August 1-4 -- After Peru, Costa Rica seemed very "United States-ized." I understand that many American retirees want to retire there, because the pension goes further, and that has to have a significant affect on the social structure of the country. From what I could gather, housing is very expensive. Developers are building condos and homes for the American retirees flooding into the country, which cost $100K to $250K. That sounds very familiar.... Based on that, Costa Rica seems not to be the place to retire to any more. Instead, our guide suggested Panama or Nicaragua.
In Costa Rica, the roads are fairly good, but they are in the mountains, so everything is measured in travel time rather than distance. San José, the capital, is about an hour from Puntarenas on the coast, where we are docked. Puntarenas is a small town of about 20,000 people, without many things going on there. Most of the S@S field trips take place at least an hour away from Puntarenas, so all trips begin with a long bus ride. However, many of the students really enjoyed the beaches and other outdoor trips.
The one trip I took here was to the Britt Coffee Plantation, where they have a very well-developed tourist attraction, complete with re-enactors, movies, etc., all staged to move everyone to the very large and well-stocked gift shop. (You can get all these products by mail from www.cafebritt.com. First an actor took us into a "plantation" area to show us the coffee bushes and to explain about the bean and how they process it. Then they quickly showed us a simulated processing plant. I didn't realize how complex the processing of coffee was. Then we had a lesson in how to evaluate and taste coffee, followed by a movie about the history of coffee. The movie was interesting, and it was made funnier by the actors who presented little scenes on stage in front of it. Finally, we went to the restaurant for lunch, which was a delicious buffet. After that, we had some time to shop in the gift shop, and our group was buying quite a bit.
I will confess that I spent much of my time in Costa Rica relaxing on the ship. That was really nice, and the pool deck was gloriously empty for four days.
