Costa Rica - A Fans Guide

I like to think if your are an NN customer you probably appreciate travel, new experiences, and would most likely risk a bad tasting, but new, dinner instead of an always mediocre choice from Appledays.

Anyway, that’s aside, let me talk about Costa Rica. As of late March 2009 I am seeing rates from large US Airports to San Jose Costa Rica in the sub $300 range, on airlines like Frontier and others. So if I were you, I would hop a plane for a long weekend and explore CR a little bit, before we ruin it.

With rates that low, and the current popularity of “adventure” or “eco” tourism, I have a strong suspicion that CR will be going the way of the Mexico coast, or parts of the Caribbean. You know, a lot less eco, and a lot more economizer buffets.

I spent 2 weeks in CR last summer. The wife and I traveled around the entire country with our tiny 4×4. We ate at roadside stands, got stuck in mud holes and had miles of pacific coast to ourselves. We also watched Tico’s (the term for native Costa Ricans) empty a “nature friendly” hotels septic tank into an adjacent swollen river, and of course saw plenty of Americans etching away a bit of the Central American flavor one request for ketchup at a time.

Unfortunately, like all the “destinations” before it, the ease of accessibility breeds destruction of the reason it is popular in the first place. But for now, for maybe 10 more years, Costa Rica is a goldmine for the person who loves fun, adventure and a little out of the box experiences. Flights are cheap right now, food and lodging is cheap, especially away from the ultra popular areas. Car rental, which IMHO is a mandatory expense for exploring is not cheap, we paid $688 for 2 weeks in our Daihatsu BeGo 4×4, over half of that cost insurance. But it is a must do for sure, especially to get to the places away from the other Gringos that attracts you to the country in the first place. Not a big deal since you’ve saved a bunch of money on the perfect clothing for equatorial travel anyway, right?

If you are a fan of surfing . If you are human, take the longer drive, and ferry ride, and crappy road adventure to land yourself in Mal Pais, on the Nicoya penninsula. Still a mostly dusty, one road surf village un-infested with ridiculous resorts and high school football star scared of white-water punks from Dallas, that you will find in more popular places like Manuel Antonio and Monteverde. Though those places are still well worth the visit, they are popular for a reason. In Mal Pais you will find a bunch of hippy surfers, cheap 6 packs of Imperial from the one grocery type store and cheap rooms. Most, if not all of the roads north of here are impassible, so we rented a ATV at $21/day and went all the way up the length, mostly quiet coast (above). That’s why you come to CR, and if you can make it in the next 10 years, it will probably still be worth it.