We were enjoying a morning coffee in the tropical storm, when someone asked if we spoke English. She was a small woman with a large chip on her shoulder. Had we been to the beach? she asked. Had we SEEN what was there? she asked. Her tone indicated that the beach was the place where Costa Ricans molested their children in public.
She had been to Central America several times, she said. She was a seasoned and patient traveler, she averred. She had been to Nicaragua (pronounced Nee-haar-A-wah) and Panama (pah-na-MAH), and had never ever turned her back on a place before. But she had gone to Playa Flamingo (PLY-zhha, Fla-MEEN-goh), a tony resort, and had been appalled. It was unspeakably bad.
"What was wrong?" we asked.
"It was soooo touristy," said this tourist, "I just don't go for that kind of thing." She searched for the best way to illustrate her disgust. "They had a Pizza Hut," she said.
We nodded in deep sympathy (even though we'd just knocked back a personal pan pizza apiece at the airport in Dallas).
She asked us if we knew if other beaches in Costa Rica were like that. Without waiting for an answer, she continued on. She and her husband loved to travel. She was very fond of Nee-haar-A-wah, where things were not like they were in Khost-ah REE-kah. Of course, the beaches there weren't so nice, and the policemen carried machine guns and picked up spare change by robbing tourists, but at least she didn't have to share air with Pizza Hut employees.
After having gotten that off her chest, she pushed off to her room. I felt a little bad. Costa Ricans are a sensible folk who abolished their army 60 years ago and have, as a result, never had a civil war since. They have managed to build up a stable tourist industry, a large number of coffee plantations, and a safe, stable society.
Of course, for the people most inclined to take the side of the oppressed underclass that makes Costa Rica a place to avoid.
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