coast for one last trip before school started.
What a great decision! Puerto Viejo ended up being one of my favorite cities in Costa Rica. Even though it is mainly a tourist town, Puerto Viejo has maintained a very comfortable environment. It’s a wonderful Caribbean getaway!

I stayed at Lonely Planet’s #1 recommended budget hostel called Rocking J’s. I paid $5/night for a hammock to sleep in. The place was right on the beach which was one of the most amazing beaches I’ve seen in my life! Every picture I took of it turned out post-card perfect! The mosquitoes liked the place, too. I ended up looking like a red polka-dotted clown by the time I left. I’m glad none of them gave me dengue. I hear bad stuff about that.

My first day in Puerto Viejo I met some people out on the beach. They turned out to all be students at the University of Costa Rica! I ended up following them down Manzanillo, a little town surrounded by a wildlife reserve. After hiking about 15 or 20 minutes down a dirt trail paralleling the coast we found some of the coolest places ever! These completely natural beaches just blew my mind!

Hugging the shores of most of the coast are coral reefs that prevent swimming in most areas. I got lucky on my last day there because I was able to borrow a friend’s diving mask and swim around the reefs. The reefs weren’t living, so they weren’t full of color, but they made great homes for a lot of colorful fish. That was yet another experience that fed my desire to learn more about life under the sea. It is a whole new world down there!
(Does anyone else have a couple Disney songs going through their heads after that last paragraph?)

Well, all good things do come to an end and I had to come back to San Jose to start going to school. I’ve done two days so far and it’s looking like I’m going to get to take some pretty cool classes that will end up allowing me to finish my minors in GIS and in Computer Science by the end of the school year. This should make for an interesting semester!

Melati's pictures from San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

My new friend Melati from Holland took these pictures at the beach in Nicaragua. Luckily, she didn’t have a digital camera and had to use my camera… so I get all the pictures! Thanks, Melati! You’re a great artist!

Culture vs. Culture

Finally back 'home' in San Jose, I've been thinking about the differences in culture between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Though I didn't get a chance to really get to know the people of Nicaragua, I did notice that, in general, the people there are much more distant and less courteous at first glance than those here in Costa Rica. Now, I don't mean to say that they are rude; they just don't seem to possess the same smiley gene and over-the-top politeness that is common to Ticos (by the way, Tico means Costa Rican).

This difference was intriguing to me. I've been pondering over the cause of this difference, and what to make of it. One of my travel friends suggested the influence of the recent dictatorship of Luis Somoza Debayle ending in 1979 (see http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDnicaragua.htm).

Now, compare that to the history of Costa Rica which won its independence without any gunshots and has abolished its army (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_rica).

After considering these historical differences further, I am really quite fascinated at how strong of an influence a society's history can have on their culture. Perhaps an understanding of history is always necessary in order to fully understand people.

But does this mean that one culture is necessarily more or less friendly than another?

My conclusion is thus:

People are people and wherever there are people there are good people and there are bad people. There are friendly people and there are cold people. Some friendly people are cold on the inside. Some cold people are friendly on the inside. I suppose the following is also true, that some good people are bad on the inside, and some bad people are good on the inside.

Because a society's history has such a great influence on its people, perhaps, at least on the outside, the people will possess common characteristics or attitudes. But still, because people are people, it is always wise to look deeper before making any judgments concerning who a person really is.

So, can you ever legitimately say that one culture is better than another?

How about we leave this up to a discussion on the comments page of this blog entry. Please, if you would like to offer any thoughts concerning my ramblings, please leave me a comment by clicking on the comments link below.

Andando por Nicaragua

The other day I was lying on a hammock at the edge of an island listening to the waves from Lake Nicaragua crash into the shore as I worked on my ‘20 questions’ computer science assignment. The island was truly amazing. Formed by two volcanoes rising out of the middle of the lake, one volcano is still active with one side covered in lava flows.

The island was well populated with several towns surrounding the volcanoes. However, I ended up having to turn in my programming assignment late because it took me 2 days to find internet access. What can I expect when I’m on an island?

The hotel my new travel companions and I ended up staying at was in a natural reserve about a half kilometer off the main road that circled the island. We had to hike down the dirt road to the hotel that turned out to be a vacationer’s paradise. With hammocks hanging at various places around the property and a lake at perfect swimming temperature, it was a great place to relax and just enjoy paradisiacal climate.

One evening my new friends and I, along with another traveler we met from Mexico, went to eat in the little town nearby. The ‘restaurant’ we ate at was simply a table and chairs set up on someone’s porch where they served us a chicken from the back yard. The food was cooked over an open fire in the kitchen as the pig ran in and out through the house.

On the way back we met some kids who were super happy to eat some of the bread we were carrying. Here they are…

I am currently just about to leave Granada, a Spanish colonial town a bit farther north in Nicaragua. Getting here was quite an adventure. The bus driver had a crazy look in his eyes and ended up in a high-speed race with another bus along the highway. Interestingly enough, the roads are in much better condition here than in Costa Rica, and so the driver was able to achieve his dream of NASCAR racing as he barely passed the challenging bus before having to swerve back into the right lane to avoid collision with the oncoming semi. I was seriously scared for my life! I couldn’t blame the driver for the crazy driving, however… a sign posted at the front of the bus stated in English: “YOU are responsible for the safe operation and cleanliness of this vehicle”. You can see that the guy in the front seat is nervous as well because of his responsibility… he couldn’t stop biting his fingernails!

I’m just about to head off for the beach before I start back for Costa Rica. It’s been really fun here in Nicaragua, and it’s been interesting to see that even though it is a poorer country than Costa Rica, I feel much safer walking the streets around here. I still can’t quite figure out why that is, but it really is ‘tranquillo’ here.

Well, until next time from who-knows-where! Adios!