DAY 10: LOVELY COSTA RICA -- I think I’m in love! With Costa Rica. What’s not to love about this place:
+over 25% of the land has been set aside as protected areas
+the biodiveresity is awesome, with over a half million different species, +they have no army or military force of any kind,
+they’ve had a national health care program for 50 years,
+public education goes through high school, and generous loans are available to students wishing to attend college,
+the rates for unemployment, literacy, and infant mortality are inconsequential,
+there are only two seasons, wet and dry,
+it is almost entirely a non-smoking place,
+and the average life span here is 75 years.
No wonder they named it Rich Coast!

We spent most of the morning driving around the western mountains, and took a two hour eco-cruise in a mangrove river loaded with exotic birds and sleepy crocodiles, and never did make it to San Jose, the capital.

As in Puerto Quetzal, the cruise ship dock and the commercial port have been sited pretty far from civilization, so tourists like us who wish to explore the country
have to be bused to wherever they want to go. This is counterintuitive, and I bet that before too long the law of supply and demand will click in and tourist services will be built in Puerto Caldera.

Which reminds me of one of my pet peeves, and I’d best get it off my chest. Whenever we get on one of those tourist buses, the guide will eventually ask if anyone has questions, which opens the floodgates to tacky questions about money. How much does this house cost? How much does that house cost? How much do cars cost here? How much is gasoline? How much, how much, how much. I suppose it is, on some level, an interesting and appropriate question, but simply translating the answer into US dollars and US culture is at best a patronizing and impossible task.

There. I feel better already.

But Ann doesn’t. She’s had some tummy problems for a few days, and on the spur of the moment dropped in to the on-board Medical Center, where they put her under house arrest. No, not really, but they might as well have. She’s not to leave
her stateroom for 24 hours, and she’s to take all the yummy-tummy medications they
gave her I’m not sure how all that’s to be enforced, but we hope it will make her feel better.

The Ryndam will be pulling up the gangplank and getting out of here in a few hours, headed on south for the Golfo Dulce (“beautiful gulf”?) and the Panama Canal, all while we’re eating and sleeping.