The Wrong Side of the Volcano

We took a trip to see a volcano this week.....Volcan Arenal, seen here from across the artificial lake created to supply hydroelectric power for Costa Rica.

Looks cool and sleepy, doesn't it? And so people thought who farmed its slopes until in July 1968, without any warning, it erupted, killing 87 people, covering an area of some fifteen kilometres in ash and lava...rocks weighing several tons being launched into the air.
A tragedy.

But as activity, less violent but very dramatic, continued, it was put to good account in Costa Rica's burgeoning tourist business.....where else could you see this, for example?

                                                      An amazing sight!

Hotels began to be built offering their clients views of nature's fireworks from the comfort of their own rooms...or sitting on the terrace, glass in hand, while the volcano rumbled and spat fire at close range.

As the tourist demand increased, other activities prospered too. Hot springs establishments....bird watching visits to the wetlands to the north...fishing and windsurfing on Lake Arenal...

And just as well, because Arenal began to nod off again....

First the flow moved round to the other side of the volcano - depriving the expensive tourist traps of their main attraction  - and now seems to have ceased completely.
No fireworks...no rumbles.

I still see some pretty misleading publicity about Arenal...I have no idea if the guidebooks have caught up with the situation...but eventually the distributors will run out of postcards and flyers showing molten lava running down from the cone and the businesses dependent on its presence will die or adapt.

Death or adaption has been the choice of whole areas of Europe where traditional industrial production was a way of life.
Coal mines, steel mills...filthy dirty things that ruined the health of as many as they employed, if not more...but regarded as essential to produce the necessities that the nation required to be independent.

Governments decided that they did not need to safeguard these  industries any more...any more than they needed to maintain control of transport and energy supply.
The mines and factories closed, private enterprise took over the transport and energy industries - but never without a hefty subsidy from the public purse.

The same public purse that funded governments'  preference for maintaining able bodied people on benefits rather than making any effort to replace the old industries with new.
Inculcating the dependency culture they would pretend to deplore.

Governments abdicated their responsibilities both to people and to nation, putting everything up for grabs in the name of the market.

The market.
Where everything which affects our lives is bought and sold to enrich others.
The market.
Pelf its only pride.

Governments - or rather the financial - media - political nexus which has replaced the traditional model - have been farming the slopes of green and pleasant lands undisturbed since they renounced their traditional responsibilities....their peoples drugged by the bribes of easy credit into falling into hedonism.
Lotus eaters.
But the lotus are running short on the shelves of Tesco.

Governments - or rather the political - media - finance nexus which has replaced the traditional model - are savvier than the farmers on the slopes of Arenal in the sixties. They know that those waked from a drugged sleep can be violent - thus all the 'security' measures justified by the fear of 'terrorism'.

How long before there is a social explosion from the other side of the slopes that sends pieces of their corrupt edifice flying to destruction?

And should it come, and when it comes, remember that you, middle class, law abiding, protesting peacefully at the loss of all you and your parents worked for, will be treated as though you were a lawless lout on the rampage. For such you will be in the eyes of those who make the  law. The law of the market.

a

Follow the guide...

Image via Wikipedia

Friends are visiting...they have a fortnight to 'do' Costa Rica!

They have used the first couple of days to visit the capital, San Jose... where they were astonished by the wealth of architecture.....and volcano Poas...which was broody and would not reveal its secrets... then used the internet to arrange the nuts and bolts of their trip.

As I have discovered, there are two ways to tour Costa Rica...the tourist way and the local way.

In the local way, you check where you have family and go to stay with them, using their home as a base for touring.
If you don't have family, you  look around for 'cabinas', individual accommodation, varying from wooden huts with cold water only to proper small houses with fans and hot water.
They're advertised in the newspapers, or you just ask around when you get to where you're going, except in the peak local holiday seasons when anything decent has long been taken.

Then there's the tourist way. You use the guide books.

Our visitors had done their homework...they wanted to visit several different areas in order to enjoy to the full the variety of climates and environments which Costa Rica has to offer.

They wanted to go to Tortuguero...the maze of wetlands on the Caribbean coast.
But there is limited public transport and all the hotels have to offer are inclusive tours from the capital...the cheapest being two hundred and eighty seven U.S. dollars per person for a two nights all in.
All in, unless you would like a glass of wine or beer with your dinner...
All in, unless you would like to tour the wetlands in a  boat at dusk or dawn to see the astounding bird life.
Which is why you go there.

Tortuguero was off the list, then.

Arenal...the volcano in full activity, with nocturnal lava flows...was next on the list.
We looked at the website for the hotel to which they had had a recommendation from a friend.
Yes, it was on the side of the volcano where the lava is currently flowing....but the view of the volcano was all there was to offer and if the nights were cloudy they would see nothing, just hear the eery crack of the tumbling rockfalls.
It was miles from the nearest town...over a rough road...so once you were there you were the prisoner of the hotel.
If you wanted to eat somewhere else, it was a taxi ride costing some ten dollars at least each way...
If you wanted to visit the hot springs in the area it would be at least twenty dollars each way....
To get to the hanging bridges, the butterfly farms or whatever...it would cost you.

Why not, we said, stay in the cabinas with similar views of the lava flow situated alongside the hanging bridges and the butterfly farm, in a village half way to the local town with a few cafes and ask locals about the non touristy hot springs establishments?
Both our guests spoke Spanish, after all.

No. The cabinas were not in their guide book.

But they are on the net...you can see how nice the rooms are and they have hot showers and breakfast is included.

No. They would follow the guide book and the recommendation from their friend...who had probably used the same guide book.

Well, check Tripadvisor. See if the reviews bear out what the guide book says.

No, the hotel would be fine.

At that point I gave up.

I would like to have spared them paying one hundred and twenty nine dollars per person per night to be stuck out in the wilds of nowhere....but the power of the guidebook shows how worthwhile it is for the hotels to advertise with it.