A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships

I held on to the hand grips as the 4X4 bounced down what they insisted was a road. As nice as he was, I felt myself wishing that my middle aged Costa Rican driver would stop turning around to explain things to me and start keeping his eyes on the path ahead. Next to the driver, his 7 year old son , Javi, smiled as the truck approached a section of road flooded over by a stream. As I wondered how long it would take to find another route, the driver plunged ahead, seemingly willing the truck to push through water that came over the bottom of the doors. As we roared up the next hill and careened around a sheer drop off the driver slammed the brakes and brought the car to a precarious rest on the edge of a hill surrounded by thick jungle. I looked down to the drop below, but Javi pointed up to the trees. “Monos!” he said excitedly. I looked up to see a tree full of howler monkeys swinging from branch to branch. They announced their territory with a deep bellowing roar that made them seem much larger than they were. I asked my driver if they were dangerous. “No,” he explained laughing, “but they have been known to urinate on travelers, so watch out.” I made a mental note to watch my head and marveled to myself why people even bothered to organize expensive outdoor “adventure travel” excursions. I was in a taxi.

With an incredible diversity of plant and animal life, pristine beaches offering clear warm waves, and roughly 25% of its territory protected as national parks, Costa Rica is a veritable ecotourism Mecca for travelers from all over the world. In 2001, the tourism industry generated over $1.2 billion in revenues, attracting over a million visitors and establishing itself as the most significant contributor to the country’s economy. Traditionally based on the agricultural staples of coffee and bananas, because of tourism Costa Rica’s economy is now outpacing those of its Central American neighbors. With a history of protecting its environmental wealth, the government has used caution in allowing exploitation of natural resources. Technology is also increasingly playing a role in the economy, the government recently welcomed Intel as the giant opened up two large chip plants.

In some ways, technology and tourism are marching ahead together. Internet cafes abound, and it seems that many serve as one stop traveler service stations. Upon arriving in a town one usually needs to look no further than the local internet café to find out what is happening, grab a bite to eat, and check email while sipping on some famous Costa Rican coffee.

It was in an internet café that I was able to find a pamphlet for the SUV taxi ride that took me on a tour through the jungle down the coast of the Nicoya Peninsula that juts out from the Pacific coast. Later, I wanted to get from the small surf town at the bottom of the peninsula back to the mainland without backtracking over the slow roads. A traveler told me he had “heard” on the internet of a boat that could cross the channel directly to the other side in a quick but choppy 1.5 hour ride. I visited a small café and was able to organize the boat ride online for the next morning. A couple more clicks and I was able to find, purchase and print tickets for the little propeller airplane that would take me back to San Jose from the small town where I was headed. I marveled at how easy it was to travel in Costa Rica compared to so many other countries. Almost everything I needed I could get at these cafes. Despite having worked to learn Spanish, it seemed I almost never had to talk to anyone.

Many of the internet cafes are run by US expats. In fact, it seems that a large segment of the tourism-related businesses are run by expats. From quaint bed and breakfasts to Best Western chains, from banana pancake hippie cafes to expensive seafood and steak houses, I repeatedly found that when you scratched the surface of a Costa Rican business you would find a Norte Americano. Almost all the menus I saw had English translations. Some didn’t even have Spanish.

From the time I arrived in airport, I was served a barrage of glossy tourism-related advertisements. People zipping happily over the jungle canopy. Gringos basking on beaches with sand even whiter than their skin. Compared to other less-developed economies, it seems that tourism has shone on the economy like the warm sun that tans the visitors. However, I am led to ask to what extent does this thriving tourism business help the local people? Tourism has surely boosted the economy but it seems that foreigners are reaping much of the rewards. Is this a case of trickle-down economics? Are the locals somewhere at the bottom level of a multi-layered economy? If so I wonder if, like in the dense rainforest covering much of their land, those who dwell at the ground level see very little of the sunlight covering the top canopy.

Javi and his dad spend their days taxiing tourists between towns on the Nicoya Peninsula. Smiling, laughing and pointing things out in Spanish, they seemed to me poster children for the trickle down effect. We stopped at one point for a rest and they made cheese sandwiches and ate bananas while white-faced capuchin monkeys looked on eagerly from the side of the road. They explained to me that feeding the monkeys could transmit human diseases, interrupt natural eating habits and lead the monkeys to bravely and unwisely approach humans and cars. They said that in Costa Rica, the monkeys and the people both enjoyed “pura vida.” A pure and natural life. My boat driver as well smiled proudly as he pointed out dolphins and ten-foot stingrays that were actually jumping out of the water next to our boat. "I get to see them everyday," he boasted. It seems that while foreign people, and especially Americans, are organizing and controlling much of the industry, locals as well are sharing in the opportunities created. Despite my cynicism, I figure that compared to their jobless and impoverished Latin American neighbors in other Central and South American countries, the Costa Rican ticos are indeed being lifted by the rising tide of tourism and technology.