Ola!

Right now we are sitting in the internet cafe in the neighbouring so-called regional capital: Puerto Quepas and even though we are in the shade the humidity is unbelivable, we (well, especially me) are sweating like pigs and I have to say that you can be drier under the shower than in these amazing tropics!

Since Silvy already gave you an outline of our activities in Costa Rica (well, we are just being lazy most of the time :)) let me share with you some of my impressions and some of our pictures from here. Well, for the first time we actually felt that we are in Latin America, you can see quite a big difference between Mexico and Costa Rica, especially in people who are much more relaxed, many of them are hanging around, without any purpose, eating bananas and drinking some of many local refreshments. Many Costaricans are very smiley and as Silvy noticed almost after 5 minuites of walking on the street, women are almost naked! Simply speaking, everybody takes everything easy, with a big smile on ones face, opposite of a busy and hectic New York and depressed, greish Brussels.

Would you know that Costaricans call themselves as "Ticos" (not Tacos :)) ?
Everything because the fact that they tend to soften all of the words in this strange diminitive way by adding -tico to each word. So small apple would from "manzana" into "manzanatico" (if I am right).

My favourite topic :) - Costarican food: I have to say that I am more than positively surprised; before we left to South America I asked my friend who is a deputy Ambassador in the Misson of CR to the EU, and he recommended me to take Gallo Pinto (mixture of rice and beans) and Arroz con Pollo (mixture of chicken and rice). Honestly speaking I wasnt really thrilled (especially because I am not a huge fan of neither beans nor rice), but wait a minute, even if these two dishes do not sound very interesting, you bet that they are very tasty ! I have no clue what do they put in these rice, beans and chicke, but the spices they use make it very very tasty! If you also add to it a Maduro con queso (fried banana witch cheese) or el Pan de Platano (banana bread for dessert) you can get a heavenly meal!
Speaking of bananas: bananas here are actually cheaper than water. Imagine that one dollar can get you here a big bottle of water, BUT at the same time one dollar gets you exactly 23 bananas! I dont know if I would like to eat only bananas here, but for sure it is quite hard to starve in Costa Rica, actually eating only bananas can be quite an enriching experience since there are plenty of banana based dish and they are added as a side dish as well!

It is also worth mentioning that Costa Rica is the only country in Latin America that doesnt have a huge social disproportions, which are usually a remnant of the differences between creols (Spanish colonisers) and local, idegenious population. In Costa Rica everybody is equal! And whereas in the other colonies indians were used as slaves and the cheap labour in the past, in Costa Rica the farm owners were working hard on the fields themselves.
Costa Rica is also one of the few (if not the only) countries in the world, that abolished its army! Yes, smart Costaricans, decided to get rid of the army and use this money by investing in the education and human development, what an amazingly high level of social awareness, especially when you think about Central America! There are also many other things that make Costa Rica quite special and unique, like for example the fact that they abolished the death penalty 100 years before such democratic country as France did! Well done!
The negative sides: well, I would say that heat and humidity is unbearable (difficult to do anything about it), very expensive accomodation (but food and transportation is very cheap on the other hand). They should do something about these animals: they are everywhere! Yesterday, in front of our hotel we had a the whole zoological garden, first there were dozens of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, then a baby dear came in front of the door of our room, then a huge husky (!) dog, lizards, bugs, and some huge from on the roof of our appartment was singing all the night! Fun, no ? !

Ok and now: the picture time ! ;)

1. This great and artistic picture taken by Silvy should for sure make it on the cover of the next Lonely Planet for Costa Rica!