Getting to Know You...

Ir used to be Columbus Day...commemorating that hopeful mariner's arrival in the West Indies.
Given the consequences.....illness, slavery and death....Central American states now prefer to celebrate a Dia de Culturas...celebrating native and incoming cultures.

Thus the picture on the right...a troupe of Chilean dancers taking part in the celebrations in the parks of San Jose.

It's a great way of appreciating just how many different peoples have come to make their lives in Costa Rica as government agencies and schools set up events over the weekend....you could sample food from Russia, Italy, Chile,China, Nicaragua and the West Indies in booths set up at the Migracion offices...normally resembling a Cecil B. de Mille crowd scene but decorated by the staff to be attractive and welcoming.....

You could watch demonstrations of crafts from Guatemala and Peru...

Or you could just enjoy the dancers.....




The Saviour of Costa Rica....and British at that!

Costa Rica is a small country abounding in rivers...which makes travel by road a problem as these rivers need crossing, and river crossings need to have an eye kept on their maintenance.

Which is exactly what the Transport Ministry (MOPT) and the Roads Authority (CONAVI) have not been doing for several years.

As our own experiences have shown.

While we were still holidaying here we decided to take a trip to the National Agricultural School on the other side of the Central Valley and decided to go cross country to avoid retracing our steps for some forty kilometres by going into the suburbs of the capital and out again.

This meant crossing the Virilla River, carrying the pollution of the Central Valley towns down to the Pacific Ocean.....but the map showed a way across so off we went.

Costa Rica is not well endowed with direction signs, and certainly none existed on the dirt tracks which had succeeded to the asphalted roads once we left the better populated areas.

We passed a large pig farm - and were surprised that we knew and were known to the man with the tractor working there.
He gave directions.

At a junction by a mango plantation we asked again.
Down there....pointing somewhere equidistant between the two tracks available.

Down there, we came across men cutting cane.
Yes, down there.

So down there we went, cautiously as the track had turned into a quagmire after the rains.
We turned a corner, and gasped.

There was the Virilla river.
A long way down.
Crossed by a suspension bridge.
A suspension bridge which had seen better days.
To the point that there were more gaps than planks.

Turning was impossible...it was the bridge or bust - and luckily it didn't.

We arrived safely at the Agricultural School, to find it was closed to visitors, but the man selling cheese produced there took pity on us and made a 'phone call, which resulted in us having the undivided attention of the deputy director himself, giving us a guided tour of everything from artificial insemination of Bramah cattle to a crocodile farm via water buffalo to produce proper mozarella.
Scots blood might have helped...the place had been founded by Scottish veterinary surgeons before being handed over to the state.

It was a wonderful tour guided by a real expert and we had almost forgotten about the terrors of the bridge when we saw a news item on the television.

A similar bridge further downstream over the Tarcoles River had collapsed, taking a bus and its passengers into the fast flowing waters.

The living escaped onto the roof of the bus to be rescued by Red Cross workers and volunteers.

That there were only five deaths among the thirty eight passengers was due to the abnormally low level of the river.
This  video shows what crossing that bridge was like in the rainy season that year.

The bridge collapse meant that communities were cut off.....so a replacement was needed, urgently. And, as always, the answer was a bailey bridge.

                                                                        

These bridges, the product of British wartime ingenuity, are the mainstay of road transport in Costa Rica with at least eighty in service to keep things moving both on the backroads and on the major highway between San Jose and the international airport where lack of maintenance led to a huge sinkhole forming recently, closing half the road and reducing most of the Central Valley to gridlock until two Bailey bridges were set up while repairs (still unfinished) took place.

The bridge was designed for warfare. It was made of light prefabricated parts which could be  transported and assembled without the need for heavy lifting gear and being modular could be made as long and strong as was required by doubling up on the component parts.

It took the British army and its tanks across Africa and through Europe to final victory, the brainchild of Donald Bailey, a civil servant with a passion for bridges. An amateur.

And now, in a fine example of swords turned into ploughshares, it is keeping Costa Rica on the move, from the farmer taking his crop to market to the lorries hauling goods between Mexico and Panama on the Interamericana Highway. 

But without the genius of Donald Bailey Costa Rica would be at a standstill.

Is there something the matter with me....?

                           (Photo credit: Wikipedia)A rash question....so there will be a pause to allow for the cries of
'Damn right there is......' followed by examples illustrating the point.

Calm having been restored by judicious use of chair and whip I shall explain why this thought has just occurred to me.

Young members of the family are visiting Costa Rica and see it as an unmissable part of the experience to stay at a 'boutique hotel and spa' on the coast.
Puzzled by my lack of enthusiasm they explain that they are both busy people - true - and need time to 'chill'.
In which case why not try a cruise to Alaska, one thinks but probably wisely does not say.

I take a look at the chosen resort.
It is miles from anywhere, so unless you call a taxi you are a prisoner of the hotel insofar as eating is concerned.
It is not at all clear from the hotel's website whether your food and drink are included in the astronomical room rates.
Hints garnered from Tripadvisor suggest that they are not.

It is on the beach.
Wonderful.
Except that you can't swim off the beach in front of the hotel as it is decidedly rocky. You have to trot up the beach for some five minutes to find a spot where the waves are less likely to land you on something liable to impale you in a sensitive area.

The beach is empty, so the guests' feedback reads.
Yes, of course it is.
Totally illegally the hotel has wired off its stretch of beach which prevents local people from using it.

The hotel has a dojo.
Something Japanese....Sumo wrestling, perhaps, or an origami works....?
No.
It's a space with stone Buddhas lurking just where they might catch the foot unwarily swung while undergoing yoga.
Two free sessions a day with a most sinister looking man covered in tattoos.

I have never understood the appeal of yoga.
Should I wish to have my limbs and body contorted into unnatural positions I would take up skiing which also has the advantage of apres ski as opposed to faddy health drinks and a distinct absence of people saying
'Om.'

'Ouch'...yes.
'Om'...No.

The accommodation consists of separate units dotted about the grounds...one bedroom or two, closed in and air conditioned, with sitting area and - would you believe - shower and loo in the open air. There are head height walls but there don't appear to be any doors.
Hammocks are provided for every unit.

What happens in the rainy season? Nipping out of your air conditioned shelter for a quick pee while the thunderbolts sizzle overhead and the rain buckets down like Victoria Falls has very little going for it apart from desperation.
Follow that up by hoisting yourself into a wet hammock and you've got a head start on rheumatism at a young age.

Which is why, I suppose, they have a spa.
To me, a spa is somewhere you drink water which tastes foul, in the hope that your illness will also think it foul and shab off elsewhere.
However, things have changed.

It appears nowadays that a spa is somewhere where you are plastered with mud, wrapped in clingfilm and tenderised while having hot stones placed on your backbone.
Prices start at sixty dollars for an hour......oh, and another twenty dollars if you want exclusive use of a jacuzzi after the treatment. This, remember on top of the astronomical room rate.
I do not see the attraction.
Not at that price.
Come to that, not at any price. Put a hot stone on my backbone and you'll have lift off.

The hotel, in accordance with the image of Costa Rica as eco friendly, is itself eco respectable.
Thus your loo paper, once used, is placed in a bin in the open air loo to be collected by staff.
Bags me not that little task...
To me, that is not so much a mark of respect for the environment as an indication that the hotel's sewage disposal system leaves something to be desired.

Your towels and bedlinen will be changed only every three days - neatly coinciding with the average stay - so try to dry yourself in the sun if you don't appreciate damp towels.

Oh, and there's no television......giving you ample opportunity to read a book.
Just be sure to bring one along as there is no library.

Is it because I am retired, with plenty of time to 'chill' that all this strikes me as a waste of time and money?
Would I think differently if I were younger, my days and nights full with work and family?

No.
When I was working at full capacity, my idea of 'chilling' was, depending on the time available, to read a book, visit an interesting garden, go to a cricket match, drop into a favourite museum or gallery, try a new restaurant or take off to a new area of France.

Under no circumstances could I have borne to be out of reach of a daily newspaper...even if local...and although in later life I took package holidays using hotels in wired in compounds, I used them as a base to explore. There would always be a local bus or taxi outside the security point - and I was away for the day.

And as for flopping about in spas...I can plaster mud on myself should I so desire.

The whole thing seems to me to be completely mindless.

Yet while I regard this sort of experience as a meretricious con trick, these hotels multiply across the globe, with people undertaking the horror of long haul flights to spend a week in their gilded prisons.

Clearly, there has to be something the matter with me....