It is very strange the small differences that occur when you pass an arbritary border into another country, Costa Rica has a number of small differences that make it distinct from other countries in central america we have visited:
1) The reply to gracias (thank you) is no longer de nada (its nothing) but con gusto or con mucho gusto (your very welcome).
2) For some reason in 90 % of restaurants cutlery is provided in plastic sleeves (which I don't think are reused!)
plastic fantastic
3) Almost any bus journey of almost any distance, especially those lasting over an hour, will involve a 20 minute eating break for the driver so they can have a sit down dinner. On one trip our driver stopped for a drink and a snack and then for a full dinner just ten minutes later. Yesterday ten minutes into the bus journey we stopped off at what must have been the bus drivers house and we all stood in whatever shade we could find which meant passengers dotted about a banana plantation swapping shaded spots every few minutes in the hope of finding some respite from the heat while the driver tucked into a large cooked dinner.
Our driver in blue having dinner after an exhausting ten minute drive since the last snack stop!
4) It has by far the most confusing bus system around. Many small towns have multiple bus stations, this is also the case in some other countries, however in all other places random members of the public have ushered us to the correct bus. In Costa Rica we have found that even asking a bus driver sometimes doesn't help and that finding the correct bus is a mysterious art.
5) road side maintenence is often done with a strimmer rather than a machete - a sign of costa ricas prosperity.
6) Little kids are more badly behaved (bratty), and teenagers hang around in gangs another sign of propserity no doubt.
7) Like Mexico the street dogs are better fed
Check out the ears on this guy at the bus station
After Los Cusingos we stayed at a bed and breakfast, although it did not include breakfast in the price so we thought that it should have just been called BED. There were two other couples at the "bed" they were a french and a german couple neither of whom spoke English, Luckily Fi's linguistic abilities were of great use while I tried and failed to use google translator.
We communicated in Fres-ger-spanglish, or at least Fiona did
Beautiful views of the Chirripo mountain area from the trails above the 'bed'
Beware of the dog! See below picture for guard dog guarding computer
This was the real Perro Bravo called Kumar (or a Japenese name that sounded similar, he was some special oriental breed)
The pool was nice but very small and when we swam Kumar would pace the side of the pool anxiously, leaning over as if he was about to jump in. We later fund out that he had fallen in with the cover on as a puppy and nearly drowned so he hated anyone being in the water.
In Costa Rica there is an airline called Nature Air which calls itself carbon neutral. Looks like we got a containership here for no reason! To be fair they do used recycled chip fat for their ground vehicles and give money to protect areas of existing forest rather than doing a lots of new inappropriate planting so its not as bad as we first suspected.
Dinner at our very posh accommodation on the Rio Sierpe. It was owned by an Italian artist and it was very tastefully furnished we felt like we were in the film The English Patient ( even though neither of us has seen it-in our imaginations it was like this).
The riverside garden was gorgeous
There were a family of some sort of rodents in our roof but try as we might we never could see them so can't include them on our mammal list. We also had a couple of lizards in the room.
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