In February, 2005, eight urban gringo expats, myself one of them, that frequented the afternoon bar scene of central San Jose decided to take up Rick Whitehead, a wood exporter from Seattle on a trip to his company home perched on a hilltop in the mountains about 25 kilometers as the tucan flies southeast of Turrialba.

In two SUVs we headed along a very winding up and down jungle mountain road, ever conscious of the overhanging eroded dirt cliffs that could come crashing down at any moment and bury us, or wipe out the road ahead. Occasionally we stopped to check out the little villages usually near a swift river crossing, scrawny chickens and ratty-looking third-world dogs wandering along the sides of the road, sniffing whatever was available, shiny-brown youngsters splashing in the shallows, mama nearby beating her laundry on the river rocks. There was always a little open-air pulperia to refresh our cold beer supply, and pee-breaks every few minutes were a must. After a few hours we reached Rick’s hilltop retreat, with 360 degree panoramic views of distant Volcanoes Chirripo, Cuerici, Irazu and Turrialba.

Rick’s handiman, Alvaro is a Cabécar Indian and told us of his village that could only be reached after a few hours trekking, starting at the end of the dirt road at the village Finca Llanos de Quetzal. My Canadian friend Mark and I decided to check it out the next day when Alvaro was returning to his village with supplies and provisions he has acquired.

Fortunately it was the dry season, and we left just after sunrise because it was more like six hours of heavy walking along one of a series of paths in incredible natural splendor, first two hours descending through banana plantations into a valley on a path barely wide enough for a horse, then wading across several shallow boulder-covered stream beds for another three hours, until finally coming to a home-made zip-line to cross the ever dangerous Chirripo River. Not up to tourism standards, two grooved wheels balanced on a cable with a rope below where you seat your body, and hold on with white knuckles for dear life, fearing more for your own survival than if you drop something in the rapid current below, never to be seen again.

Along the trek we bumped into a few other Cabécar Indians leaving their village to sell beans or bananas, or looking for farm work, or making an emergency trip to the dentist to extract a few teeth. The trek ends another hour later at the chief’s house, the ‘finest in the village’ with no plumbing, no TV, no radio, no phone, no spoons and forks for eating, open cańa brava walls, and more cańa brava spread across a platform floor for some twenty five people to sleep on. The nearby toilet facility is a hole in the ground hidden by a leaning piece of corrugated roofing.

We used the chilly stream uphill for bathing, and the women cooked in their chimneyless kitchen, wood smoke circulating around the three huts slowly blackening everyones lungs, pointing at the unusually high incidence of asthma. If an asthma attack is very bad, or a child birth is extremely difficult, a villager needs to run an hour through the bush to get to the closest radio to request a government hospital helicopter.

Recent missionaries have arrived with donated tooth brushes and paste, and battery-operated hand-held video games, which are extremely coveted by young and old. Earth University researchers have been constructing a new house demonstrating the use of a chimney to exhaust the smoke while cooking. They are also helping and pointing the way for the Cabécar to grow a variety of new diversified nutritious crops on their surprisingly fertile volcanic soil.

Fifty percent of the 6,000 to 9,000 population in the spread out Cabécar villages throughout the Talamanca Mountains speak only Cabécar, while a third of the people are fully illiterate. The government of Costa Rica has legislated minimum education to reach these people, but the quality of teaching and materials always leaves something to be desired. Everything has to be carried in.

The nearby Turrialba archaeological site was inhabited from 1000 BC to 1400 AD, indicating the Cabécar culture had a high degree of technological understanding. There is an aqueduct for bringing water to the people, a dyke used to form a lake, and vestiges of large structures like temples built from huge rocks. They even had an 80 kilomter long stone road. The place was abandoned for unknown reasons, perhaps a plague, or a conflict with neighboring tribes.

As the night grew in, we conversed in broken Spanish (theirs and ours) with the chief and his extended family by the glow of the fire and oil lamps, shadows bouncing on the stick walls. It became apparent the Cabécar are happy living a simplistic existence. Cabécar is a tonal language of the Chibchan now spoken by four thousand people.

After the long trek, and a mushy meal of rice, beans, and maize, and a steady consumption of bananas, and sugar cane juice, being the center of attention and a curiosity to everyone, Mark and I joined the group to hit the cańa brava early, and slept like babies for about six hours. I then awaited the sun to come up, never quite finding the ideal comfort position to be able to doze off again, leaving me feeling rubbery and weak for the long trek back to Quetzal. We left ten thousand colones each with the chief for their hospitality, and said our goodbyes.

After being used to an active urban lifestyle, hooked up to the international cable channels, and the internet, and taking everything for granted, from car and food, to entertainment and sports facilities I would grow both bored and frustrated quickly. However the Cabécar’s daily struggle to survive has religated them to a near stone age level of simplicity and happiness that only they really understand and quietly accept. As they slowly gain knowledge of and from the outside world to improve their health, education and general standard of living (and who can blame them?) I fear they will lose so much in the transition, that their stressless primative lifestyle will only be a pleasant but distant memory of their future elders.

If any of the Adventure Inn guests would like to experience something every bit as remote as the indigenous tribes in the central Brazil Amazon rain forests, this is your opportunity, like a reality survivor TV show!

And what an extraordinary selection of interesting hotels AHCR has; inns, lodges, beach resorts, B&B’s, first-class tent camps, mountain and sea view villas, historic city hotels, surf schools, yoga and wellness retreats, jungle cabinas, volcano accommodations, adventure safari outposts, even an airport hotel (Adventure Inn), something for everyone. The owners of each property take pride in their originality and the comfort of their guests.

AHCR has printed twenty five thousand easy-to-read large useful high quality road maps pin-pointing the location of each member hotel. You can get your free road map at any member hotel, who will encourage you to support the association by staying with another member, wherever you are going in Costa Rica.

AHCR also has an easy to navigate website www.adventurehotelsofcostarica.com with a Costa Rican map on the home page locating each member hotel. Click on any hotel and go to a full page with photos describing the hotel, and a further link to the hotel’s own website. This way visitors wishing more information about any hotel or to make a reservation can deal directly with the hotel, making any specific requirements known and saving money by eliminating the need for agency commissions.

AHCR has been moving forward establishing committees to work on car/hotel packages, plus a reality survivor road rally by turning couch potatoes into participants, and a charity committee intent on giving back to the local community. 

In this uncertain economic global environment, non-profit AHCR may be pointing the way to future hotel marketing, where hotels work and survive as a team, using self-reliant strategies to market their hotels.

Once again the Costa Rican government has shot itself in the foot, and all of us in tourism will suffer as a result of it. Former President Abel Pacheco was caught (but never prosecuted because he owned the judges) receiving illegal donations through a Panama bank account from Taiwan, a nation with an insatiable taste for $60 per bowl shark fin soup. For years, Taiwan, and others have been allowed to unload illegal shark fins into Costa Rican docks without inspection, though laws prohibit such practices. Obviously new President Oscar Arias is slow on the uptake and continues to permit the cruel and lucrative practice of cutting off shark’s fins then throwing the live body back in the seas to agonize a long painful death.

Director and narrator Rob Stewart, a biologist and videographer by training, has released his movie, ‘Sharkwater’, throughout the United States and Canada, smearing Costa Rica’s ‘green image’, and justifyably so. In a weak and unsubstantiated attempt to cover up the government’s inadequacies, the Environment and Energy Ministry (MINAE) says that the information is outdated. Yet envoronmentalists claim the practice continues unabated as the law is unenforceable when there are no public docks capable of accepting the small boats used by shark fishermen, nor have funds been provided to pay inspectors to go to private docks.

Now government officials want Stewart to add a scene or text to his movie explaining the new fisheries laws (which aren’t enforced) and the ’progress’ the Costa Rican government has been making since the filming of the movie. This is in line with the typical Tico reaction to anything that needs to be fixed, they do absolutely nothing until you offend them. Stewart apparently balks at the suggestion and I just shake my head at these government idiots, too little, too late, and from all of us trying to make a living in tourism, thanks for nothing!

The Costa Rican government is the epitomy of the Peter Principle, where everyone rises within the bureaucracy to their level of incompetence, some rise even above that point.

No one has brought global warming to the forefront like former US Vice President Al Gore. Though the conservatives love to bash him for being a hypocrite, causing twenty times the global warming (if there is such a thing) as the average consumer, I think they are shooting the messenger, and avoiding the real problem.

CO2, and other gas emissions, say the vast majority of scientists, create a sort of green house effect hindering the heat of the sun’s powerful rays from escaping the lower atmosphere, heating the earth, melting the polar ice caps causing the oceans to rise and also causing deserts to expand.

If we discount the scientists and believe the politicians and big business that global warming is not caused by mankind, we may end up too late to stop the devastating effects. If we believe the scientists, and start now to correct the problem, and later we find the politicians were correct, we end up with a cleaner, yet, more expensive planet. I vouch for the second option.

One of Mr.Gore’s ways of nullifying and excusing his personal consumption was by making ‘carbon neutral’ payments, payments that would go to land owners to either replant forests, or leave existing forests alone.

Last week, officials from the Costa Rican National Forest Financing Fund (FONAFIFO) announced an agreement with governmental tourism agencies ICT and CANATUR, the public launch of ‘Clean Trip’, a program that will help visitors to Costa Rica offset their carbon emissions from their travels to and from Costa Rica.

Though their website, www.fonafifo.com has yet to add this new development, it promises to offer an online calculator to help you determine the number of tons of carbon produced during your travels.

Each ton of carbon produced (New York to San Jose for example produces approximately three tons for person), costs $5 to offset, at current market value. Multiply each ton by $5, and as of October 1st, Costa Rica’s Banco Nacional will accept credit card payments, and all money is given to the FONAFIFO Payment for Environmental Services Program, who in turn pay private citizens and businesses $320 per hectare over five years to protect existing forests, or $816 per hactare over ten years to plant new ones.

So far 530,000 hectares are already protected under FONAFIFO, with a waiting list of many more land owners wanting to sign up, but budget constraints have limited their participation. With the new ‘Clean Trip’ program, many more properties are expected to be able to join, helping to clean everyone’s air.

Information booths in Costa Rican airports and tourist centers will be set up, and tourists can do their part to protect what they have come to experience here in Costa Rica.

As more info comes in, because this is so new, I’ll make it available on this blog so you can donate if you wish. Every little bit helps!

The following is a generalization. With any statements dealing with human nature, there are always examples available to disprove the argument.

This being said, I find quite a difference there is between Ticos (men) and Ticas (women)! Over the last twelve years I have owned and operated two successful hotels in Costa Rica, I have had both business and personal dealings with every type of Costa Rican and foreigner there is. I have had probably a hundred Costa Rican employees over the years, and have met tens of thousands of guests. In general, Ticas make excellent employees. They mean well, learn fast, are open-minded, appreciate and enjoy the work, are more than punctual, and can take and use constructive advice.

Precious few Ticos share the same attributes. As employees, they tend to try so hard in the beginning until they know their way around, smiling in your face, running up to shake your hand with their fingers spread to make their hands look bigger. But too often, it’s not long after, many decide to take advantage of your trust and unguarded valuables go missing. If he is the only one who can be blamed, nothing is stolen, but as soon as blame could by placed on possibly more than one Tico, the article is gone like it never existed.

I don’t understand why so many Ticos tell you what they think you want to hear, no matter how much it messes you around later. If you depart each others company on good terms, that’s all they care. If a Tico is not doing his job right, and you try and correct him, he looks disappointed like a beaten puppy, but says nothing. They don’t look at advice from an older or more experienced person as a way to improve or make it easier on themselves, but more as an insult. The next thing you know, there is a nail scratch running the length of your car. Life is a learning experience, but Ticos often act more like children than men. Perhaps it is because most were coddled by their mother, as many fathers prefer to be out playing around rather than instilling integrity in their children. Nearly all Ticos cheat on their partner, and in Costa Rica there are lots of opportunities in this regard.

Fortunately in the hotel business, I can staff nearly all Ticas. But when doing business in Costa Rica, similar to driving down the road, you can’t always be selective as to who you meet and have to deal with. Though there are always exceptions to the rule, I find Ticas are amazingly nice people, gentle, honest, trustworthy, hard working, family loving, caring, giving, a sense of humor, yet down-trodden, abused, lacking opportunity to advance themselves, willing second class citizens in a macho society, and from this foreign writer’s point of view, absolutely beautiful both inside and out.

Women drivers are the same everywhere in the world, and we all need to have patience and adjust to their indecisions and peculiarities.

But about a third of all Tico men should not be on the road, period. Per capita traffic deaths attestify that Costa Rica has one of the poorest records on the planet, and with good reason. Too many Ticos drive like they are the only car on the road. You can’t drive a couple of kilometers before a Tico driver cuts you off, stopping infront of you in the middle of the road instead of pulling over, signaling left and turning right, turning without signaling, driving at 35 kph in a 60 kph zone unaware of the line of traffic he is holding up because he doesn’t use his mirrors, yacking into a cell phone extressing himself with his hands waving in the air, or looking at his passenger while talking instead of the road infront, casually tossing his garbage out the window. Or they’ll speed down the road like there is no tomorrow, passing on curves, forgetting headlights at night, flying over pot holes, seeming trying to plow over anything or anyone that is in their way.

I can get so frustrated and angered by the constant selfish displays of driving here in Costa Rica, I’ve given the finger more than once, or just intensionally block the idiot from moving and shake my head. Then I notice a beautiful dark eyed, innocent-looking Tica standing in the rain at the side of the road, child in tow, bags slung over her shoulder, waiting for a bus. Knowing what she probably goes through to live here with these men, the bunk her partner lays on her coming home late after blowing his hard earned colones in a local cantina or his mistress, the constant stuggle for her family’s daily rice and beans, school clothes and books, and keeping a roof over her kids’ heads, I forget my frustration and realize how lucky I am. I have learned to have a deep respect for Ticas.

The Peter Principal should have been invented in Costa Rica, where a man advances within an organization to his level of incompetence. Most Ticos know little about efficiency, or thinking outside the box. Perhaps it’s a lack of educational opportunities but mostly it is because of thinking only in the short-term and thus shooting themselves in the foot everywhere they go, burning bridges like a pyromaniac. Too many just seem to live for the moment, and plan nothing for the future.

But what I have trouble getting accustomed to more than anything is the almost invariable lack of integrity that upper level, supposedly educated Ticos have. I can almost understand the ignorant poor Ticos living like there is no tomorrow, hand to mouth, dog eat dog existence, but not the educated and wealthy Ticos. Let me site a few examples to demonstrate my point.

I formed a 22 member Costa Rica hotel association. The Tico owner of Volcan Turrialba Lodge, Tony, told me he inherited four square kilometers of land between Irazu Volcano and Turrialba Volcano. He said that he would pay the $200 to help us produce a map with his advertisement on it. After the map was made, he then decided to stiff the association for the money. I brought it to the membership’s attention, so when he tried to defend himself, he said that I just don’t understand the Tico culture. He’s right about that, I don’t.

Another large tour company, CostaRica4U, solicited me that they would list my hotel on their website, if I listed their tour company on mine. I agreed and after a year of listing them, I noticed they ‘forgot’ to list my hotel. Then it was like trying to play cat and mouse with the owner to put our link on his website. After a few weeks I finally was able to corner him in his office, he paid lip service to me that he would list us, but he never did. If I was him, I would feel embarrassed and do whatever I could to rectify the situation, but he couldn’t care less. He got on my website for free for a year, so he won, that’s all that matters. We have never used his company since, and he’s lost thousands of dollars.

When I bought a lot from a architect/builder who was going to build my house, he took my 25% deposit money, bought a $50,000 LandRover Defender, then never had the money to build my house. After nearly three years of him picking away at the house, one board and nail at a time, I eventually was legally able to have him removed from my property (he didn’t want to leave?!) and have paid for and completed the house myself. He needed to kiss my mortgage goodbye because of non-performance.

My hotel is in a hotel zone, Ciudad Cariari. Hotels are not individually allowed to put our hotel signs on the highway, but as a group, the MOPT will allow one sign saying ‘Zona Hotelera Ciudad Cariari’. I priced a nice big sign for our group, but have spent two weeks trying to talk to the Tico owner or Tico manager of the Melia Cariari Hotel to pay $100 for their share of the sign. I constantly am told that they are in a meeting, or on the phone, or back in another meeting, or on a long distance call, and they will call me back, but never do. I’m volunteering to do something for our group of hotels, and they are playing cat and mouse with me for $100? They charge $150 per night for a room, and they have 140 rooms, but they also know that we are going to erect the sign regardless of their participation, so why bother paying their share, they’ll come along for the free ride. We have sent them hundreds of guests in the past when we were full, but never again.

It seems Ticos, rich and poor, have a compulsion to win now, regardless of how much they will lose tomorrow, and in their minds, the only way for them to win, is for someone else to lose. The win-win business philosophy has no meaning to Ticos. Burn your bridges as long as you win now. Perhaps this shortsightedness stems from generations of Ticos living in such a lush, tropical paradise. Traditionally, if they got hungry, they picked a banana or killed a chicken, if it rained, they looked for a roof. Personally, I now try and limit all my business negotiations and agreements with Ticos to no more than necessary. Too many just don’t seem to understand what integrity is and how important it is in business. I far prefer to deal with either Ticas, or foreigners.

If the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is voted in, and I hope it is, Ticos, especially those in the upper business positions, had better follow the Tica example and change the way they do business by starting to demonstrate honesty and integrity. If not, the international business community will circumvent them, investors will avoid them like the plague, and the whole country will suffer. Free trade won’t help the Costa Rican economy until Ticos, particularly those in power, demonstrate integrity.

I always thought that someday I would eventually be able to understand and adjust to this type of Tico mentality. I kept thinking it was me, a d.p. (displaced person) Canadian and that someday I would be able to adapt to this culture, just give me a bit more time, I’ll come around. Sorry, I was wrong. Though there are certainly honest, good Ticos out there, struggling, working hard, men trying to optimize and make a better life for their families, and with a certain degree of integrity, because of my past experiences, too many that I have met have ruined it for the others. I’ll always have my guard up, and never be confident or comfortable dealing with any Ticos for fear of the same treatment.

While vacationing in Costa Rica, most people still prefer the luxurious hedonistic options. Upon arrival at their destination, the more first class the treatment, the better.

Air-conditioning even in Costa Rica’s Central Valley where the temperature hoovers comfortably in the 60’s and 70’s year-round is a must for many. They are on vacation and will worry about global warming when they get home. Most opt for fine dining by candlelight on imported foods and umbrella drinks prepared by workers making barely $2 per hour. They relax in hotel rooms with orthopaedic beds, watching CNN on a flat screen TV, there’s wireless internet, exotic views, and please, room service. They take comfy organized excursions in guided tour buses, and from their protective bubble environment, with their noses pressed against the windows, they view pre-chosen attractive corridors of Costa Rica . After leaving Costa Rica, they tell friends how much they enjoyed (and endured) experiencing the real Costa Rica. These people have worked hard to be in Costa Rica and there is nothing wrong with this scenario, fulfilling their dreams of a well-deserved vacation.

But there are those who look outside the norm and ask themselves if they want all the comforts of home, why travel in the first place? If a change is as good as a rest, why not really experience something different, and authentic? This new kind of tourism is still in its infancy, and is falling under the coined term, ‘Rural Tourism’.

On one of the more extreme rural adventures, imagine taking a dug out canoe for three hours up a rainforest river, fording shallows, dark tanned natives jabbing long poles into the river bottom, their skinny muscles shoving your boat further upstream with each push, dense jungle on both sides screaming with the shrill sounds of a million crickets and a thousand frogs together, and the occasional volcano view when the vegetation recedes, humid and clammy, mosquitos bumping into your insect repellant skin. Once you are out of the boat, there is a further walk on muddy paths through thick vegetation, your guide leading the way, slashing branches with his machete as he temporarily silences the nearby jungle.

As night sets in, you finally reach your destination, the pueblo of Yorkin, hot and exhausted, scratched and sweating. It is a small village with coal oil lamps, and open door huts, timid chickens, big eyed children, irregular paths and a clear night sky so full of bright stars that you are humbled deep into God’s universe. Take a quick shower from a gravity fed tank, eyes in the jungle watching your every move, and crawl into some clean, dry clothes. Your intense hunger for nourishment from the excitement and energy expended is amazingly satisfied by a simple bowl of home-grown rice, beans and exotic vegetables, and a bit of chicken. Too tired to do anything else today, your eyes get heavy, and the safe feeling of sleeping on a bunk inside a mosquito net is so comforting, the next thing you know, you are dreaming of the stresses of office life oceans and millenia away.

You wake at first light at 5am with the sounds of warbling and squawking birds somewhere nearby, howler monkeys hooting in the distance, and a man chopping firewood with a machete outside your door. Everyone gathers for an early morning walk through the jungle to a cool refreshing waterfalls, where with your biodegradable soap and toothbrush, you start the day feeling wonderfully fresh. Piping hot strong coffee made over an open fire, sugar from local cane, fresh exotic fruit juice, fresh baked bread, ‘imported’ sour cream, gallo pinto and fried eggs await your return to the village.

Today you will learn some of the secrets of real jungle life, no electricity, no cellular signal, crystal clean drinking water that is diverted from a nearby stream, the heat and humidity, the simple survival techniques of collecting jungle fruits and tubers, and hunting with poisoned tipped arrows that have kept your indigenous hosts alive for generations, the communal living and the love and respect families have for each other and the interaction with nature around them. Today your group’s project is to help write directional signs for several walking paths stemming from the village for future Yorkin adventurers to explore the area.

Where once, basic subsistence living kept these indigenous people doomed in primative poverty, rural tourism is opening opportunities for them, doubling their basic incomes and unfortunately for us, but wonderfully for them, drawing them into modern society.

To experience this tour above going to Yorkin, and similar ones, go to www.actuarcostarica.com. Also, try any of the following links for other Costa Rica rural tourism options www.greencoast.com/atec.htm, www.cultourica.com, www.turismo-sostenible.co.cr. One can be certain that as time goes on, more and more rural tours allowing visitors to experience authentic indigenous Costa Rica life in the depths of the rainforests will become increasingly popular.

It all started with a bullet. Gilberto Sheedan (aka Chito) found Pocho, a full-grown crocodile, seventeen years ago dying on a river bank near the Caribbean town of Siquirres with a gun shot wound to his eye, probably from a cattle farmer protecting his herd. With help from friends, Chito loaded the massive three meter animal into his boat, took him home and nursed him back to health but with only one eye. Chito stayed by his side much of the time, even sleeping with him. Pocho’s appetite increased slowly to the present thirty kilos of chicken and fish he consumes daily now.

Chito hand dug the first hundred square meter artificial pond to contain Pocho on the seventeen hectare farm that he inherited from his father. After Chito sensed a bond with his massive friend, the two started swimming together.

Though Chito doesn’t have a written permit to have a crocodile in captivity, MINAE (the Ministry of Energy and the Environment) allows Chito to keep Pocho on his ranch as long as the ministry can monitor him.

Seven years ago, they started performing infront of spectators, and that’s when Chito claims his life really changed. Chito has developed a nice tourist complex called Las Tilapias with a restaurant and bar run by his wife, Olga, serving tipico food, a small swimming pool, and seventeen basic, clean, comfortable hotel rooms with private baths, some surrounded by the system of canals, that I estimate are a kilometer or more long that twist and turn through the dense jungle that Chito had dug.

As my girlfriend and I stood on a path looking over the low wire fence at Pocho swimming by himself in the pond, a large pelican with his huge long beak waddled up and stood between us and looked at the pond as well, completely relaxed, he just wanted to be with us for a moment to see what we were looking at! As we walked along the same path, I heard a bird cooing, turned and saw a large grey bird about the size of a pigeon with a red head about a meter from us in a bush looking directly at us, seemingly unafraid.  I think all of Chito’s animals are pretty well fed to be so tame.

Chito offers boat tours of his canals, either with a small gas engine or paddle it with a guide (which is quieter, slower, cleaner, and less intrusive) where you will see several bird species, some quite rare and unique to this area, there are night and blue herons, hummingbirds, white and grey egrets drying their out-spread wings, a big family of howler monkeys who frequent near the hotel leaping from branch to branch, a domesticated and caged peccary (which is like a small hairy pig), some amazingly large iguanas and a few sloths if you are lucky enough to spot them. Snakes are more difficult to spot, as most do not like to be around human activity. The whole property is like a jungle zoo with few fences and walking paths and different indigenous animals around every corner. I’ve been all over Costa Rica and never seen anything quite like it, and so typical of Costa Rica in every respect.

Though Chito performs the main event every Sunday at 4pm when he jumps into the pond with Pocho, he also puts on free shows for house guests during feeding time. Chito puts his nose to Pocho’s nose and bites Pocho’s fang, has Pocho roll over, has trained him to lift his huge head and tail above the water, and maybe even puts his head between Pocho’s massive jaws. The two best friends are both about 55 years old, but neither seems to be slowing down. Crocodiles grow throughout their lives and Pocho is now 4.5 meters long, and looks very well fed, as Chito tickles Pocho in the arm pits and his fat rolls a bit. The show is excellent for people of all ages.

We have been looking for a neat experience to send people from Adventure Inn, and I think we have found it, the place is truly awesome! Ask us at Adventure Inn for information about very reasonably priced three day - two night tours to Las Tilapias, including pick up and drop of at Adventure Inn, comfortable accommodations, plus all meals, and jungle canal boat ride, $199 per person double, $149 per person quad (two to a room). Sometimes Chito even sings old favourite Caribbean songs at breakfast on his Karaoke machine, actually he’s not bad, quite the fellow, always happy and he deserves so much admiration for what he has accomplished.

The Cuban daily propaganda newspaper, ‘Granma’ took swings at a US judge’s decision to release accused terrorist Luis Posada on a $350,000 bond. Posada is accused of his involvement in a 1976 Cuban airline bombing over Barbados killing 76 persons. He is also accused of bombing Havana hotels in 1990 killing one Italian tourist, and mounting a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro in 2000.

The judge, Kathleen Cardone, apparently yeilded to anti-Cuban terrorist groups, such as Alpha 66, that Posada would be tortured in Venezuela if extradited, as that country has been requesting. “This is further confirmation of the double standard of (US President) George W. Bush’s administration in its alleged crusade against terrorism”, said the Cuban Communist Party mouthpiece.

However, all the complaining may be for nothing. Posada may be released directly into the hands of the US Immigration. He is accused of entering the US illegally through Mexico. As a former US Army veteran, and one time CIA operative, born in Cuba and a citizen of Venezuela, the life and times of fugitive Luis Posada will someday be coming to a theatre near you!

Officials are investigating the cause of a massive forest fire on the uninhabited Isla Bejuco in the Gulf of Nicoya (dividing Nicoya and Guanacaste from the ‘mainland’).

They believe the fire was set intensionally, and the suspected reason is that development is prohibited on any coastal forested areas. Burn down the forest and development is no longer prohibited, great idea!

20% of the island’s forest was burnt to the ground, and another 20% of the island was affected. It took 30 volunteers from neighbouring Isla Venado to fight the fire for two days starting on March 24th, 2007. Strong winds and tides made the situation difficult to bring under control.

I don’t know if you remember seeing the sadistic fishing methods the Japanese notoriously used to rape the world’s oceans to feed their picky citizens, five mile long and very wide drift nets that wiped out and drown all sea animals, turtles, dolphins, sharks, anything in the water within it’s mammoth reach, then discarding these undesireable dead animals back into the ocean, only to keep their prized tuna. Perhaps you saw scenes on documentaries of Japanese hauling huge beautiful sharks onto the decks of their massive fishing boats, and ripping off the fins of the animal, and once again discarding the live shark back into the salt water to die a slow, horrific death, so they can enjoy their $60 per bowl shark fin soup. Perhaps you remember the sobering statistics of Japanese harpooning all sorts of whales the world over into near extinction, until the world, orchestrated by Greenpeace, put a stop to it in 1986.

Since 1989, Japan has donated over $23.5 million dollars to Costa Rica to build schools, and aquaducts, hospital equipment, and even buy musical instruments for the Nacional Symphony Orchestra, but in the last few months their donations have reached an almost feverish pace with press releases flowing like a strong river.

I guess this begs the question: Why? Conservation experts here in Costa Rica are skeptical since the recent upturn in donations coincides with an upcoming vote of the International Whaling Commission in June on whether or not to resume commercial whale hunting.

Since the whaling ban over twenty years ago, the Japanese have long contended that they would (this time) practise sustainable whaling. But the joke is on Japan, as Costa Rica is twenty years behind on it’s dues to the whaling commission, and must pay up in order to regain its voting status.

According to Greenpeace, since the whaling ban, Japan has been lobbying lots of small countries with generous (and not so subtle) donations in order to gain votes in favor of lifting the moratorium. After numerous donations from Japan, Nicaragua, for example, voted to lift the ban in 2006, much to the disappointment of environmental groups.

A Japanese spokesperson said that they owe much to the USA for building their infrastructure since World War II (not to mention the thanks for Hiroshima and Nagasaki) but because the USA does not need help, they want to help underprivileged countries, and their donations have nothing to do with their aspirations to resume whaling.

Who do you believe, the gutless Japanese who still continue the cruel practice of shark finning, who needed to be stopped by international forces to cease drift netting, and needed to be stopped by international forces before they brought several species of whales to extinction, or the volunteers at Greenpeace?