Say “thank you” to an American and you’ll usually get a “you’re welcome” or even a “no problem” these days, say it to a Mexican and you’ll get “por nada”, meaning "it was nothing" but say thank you to a Tico, as they call themselves in Costa Rica and you’ll invariably get “Con mucho gusto” meaning "with much pleasure." And it was, with much pleasure, that Judy and I flew out of San Francisco by America West Airlines to San José Costa Rica’s Juan Santamaria airport.   We landed about 10:30 PM for our two week stay. Luggage pick up and customs was pretty quick. A group of taxi drivers hovered outside the automatic doors. A deep breath and we would be foreigners in someone else's country. One driver almost had us but another, with seemingly more authority, brushed him aside and took us to an official looking dispatch widow. I threw them off guard, however, by attempting to pay in their own currency, Costa Rican colones. Out came a calculator, as it did a number of times during our journey, as we tried to unload the 375,000 colones we had purchased at the San Francisco Airport. $12 will get you to a downtown hotel and dollars were acepted, if not preffered for most of the activities and shopping we did. There's approximately 435 colones to the dollar and varies day by day. You're not expected to tip taxi drivers and a service charge is either included or added on to restaurant menus.   A half an hour or so and we were kicking off our shoes in our third floor room at the Hotel Europa. We had a large comfortable room in the 100 year old hotel for about $70 per night (including a hefty 16% tax) with breakfast. Some man-handling got the heavy, stiff sliding glass doors open to our balcony overlooking the pool. Much of the hotel is surrounded by buildings with stark white walls calling out for a muralist. I trusted reports of drinkable tap water- it even tasted good-but drank bottled water in the Caribbean regions.
Costa Rica abandoned her army in 1949 Has the highest literacy rate in Latin America Has more species of birds than all of North America From San Jose you can drive to either the Pacific or the Atlantic coasts in under three hours.   Next morning we went to the nearby Gran Terminal del Caribe for a five hour bus journey to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, a short distance from the border with Panama.  We were out of the city in short order climbing into the mountainous rainforest. Some of the American college students on board exclaimed at our drivers passing manuevers but Judy and I thought it pretty tame compared to trips we'd had in Mexico's Sierra Madres. Huge ferns and plants with umbrella sized leaves lined the road. We passed through the Braulio Corrillo National Park and dropped down towards the Caribbean Coast. Large banana plantations appeared then stacks of metal cargo containers as we neared Limon, Costa Rica's main shipping port on the east coast.	Photo of painting for sale at Hotel Cariblue.
Judy of the Jungle.	After a brief stop in Cahuita we arrived in the evening in Puerto Viejo. Glad to be leaving some of our follow, soon-to-be-partying, passengers behind we caught a taxi for the mile ride outside of town to Playa Cocles and the Cariblue Hotel.   Judy and I agreed: the Cariblue had the best service of anywhere we've ever stayed! Their website has a lot of information about local beaches, towns, birds and animal life. Richie, the online reservation manager, promptly answered all my email questions before we arrived. Freddie and others helped us make arrangements for many of the activities we wanted to do. Our thatch roofed duplex cost about $75 per night including a delicous buffett breakfast.   Although it was the rainy season it didn't rain much on us and temperatures were pretty mild in San Jose and the Caribbean with on and off humidity. I only wore a long sleeve shirt once on the trip and not for long. However, it took forever for washed out clothes to dry and it was better to have them washed and dried at the hotel.   We made several trips to town (Puerto Viejo) for shopping, internet, good food and people watching. I guess I should have gotten dread locks while I was there but maybe next time, man. A currency exchange was available at Cabinas Los Almendros for cashing travelers checks and credit card advances. There wasn't much traffic in Puerto Viejo so it was a good town to just walk around or relax by the warm water.
The warm surf at Playa Cocles looks tame enough but the life guard had red flags out to keep swimmers and surfers alike under his gaze. The waves weren't so big but tended to pull a person a ways down the beach (at least this time of year).
	After a swim one afternoon Judy and I decided to have a little lunch at a small restaurant across from the beach. Since I only had a couple of thousand colones in change in my swim trunks we were calculating what we might afford to split for a meal. Our smiling waitress caught us counting our change and made sure we both had full plates of delicious pasta! Needless to say we returned to the Totem Restaurant, with some cash next time, for more great food.
Our bungalow neighbors, Rubin and Guillermina from Mexico City joined us and we taxied to the town of Cahuita for a boat trip one morning. The boatman dropped our friends off at Cahuita National Park to hike then took Judy and I out to a reef to snorkel. He went out with us to show us some good spots. We didn't see many fish and it wasn't as clear that time of year but it was fun anyhow.Some of the pink coral resembled those large brained aliens depicted in cartoons. We met our Mexican companions back at the park for some fresh local pineapple and a short guided jungle walk. Small crabs ran back and forth between their holes; our guide pointed out large termite nests that looked like bee hives in some trees. Some white faced monkeys played in the trees paying us little attention. Another time Judy and I went to Manzanillo, south of Puerto Viejo to snorkel. Us, with our limited Spanish and our driver, who spoke no English, got into a fairly long discussion about the meaning of life. It's amazing how people can manage to communicate when they're not in a big hurry. A very short swim and we were out to the coral at Manzanillo and amongst many colorful schools of fish. It was such easy swimming there I could have stayed out all day. We had some good Caribean food at Restaurant Maxi including camarones (shrimp) and beans and rice cooked in coconut milk.
	Another day we taxied (there's not a lot of local busses) to Aviarios del Caribe, a combination B&B and sloth rescue center on the main road north of Cahuita. It was common on the road to see men and women carrying a machete as they walked along. The $12 each Aviarios tour of their facilities was very informative and touching too. Injured and sick two and three fingered sloths (perizosos) have been brought to Judy Arroyo, the founder and her volunteers. Some of the 50 or so sloths in residence have been gassed by pesticides, hit by cars or zapped on electric lines. The younger ones, which look like teddy bears themselves,clutch teddy bears as their substitute mothers. On a short jungle walk led by Alex, a volunteer from London, Judy and I and our driver Momo saw sloths in the wild and some howler monkeys. Cast your banana vote! Standard Fruit (Dole) has paid to bus hundreds of local school children to Aviarios so they can learn about their own natural environment as well as the sloths. Chiquita Banana, on the other hand, damed up part of the river that flows by Avarios thereby flooding their facilities. Chiquita had to be sued for not having permits and an eviromental impact report.
This beetle could get it's own napkin..	A sloth's life is not an easy one: sleep hanging upside down for 20 hours, scratch for 2 hours and spend the rest of the day eating. We thought we could learn something from these guys!
We stayed two extra nights at the Cariblue (8 total). We arranged to return to the Hotel Europa in San Jose by a shuttle service, Interbus.($25 each). Interbus made us fax copies of both sides of our credit card before they would except it, then ended up making the charges twice.  We got a cheaper room this time at the Europa. No balcony and no windows that opened up, a common complaint of mine at hotels and motels everywhere. (Gimmie air: plain, unconditioned and quiet). This room's carpet turned our socks and the bottom of our feet black. Yuck. But the hotel's restaurant was good and we found a large craft/gift emporium close by on Av. Central and it was a short walk to the center of town.   We missed our chance to take the Tico Train to the Pacific Coast. I should have made reservations sooner. Day trips are available to Punto Caldera for about $25. However, we found our own Tico "train" (a gas powered replica with tires) and a new friend, Carlos Santamaria. A "train engine" pulls a couple of cars around downtown and the market areas as Carlos or his assistant points out historical buildings and sights along the way. Carlos was born in Costa Rica but most of his schooling was in New Jersey. He even took the train, full of mostly Costa Ricans, by our hotel to drop us off later. The downtown tours are only on Sundays.   Carlos has his own van and conducts private tours to most anywhere in Costa Rica so we hired him for a day trip around the Cartago area not far from San Jose. We visited the ruins of the 17th century church of the Virgen del Rescate in Ujarras. We were the only ones at this park-like perserve on a weekday. Lunch was at La Casona del Cafetal Restaurante on a coffee plantation overlooking a lake, Lago de Cachi near Orosi Valley. We had the best breaded trout we've ever had at our outdoor table. We stopped by the House of the Dreamer (La Casa del Sonador) where two brother woodcarvers carry on the famly's traditional craft. We purchased an inexpenxive bust of Jesus cleverly carved out of a coffee root and a watercolor painting of a typical Costa Rican scene.	Carlos,Carlito and Antonio.
	We knew we were some place special, the Basilica de la Virgin de Los Angeles, when we observed devotees of La Negrita (The Black Madonna) crawling on their kness from the church entrance to the altar. We sat a while to soak in the peaceful vibrations of the place. "Cartago is the home of La Negrita, a small black statue of the Virgin Mary. As the story goes, a young girl, on August 2, 1635, was playing in a stream while her mother was washing clothes. On top of a rock she found the little statue and took it home. When her mother found out she was very angry and ordered her to take it back because the real owner was probably very upset. The little girl went to the box where she had hidden it and it was gone. The next day when they returned to the stream the statue was again on the same rock. The mother, upon finding it was very upset, thinking that her daughter had lied. Again they took the statue, this time with the intention of bringing it to the local priest. The next day when they went to get the statue to take it to the priest, it was gone again. They immediately ran down to the stream and there it was once more atop the rock. This was taken as a message from God and a shrine and church were built on the site. The original church was destroyed in an earthquake in 1920 and the current church, La Basilica de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles was built six years later. The basilica is in the Byzantine tradition and is probably the most unique church in the country. The north side of the church is the shrine to the Virgin Mary, on the very site where the statue was first discovered. So, on August 2nd of every year, there is a pilgrimage of the faithful to the shrine. People from all over the country walk to Cartago in order to pray to the statue and to ask for miracles. The walls of the main room of the shrine are lined with gifts left by those that have been cured by the power of the Negrita. Most of the trinkets are miniature metal versions, some in gold, of the body parts that have been cured." Copyright © 1992 — 2004 THE INSTITUTE FOR SPANISH LANGUAGE STUDIES South Pasadena, California, U.S.A. ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDMore Costa Rica history . We finished off the day by going to Carlos' house for coffee (beans from his own tree) and homemade empanadas by his wife Xenia. We highly recommend Carlos as a guide to the usual tourist spots with stops at out of the ordinary places only a local would know. He doesn't have email yet but he can be reached by mail or phone.  Phone/FAX 506 226 1349, Cell 506 377 6587 (add country code) Carlos Solano Santamaria PO Box 285-1350 San Jose, Costa Rica
Photo from tram website.	Another day trip we really enjoyed was to the Rain Forest Aerial Tram (Telefericos) just outside Braulio Corrillo National Park. A modern bus sent by the tram folks picked up us and the other passengers outside our hotels for the hour or so trip. They don't call it a rain forest for nothing; they get 28 feet of rain a year and we must have gotten our share that day, we couldn't hear a word of the introductory video. We brought those thin fold up rain ponchos that fit in your pocket and they also sold them in their gift shop.The covered gondolas held five passengers plus a guide who pointed out things we would have missed otherwise. The quiet, one and a half hour ride through the tree tops was quite beautiful. Later another guide took our group on an easy 1/2 mile or so hike on a boardwalk through the jungle. He showed the eyelash palm pit viper (Costa Rica's most poisonous snake). It was only about a foot long and it's small jaws probably couldn't grab a person unless they stuck a finger too close. There was a palm that "walked", blood of Christ plants and fish tail palms. Bullet ants shot up and down a tree in front of the gift shop. They were about the size of a bullet and someone with expierence said it felt like you had been shot when one got a hold on you. The tram cost about $50 per person or about $80 if they pick you up-incuding a buffett lunch. Had we not already made reservations we would have hired Carlos instead of the bus which had to stop at quite a few hotels in the early evening traffic.