Thoughts on Costa Rica, water safety, and other stuff
At all of the hotels that we stayed at, the water was safe. Some hotels
had better tasting water than others. In particular, the Mawamba and
Bougainvillea had excellent water. The Marriott came in third and the
Mariposa came in fourth. Our driver Jose always had bottled water on
the bus, and we made use of that.
Fortunately no one in our family got sick during the trip (and so far
that remains true after the trip).
My impressions of Costa Rica are favorable. The country seems to have a
handle on preserving the rain forests that are remaining after the
logging and clearing of land for agriculture of the past two centuries.
The national parks that we visited allow very little human intrusion.
In Tortuguero, you are only allowed on a small fraction of the canals
in the park, the vast majority of the canals are off limits. In Manual
Antonio and Carara, the foot paths are all that you are allowed on, and
they make up a fraction of a percent of the land in the parks. The road
that we took through Braulio Carillo was the only legal access in that
park, and you are not allowed off of that road.
As a whole my impression is that Costa Rican's want to preserve what is
left. Contrast this with what is going on in the Amazon, see the
January 2007 issue of National Geographic Magazine, where illegal
activities are destroying literally thousands of acres a day.
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This page last updated December 29, 2006