Inglaterra Arriba!

Hola amigos y padres,
Firstly, some sad news - we can´t bring a Guanabana back from Costa Rica :( According to US Customs, "We regret that it is necessary to take agricultural items from your baggage. They cannot be brought into the United States because they may carry animal and plant pests and diseases. Restricted items include meats, fruits, vegetables, plants, soil, and products made from animal or plant materials...Confiscated items are carefully destroyed in special CBP facilities.", and so rather than see our Guanabana subject to a controlled explosion in a booth at Miami Airport, we´re going to take our hard-earned Colones elsewhere.
This is our last proper night in Costa Rica - we´ve decided to save ourselves roughly 25 pounds and just go to the airport tomorrow night and hang around overnight, rather than stay here til 3am and then get an expensive transfer. So, tomorrow we´re checking out of Costa Rica Backpackers and heading out to the market to buy a few final things, then stop by the American Embassy for lunch (that´s McDonalds, for everyone else apart from dad) and potter around, schlepping hopefully not-too-much stuff around. Today was Shopping Day, which means that our room now smells of coffee (and damp, after we got soaked in an impressive downpour - umbrellas do NOTHING), and we had fun haggling with people in the market - one man was particularly grumpy but we wore him down and got that final pound off. Great success. I bought a lovely rosewood chopping board which would have been perfect for slicing Guanabana.. but enough of all that, before I start crying.
Simon - actually no, as far as I know we didn´t meet him, but it´s very flattering anyway! I´m always pleased to be of entertainment services to all. This blog, as I´m sure I´ve said before, has given me a lot of pleasure to write. Dad - the journey was pretty harrowing, but I´d say that the San Isidro one was about on a par with McLeod Ganj. The trip that ironically turned out to be the least scariest of all the mountain-top ones was on the "Highway to Heaven", the Guapiles Highway to Limon, which is so-called due to its exceptionally high accident and fatality rate.

Final thoughts of Costa Rica.. it´s probably best to condense this into bullet-points and produce... Das Meisterwork:

LOU AND BEN´S PROFILE OF COSTA RICA.
(all data from my memory but probably originates mostly from the Rough Guide, therefore none of it is particularly reliable)

· Population: Roughly 4 million, half of whom live just in the Central Valley and third of which is under 21.. it´s a Catholic country and women don´t really do much apart from cook and reproduce)
· Currency: colones, named after Christopher Columbus. Roughly 550c to the dollar and nearly 1,000 to the pound. The largest note they have is a 10,000, and the smallest coin we´ve found is a 5, equivalent to half a penny and worth precisely nothing. I´m keeping a couple, be sure to ask to see them in all their pathetic flimsiness - a guy we met in Orosi effortlessly bent one with his teeth.
· Languages spoken: Costa Rican Spanish (official), English a teeny-tiny bit and in Limon a Spanish-English creole, which was no more comphrehensible to us than the Spanish was.
·Location: Bordered by Nicaragua to the North and Panama to the South, flanked by the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Roughly 8-10 degrees north of the equator.
· Weather: Hot and humid with lots of rain. Two seasons, which are summer (Nov-Apr) and the winter or euphemistically-named "green season" the rest of the time. The "rainy season" should really be called the rainIER season.
· Literacy rate: 94% which is Very Good, especially for the region - on a par with that of the USA.
· Life expectancy: 76 for men, 81 for women, this is better than the USA and the same as England (not the UK, Scotland really brings the average down)
· Dominant themes of the national psyche: smugness at being much better than other central American countries. Respect for nature. Politeness. Tolerance of tourism - they don´t love it, but they know which side their bread´s buttered on, and specifically that they wouldn´t be so far ahead of other latino countries without the revenue it brings. General cheerfulness.
·Principal sources of revenue: Tourism number one, then exports: coffee, bananas and macademia.
· Appearance - on average probably less overweight than the British, but most women are quite squishy and seem to be proud of it, judging by the tight-fitting clothes they wear. A typical outfit is a top containing lycra, jeans or a short denim miniskirt, high-heels (always, even on four-year-olds) and gelled curly hair. Men generally wear polo shirts and jeans and hardly any have moustaches or are bald. Almost everyone has brown hair, and surprisingly many seem to have skin not particularly darker than North Europeans.
· National saying (I´m particularly jealous of this and feel Britain needs one, perhaps along the lines of "excuse me, I really am so terribly sorry to trouble you but you appear to have stolen my wallet"): Pura Vida, which means "pure life". Ben and I are dubious about this one... we´ve been told by all the tourism literature that everyone says this etc etc, but we haven´t heard any locals say it to us and have only seen it on tourist paraphernalia, so it´s entirely possible that it´s just a big farce.
· Main hazards: Roads (see most previous blog posts). Suicide Showers - since they have a contraption fitted over the top to heat the water which should not be touched when the shower is on, due to the exposed main leads sticking out.. Ben got a nasty shock last night when he draped a damp towel over the showerhead even though the shower was switched off, and then again when he removed it with an umbrella -even through the plastic insulation. Being ripped off, otherwise known as Death by Extortion and Special Tourist Prices.
· Main Frustrations: Being bitten by mosquitos and other nasty insects, trying to find your way around since, although the streets are all named on a map, there are no street signs so all locals know exactly what they´re talking about, and no tourists have a hope in hell. Furthermore, most directions are given in relation to landmarks, some of which no longer exist: case in point, in San Pedro people give directions relative to the old tree, which was felled 50 years ago. Awful, awful tea.
· Best things about Costa Rica: The drinks are generally good, especially coffee and ´refrescos naturales´, which are fruit juices such as melon, strawberry, pineapple, guava, guanabana and banana, mixed with either milk or water. Their national cuisine is also very tasty, cheap and filling, although not if you don´t like rice and beans. The landscape and scenery are breathtaking, from the gorgeous beaches to beautiful sunsets, verdant hills, looming mountains and rolling waves and waterfalls. The wildlife is exciting, especially for a Brit, as we´ve seen plenty of lizards and huge butterflies, along with monkeys, colourful birds and unusual mammals (including the wonderful Coatie). People are generally very patient and nearly always say "you´re welcome" when you thank them. We´ve had quite a few occasions when we were lost or looking for something, and people have spontaneously come over and asked us did we need help, which has been our saving grace. The busses, if terrifying sometimes, are almost always on time, cheap and offer sensational views and a very thrifty way of seeing the country en-route. I will probably add more to this retrospectively.
Moment of the Trip: this one´s a tie... number one has got to be on the bus to Liberia, where the driver overtook a 20-foot lorry, on a blind bend, uphill. Number two was less mortally terrifying, the horseriding trip in Dominical which was spectacular and such fun. We´ve also really enjoyed cooking for ourselves in outdoor kitchens.

I´m going to wrap it up there. We´re due to arrive in Heathrow on Friday morning - we´re really looking forward to seeing everyone when we get back, and hope England will welcome us back with open arms, warm (dry) weather and a nice cup of tea.

love,

Louise and Ben
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