20: Rice & Beans in Costa Rica – Worldwide with Wee-Cheng …

#20: Costa Rica: Rice and Beans, Beans and Rice

5 Apr 2002

“In Macondo, nothing has happened, nor is happening, nor will ever happen.”

– Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

San Jose, Costa Rica. As soon as I saw the golden arches of McDonalds and the smiling colonel of KFC, I knew I had just reached yet another outpost of Gringolandia. Immediately I missed Colombia, that sense of excitement and unpredictability, and that contrast between its vibrant modern culture and the underlying violence and uncertainty.

Costa Rica, Land of Peace. That’s how the world has come to see this country. Costa Rica is the smallest of the Central American republics but is also the wealthiest and most stable one. In 1948, after the end of a bitter civil war, Jose Figueres, who won the war, surprised the world by abolishing its army. Huge sums previously devoted to the military budget was channeled into education and economic development, as well as, perhaps unfortunately, in building an expensive welfare state which some years later, crippled the economy. Its former president, Dr Oscar Arias Sanchez, furthered the nation’s peaceful credentials after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to promote peace in Central America.

Costa Rica, Land of Mother Nature. Over the years, Costa Rica has also successfully pioneered ecotourism. Today, one million tourists visit the country for its cloud rainforests, wildlife, volcanoes, and excellent diving and surfing beaches. Due to its proximity to the US, about 40% of its tourists come from the USA, and with this also come all the Americanisms that prevail in San Jose.

After more than 3 months of volcanoes and rainforests in South America, I agonised what I should do in Costa Rica even before I arrived. Here I was showered with brochures on the numerous excursions possible to an impossible number of national parks (oh, another jungle canopy adventure) and volcanoes (oh, not again). OK, I’m jaded. Maybe I should just return home instead. Sorry guys, I am just not in the mood for more mud and rain. I am a people, history and politics guy. More history is OK, but jungle – not again…

Unfortunately, Costa Rica just isn’t very rich in history and archaeology. Even neighbouring Nicaragua has a few nice colonial cities and dodgy pre-Hispanic archaeological sites, apart from volcanoes.

Costa Rica has never been a popular destination for Spanish colonisers and was colonised in a large manner only in the 18th century. Its name, “Rich Coast”, was very much a misnomer. Christopher Columbus was conned when he saw Indians with golden adornments when he sailed past these areas. In reality, what he saw was a poor gold and metal alloy, that has very low gold content. Whatever the case, the Spanish came, and disease and slavery soon diminished the local Indian population. As such, Costa Rica has the highest European population in all Central America. Its mestisos (people of mixed Indian and European heritage) also look the least Indian.

The settlers here were mainly small farmers, and the few townsmen built modest buildings in smallish towns like San Jose and Cartago. Fire and earthquakes destroyed most of what was built in the early years of settlement. Today, San Jose and other towns are largely modern messes of concrete jungle.

Even then, San Jose is a nice place to hang around for a while. There are many nice restaurants and bars, plus comfortable shopping malls and quaint little squares. The importance of tourism here means that more people in this country speak English than in an average Latin American country. Museums have English captions. It makes hell of difference when you speak the language. I spent a bit of time visiting local museums and having coffee in the city squares. Local markets are not terribly exotic compared to those in South America, but decent enough for me to savour fresh seafood at affordable prices.

Costa Rica has a most unusually varied cuisine. They have beans and rice for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch, and mixed beans and rice for dinner. To survive it all, I had at least four dinners at a Chinese restaurant in San Jose, which serves the most authentic home-cooked Chinese meals I have tried in Latin America. This Teochew family from Swatow, Guangdong Province, China, moved here 4 years ago. Mr Hong was once a doctor in China. The desire to see his son grow up learning English and Spanish at a low cost, as well as the desire to seek new fortunes in a whole new environment, motivated the move to faraway Costa Rica. Like many Chinese immigrants in a new land, he was forced to give up his medical profession, and set up a restaurant instead.

Whilst he is delighted with his son’s academic progress, like new immigrants everywhere, he is worried about his son “going native”. Indeed, he says, his son’s Chinese is already going into the drains. His worst nightmare would be his son marrying a local woman. Well, there are many things in life that one cannot control.

Anyway, it was a nice escape from gallo pinto (beans and rice), and I spent hours here reading the only Chinese newspapers in Central America, imported from Panama, where there is a large Chinese community.

There are 30,000 Chinese in Costa Rica, about 1% of the population, some of whom first came in the 19th century to build the Atlantic to Pacific Railway and work on plantations. In fact, a Costa Rican of partial Chinese descent, Franklin Chang Diaz, became the first Latin American astronaut in 1981. Many Chinese came later, from Taiwan, as businessmen and technical advisers. Costa Rica, together with the other Central American states, recognize Taiwan as the legitimate China, and Taiwan in return, provided vast sums in aid money as well as cosy handouts to local officials. As a result, the Taiwanese ambassador is often the most important foreigner in many Central American countries, after the US ambassador.

San Jose and its museums and parks aside, I did visit one national park. Volcano Arenal, near the village of La Fortuna, has been described as the volcano that actually looks like one. It was supposed to have smoke rising from its active crater, coupled with periodic eruptions and explosions, plus red-hot lava. I took a 4.5 hour-bus up the country lanes, only to find the cone covered by mist and cloud. I should have known. I have never met a single person who has seen the volcano at its full glory. The postcards are probably a fraud cooked up by local tourism authorities. Well, the local tour operators does make a lot of money from it: US$23 for a tour including hot springs, which is the only redeeming feature. Nice hot dip and interesting conversations with some cool travellers.

Well, after a few days in Costa Rica, I felt as lost as ever. I realised I needed to move on. The call of the unknown is more attractive than the mature gringolandia of San Jose. With that, I discarded plans of going to other parts of Costa Rica, and hopped onto a bus to Nicaragua instead. Nicaragua is the land of William Walker and the filibusters, as well as the Sandinista Revolution. At least, that’s a real adventure for me.

Questions?
If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our South America Insiders page.

Did you like this article?

    

 

Share it

 

Place a comment