{"id":3177,"date":"2017-12-07T15:32:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T20:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/?p=3177"},"modified":"2017-12-07T15:32:58","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T20:32:58","slug":"costa-rica-expectations-and-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/2017\/12\/costa-rica-expectations-and-surprises\/","title":{"rendered":"Costa Rica Expectations and Surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Costa Rica is completely different than I could have imagined.\u00a0 The country is filled with hills indistinguishable from mountains. \u00a0San Jose is vast and expansive with few high rises sprinkled around and a traffic congestion that might rival Atlanta\u2019s.\u00a0 The people are approachable, hardworking, and genuine.\u00a0 In Costa Rica, there is this can-do attitude that finds new ways even when the resources may seem scarce.\u00a0 The is a strong culture behind this do-it-yourself mentality that drives the work ethic of Costa Ricans.\u00a0 Anything that they don\u2019t have and can\u2019t afford they make.\u00a0 Anything they can\u2019t make they find a friend willing to make it for a favor.\u00a0 These favors are where the neighborly friendliness really shows.\u00a0 Before I came to Costa Rica, I expected to find many bad qualities, but instead, I am met with many more of the good.<\/p>\n

The country side is charted with a mix of paved and \u00a0unpaved roads \u2013 some of them so steep they seem nearly vertical in the bus that carried us.\u00a0 These roads curve and wind in a natural way around the mountains as not to disturb the habitats of the Costa Rican wildlife.\u00a0 The biodiversity here is part of what drives one of Costa Rica\u2019s biggest industries, Ecotourism.\u00a0 Between the jungles are the farms, many of which are actually hard to distinguish from the wild flora.\u00a0 Instead of clearcutting the trees and grading the land to make it easier to farm, The Costa Rican\u2019s work in harmony with what nature provides.\u00a0 They use barb wire wrapped around live trees instead of fence posts to enclose their pastures.\u00a0 Trees are left in the fields to shade the livestock and fix the nitrogen in the soil.\u00a0 Small towns dot along the mix of paved and unpaved road in the valleys between the hills that could be mountains.<\/p>\n

The city is jammed packed with tight streets and history.\u00a0 Soccer fields occasionally break up the buildings, most of which are three stories or less.\u00a0 At any time of day or night kids are practicing soccer in dirty collared shirts or the jerseys of their favorite professionals.\u00a0 The hotels we\u2019ve stayed in have old charm and architecturally pleasing.\u00a0 Most of them are run more like bed and breakfasts and we get to know their owners.<\/p>\n

Walking around the business in town, the shops in San Jose, and the farms in San Luis, I noticed that many things were made by hand out of whatever was on hand.\u00a0 I made the joke that Costa Rica must have lax Fire Marshals and no OSHA laws but I was actually amazed at some of the ingenuity behind all the do-it-yourself builds.\u00a0 Home improvement projects, entire buildings, or some specific coffee processing equipment \u2013 nothing was too hard.\u00a0 There was a pride in the people to work with their hands and maintain a certain self-sufficiency.\u00a0 They would only causally mention their handiwork in passing if at all because humility was also a large component to Costa Rican culture.\u00a0 Costa Ricans did not want for much of the frivolous things in life but only wanted what they needed.\u00a0 Family and personal relationships was very clearly more important than materialism.<\/p>\n

I had a lot of negative preconceived notions about Costa Rica and Central America.\u00a0 I was pleasantly surprised to see most of them were dispelled and replaced with admiration for a hardworking country.\u00a0 In many ways, as Americans, we had a lot to learn from Costa Ricans on this trip.\u00a0 The language barrier was hard, and even though I speak no Spanish I feel like I was able to pick up on a lot of this.\u00a0 Actions speak louder than words and the kindness and willingness to teach that the Costa Rican\u2019s showed us on this Study Abroad experience was unparalleled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Costa Rica is completely different than I could have imagined.\u00a0 The country is filled with hills indistinguishable from mountains. \u00a0San Jose is vast and expansive with few high rises sprinkled around and a traffic congestion that might rival Atlanta\u2019s.\u00a0 The people are approachable, hardworking, and genuine.\u00a0 In Costa Rica, there is this can-do attitude that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":433,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,33,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coffee-from-bean-to-cup","category-costa-rica","category-faculty-led"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/433"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3179,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions\/3179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}