Notes on Costa Rica, post-trip

Having now spent six weeks in Costa Rica, I have noticed many changes from our last visit ten years ago. Some surprising, some not so much.

1. The number of drivers who honk their horns has greatly decreased. It still happens once in a while, still more than in the States, but nothing like ten years ago. I'm not sure what to attribute this to, since there are more cars on the roads than ever. The only thing I can think of is the smart phone. Ten years ago, practically no one had a smart phone. Now everyone has one. And that means, just like in the States, everyone is on their phone in the car. You aren't as concerned with blowing the horn a second before the light turns green when you're checking messages.

2. Traffic is worse. More cars, more people on phones, and the roads are still designed inefficiently (bridges are often one lane on two-lane roads, and we experienced an oddity: one lane of creeping traffic flowed on to a 2-lane bridge, which bottlenecked back to one lane when the bridge ended. Wtf?) The typical Costa Rican habit of everyone trying to squeeze into another lane of traffic--using the emergency lane, the shoulder, the ditch, the space in between the lanes, etc.--but no one willingly letting them in, is alive and well.

3. Everything is more expensive. Is it on par with Switzerland or Denmark? No. But the days of your vacation dollar stretching far in CR seem to be over. It felt like US prices. You could still find a 2000 colon casado, but it was rare. 3000 was more the norm. And many restaurants that weren't super fancy, but better than little hole in the wall greasy spoons, had casados in the 4000 range. 4000 is $6.50. Still a decent price for a meal in the States, but for Costa Rica, it's another example of how the prices here have become more like the States.

4. The central valley is getting gentrified. There are some areas, like San Rafael where our last airbnb was, that used to be fields of sugar cane, and now they're gated communities with shopping malls filled with fitness centers and high end eateries. We saw almost every US chain here: Office Depot, PF Chang's, Subway, Starbucks, and of course Wal-Mart, which not only has stores called Wal-Mart, but also owns Pali, MaxiPali, and Mas x Menos. Even little Grecia has a mall now. An actual indoor mall, with a food court and cinema. Grecia. Just let that sink in.

5. The police presence is minimal at best. For a country with no military, you might expect a robust police force. Nah. In six weeks, I saw transit police doing checks maybe twice. Rarely saw anyone pulled over on the streets. If you ever see a cop, they're cruising along, or standing on the sidewalk chatting. It would have been nice to have more of a visible police presence at the beaches, where crime is so rampant. Maybe this isn't different from ten years ago, but it seemed like there were less police.