Me and the system, and Costa rica
Me and the system, “A site story”. Before I will write more about my fight aigainst the system I have to decide for myself what I will post on Steemit and what not. This week I decided to write a little bit less controversial story first, my trip to Costa rica. If you have read some of my post before you already know that English is my fourth language, so forgive me for strange sentences or wrong spelling.
My trip to Costa Rica, was one of the most life changing trips I have made. For people from Europe it is not a normal place to go on a holiday. That's why people asked me: Why Costa rica? My answer: I do not know, my heart says: You have to go there. The first challenge was planning the trip. My wife is not in favor of far trips and she is very specific about traveling via the USA. Never again! They treat you as a criminal there. So the flight went from Düsseldorf in Germany via Madrid in Spain to Costa rica.
The arrival in San Jose.
I have to admit that the arrival was not what I expected. San Jose, the capital of Costa rica, is as every major city in the western world. Busy, chaotic and confusing. The cab driver that took us from the airport to our hotel was a typical Costarican cab driver. A real macho driver. In the short trip he tried to violate every traffic law there is. No seatbelt, making a telephone call, driving through several red lights, driving about double the spead allowed, shouting, swearing, overtake on the right, and so on, and so on. But we survived. The hotel I picted was in one of the suberbs. I do not like the touristic areas, because you will not experience the culture of the country there. But OK, it was a little bit to much cultural differnce for the first day. All the windows and doors of all of the building had bars. On the street people where making dinner and looked at us in a way of “What the hell are YOU doing here?”. Afterwards I understood that I had created an image of fear in my head. It felt the responsibility for my wife, my son (12) and my daughter (14). I was afraid that I did not plan the trip well enough and that something would go wrong or something bad would happen. Now I know that Costa ricans are amoung the nices people in the world. We stayed in San Jose for two days, before going on our road trip.
The road trip from San jose to Arenal, Monteverde, Manual Ontonio, Corcovado and back to San Jose.
I am not going to write all the nice things that we have seen and experienced in Costa Rica, because I am not writing about traveling. I write about my fight against the system. If you are thinking of going to Costa rica: DO IT!! In my opinion: It is one of the most beautifull places in the world.
I can show a lot of beautifull pictures of scenery, birds, animals, jungle and beaches, but you can just google and will find the same pictures. To give you an impression of what my family is a like, I show you one picture of a hiking trail we did.
In summery:
What has Costa rica to do with “Me and the sytem”? If you really pay attention when you are there, it is if you entered an other dimension. An other reality. The rules of the system are not the same in Costa rica as in all the other places that I visited. The first thing that you will notice: The people are nice. Not normal nice, extremely nice. Not from the mind, but from the heart.
The second thing you will notice is that they do not look at you. Real Costaricans do not look at you, they look down or straight ahead. It is not polite to look at people, without permission. Sales people are not going to speak to you untill you asked them for help. That is so relaxing.
But the real abnormality. They do not care about money, they care about people and nature. The drive from Arenal to Monteverde is only possible with a 4 wheel drive. Why? Is there not enough money to pay for a road? NO, they want to preserve the beauty of nature. There are a lot of investers that want to built a road and hotels in Monteverde. But the Government does not allow it. Their way of thinking is: People that really want to see the beauty of Monteverde will take a drive of a couples of hours over dirty and muddy roads for granted. The tourist that only come for luxery and nice pictures will destroy the place. By not building a road, we will keep them away. Only the nature loving people will take the drive. Our drive to Monteverde was moddy and wet.
A couple more examples. Did you know that there is free health care for every Costarican. If there is a power outage, earthquake or heavy rainfall everyone is just totally relax. Costa Rica’s electricity has been produced entirely using renewable energy for 300 days since the start of January 2017.
During one of the tropical rain storms in Manual Antonio, my famlity and I where eating at a restaurant (inside) and we had a view on a bus stop. There were about 15 people waiting packed up under a little roof. Suddenly one of the guys started doing acrobatics. Then a woman started clapping and finally all of them started singing. You could see that it were strangers, with different backgrounds. My daughter and I were totally amased. This cannot be real, where is the candid camera?
Why is Corcovado my favorit place?
It is the real jungle. You can really connect with nature. In Manual Ontonio the monkeys try to steal your food, because they are used to humans. In Corcovado the monkeys start trowing branches at you, because your are trespassing their territorium.
With a local guide we went into Corcovado national park. There are only a couple of visitors allowed per day, because otherwise nature would be desturbed. We made a reservation a couple of months before. The start of the trip was a visit to a native village, which was actually in the national park. The village was a couple of houses and a school for the 5 children living there. The head of the village captured a snake two days ago, inside the village. He put it in a small box and we looked at it from a save distance. It was one of the deadliest snakes in the world. If one of the children would have been bitten they most certainly would have died. I asked our guide: What are they going to do with the snake? He simply said: We will bring him back to the jungle where he belongs. My brain started to work overtime. There is an animal that can kill your children with one bite, and you do not kill it.
The trip to the jungle was totally awesome. Our guide (a native) showed us al the plants that you can eat, and could be used as a medicine. We tasted a lot of them and he used a leaf to stop the itch of my daughters mosquito bite. He told us that because of the rainy season it was not sure if we could go back the same way we came. Again my brain started to work overtime. We are traveling with a guide in the jungle, and he is not sure if we can go back. Question again: If we cannot go back, what will happen then? In a few minutes we are at one of the highest points in Corcovado. If we are lucky we have mobile phone connection there. Me, thinking again....and if we are not lucky? Oh, do not worry if we cannot go back, we will stay at the ranger station for the night. OK? OK, I guess.... Me, the guy that likes adventures, who is not afraid, that knows how the system works, that fights the system,......or am I still a part of the system? This guy, he knows more than me. He respects nature. He uses plants to cure people, he can eat for free. He does not need the system, I do! I cannot survive without the system. The trip to the jungle, made me feel small.
This is a picture of Puerto Jimenez. Is the capital of Corcovado. And a lot of you will think, just as I did when I arrived. It is a poor place. Nope. It is one of the richest places I have ever seen. It is just a way of defining: What is being rich?
Puerto Jiminez, has: Nice people, beautifull nature, it is totally relaxing, there is sunshine and nice weather. You do not need a big house, because you mostly live outside. You do not need money to buy food, because you take food of the trees, the jungle or from the river. There is no need for TV, because you can look at nature for free. There is no need to pay for a tropical swimming pool, it is just there. It is for free. It is for free.
Even the supermarket is for free. Huh?, yes sometimes. It happened twice when I was in Corcovado. The first time it happened to me. We were driving from our jungle lodge to Puerto Jiminez and the children where thirsty. So I stopped at a small store. As always a very nice lady was sitting behind a desk. I wanted to pay with credit card or with my bankcard. OK, a little bit stupid, I admit it. As a foreigner you cannot withdraw a lot of cash money in Costa rica. The only thing that I had left was two hundred dollar notes. Paying with creditcard or bankcard was not possible, and I showed my 100 dollar. NO, she had no change for 100 dollar. So she said: It is OK. It is for free. I looked at her, with one big questionmark in my fase. No really, she continued, it is for you. We like it when people visit, the drinks are for you. It is for free. Disoriented I left the store with two drinks, wondering what just happened.
The next day we where in the medium size supermarket in Puerto Jiminez. In front of me there was a man that was a regular customer. He put his groceries on the checkout. In the same time he emptied his wallet. The girl behind the cashier looked at it and I could see that it was not enough. They talked spanisch. I could understand a little bit, but not everything. I am trying to learn Spanisch. It was clear that the money was far from enough. The girl sliding the cash into the cash register, without counting the money. It is OK, she said. See you next time and have a nice day. The man walked away with the groceries.
Disoriented again. Two times in one week a store employee just gives away products for free. What is wrong with the system over here? Why do the rules not apply? Thinking....Thinking....because the people do not accept the rules of the system.
And then we came back to the Netherlands.....pffff....as if a dark blanket was pulled over me.....I don't want to go back to the old system.
In Costa rica I learned:
The most important lesson I learned in Costa rica:
To all Costaricans. Muchas gracias, para mi corazon!
If you want to know more about my trip to Costa rica, or have any questions just reply. Do not forget to upvote or follow me, if you like my stories.