Hi there,
The first thing I have to say is that this country is not even remotely what I expected. When we arrived at the airport, we wanted to take the bus to the center, but the stop was very far from the airport. We had a lot of luggage (since we would be spending a month in Costa Rica and one in Mexico), so we couldn’t walk too far. Taxis charge $25 and we were able to negotiate up to $20.
From the first moment it caught my attention that they give the price in dollars and then they make the change to colones if you ask. The logical thing is that it was the other way around.
The hotel area was very ugly. We went out the next morning to see the city and we were horrified. I expected something like Quito or Lima. There we understood why in no guide did they talk about San José or things to do in the capital.
We decided to stop here first because we were bringing a suitcase with clothes for Mexico and the hotel would store it for us for a month, since we would stay there before going to Mexico City.
We spent a whole day in San José and found the people to be very polite. The hotel staff was also very friendly, the only thing is that the room was of poor quality and the bathroom was too small.
We left for Cahuita in a ramshackle bus. It rained throughout the entire route and the surprise was that when we took the backpacks out of the luggage compartment, they were all wet.
The Buena Suerte Bed & Breakfast was almost $25 per person and it was a shack. The oldest, ugliest, worn, dark and mediocre room you can imagine. Diego said that all the accommodations he had seen were the same and that it seemed that, in general, the quality of the hotels was going to be terrible. He was right.
The owner of the hotel was an Italian with tartar-covered teeth, grimy fingernails, and long hair. This and many other foreigners that we met working in Costa Rica, had the appearance that they had escaped justice in their country and that is why they had come to Costa Rica.
We began to realize that people were unfriendly and bitter. The manager of the restaurant, for example, served the tourists with a face of disgust and contempt. In Cahuita, much infrastructure was lacking: public transportation in good condition, decent roads, street lighting, etc. We had to go out of the hotel with flashlights because only the main street was lit. But it wasn’t just Cahuita, as we progressed on the trip, we saw that everything was the same.
Through Couchsurfing they had put me in a WhatsApp group where some locals helped tourists without any economic interest. One day a lady asked about the accommodations in Tortuguero, and I replied that in general, everything was of poor quality. A Costa Rican guy answered me indignantly that the hotels were “ecological”. I totally disagree, you can be green without being mediocre and dirty. Above all, you can give good attention to tourists and improve hospitality without doing any harm to the environment.
Costa Rica is a small country, and you can get from one place to another in a few hours. But since public transport works so poorly, getting from one place to another takes a whole day and a lot of transfers. During the entire trip I was missing the public transport in Mexico since last year we had traveled the entire country by bus without problems.
The hospitality was horrible. They made a little effort while they wanted to sell you tours, but then they treated you horrible. In many places, after they gave you the key at check-in, you didn’t see anyone else’s face, not even to say goodbye when you left. I got the feeling that people work in tourism because they have no other alternative, but they hate tourists.
At the end of the month, when we returned to the Hotel Milan in San José, our appreciation greatly improved compared to what we thought at the beginning of the trip. Having stayed in crappy hotels, the one in San Jose was hands down the best, mostly for hospitality.
In Costa Rica the quality/price ratio is terrible. You pay $25/40 per person per night to stay in crappy places. In addition, everything is very expensive (we paid $5 for a kilo of pasta and $6 for a single pill of ibuprofeno). The tours did not go below $50.
We wondered where all the money from tourism would go, since it was not seen in infrastructure, and everything was very decadent. Another amazing thing is that the Wi-Fi was not working anywhere; only in San José and it was slow.
I really liked the change in mentality towards caring for the environment. Smoking was prohibited on the beaches and nature reserves.
In addition, there are many signs to remind you to take your garbage with you, to use sunscreen that does not harm the ecosystem, etc. I remember that in El Chollín there was an advertisement that said “Tico who respects himself, does not throw garbage.”
The people you met on the street, who were not linked to tourism, complained that Costa Rica had gotten much worse. They had problems with immigration from Guatemala, with illegal fishing that is destroying ecosystems, problems with public transportation.
I realized that nobody does anything to solve the things that fail, but that each one sets up his “mafia” to get money. Instead of setting bus schedules that coincide with those of the boats, the taxis attack you like hyenas and charge you absurd prices. In Quepos, to cross a river to an urbanization, there were boats to pass you from one side to the other, also charging you an absurd amount. Did no one think of building a bridge?
It also caught my attention that we did not find a variety of fruits in the markets. It was a problem to get a few bananas for breakfast. I expected the same as in Mexico, a crazy variety of fruits and vegetables.
The taxi driver who took us to the port of Sierpe, who charged $10 per person for a 20-minute ride, told us that Costa Rica “has been a piñata for a long time” because there is a lot of corruption, and everything is a disaster. He explained to us that the population was fed up and going on strike for everything.
In short, Costa Rica is a wonderful country because of its nature and biodiversity, it’s a shame that the rest of the things work so badly. The country is very expensive, and you don’t understand where the money from tourism goes because the roads are in terrible condition, public transport doesn’t work, hotels are in decline, tourist services are terrible, etc. In addition, although they say otherwise, there is also crime, and the locals blame immigration from Guatemala and Colombia.