We stayed in San Jose the first night and visited part of my family that lives in Desamparados, a small suburb outside of San Jose. We drove around a neighborhood of San Jose that first night that I had never been to but liked; it was called Barrio Otoya and there was a Café called Café Mundo that was nice; there was also a place called Atomic Café. 

We woke up early on the 24th and headed for Volcano Arenal and the hot springs that flow right underneath the volcano. On the drive to Arenal we drove past the international airport where we had arrived the day before and headed in the direction of Puntarenas; we then turned right and headed up into the mountains. 

On the drive up and over the central valley you overlook coffee fields and agricultural fields; mountains flowers of every color grow on the green spaces between parcels. As you climb further and further up you come to the hill towns of Costa Rica. Be sure to buy the mountain cheese that you see in balls wrapped in plastic along side the road: it’s like string cheese, but with a smoked smell and flavor. There is a very interesting mountain town in the hills called Zacero, where the bushes in the town park are cut into different shapes. As you climb even further into the mountains, fog will slowly surround you and your field of vision will lessen. Once over the mountains you come down on to a large flat plain known as the Llanuras de San Carlos which runs to the border of Nicaragua: this is the north of Costa Rica. 

In Arenal we stayed at a place above the hot springs that offered very comfortable cabins: it had the best views of the volcano. The clouds hid the volcano and we didn’t see any lava, but it was still nice to be under the volcano. What is interesting to me as a person who never grew up around volcanoes is how tense they can make you feel – I like the feeling, but wanted to get to the beach. I wanted to drink some Imperials (National Beer of Costa Rica) in the hot Costa Rican sun.

So after one night we headed to the beach: the road took us round Arenal Lake and down to the lowlands of Guanacaste. We stayed in Papagayo: my first time and had a great time. I liked the way they built the hotels back up on the hills far from the water, with views of the Gulf of Papagayo in front. We went to Playa Panama in Papagayo: local people having a good time and picnicking: very relaxed. There was another beach called San Blas that I wanted to go to but we never had the time. At night we drove over to Tamarindo; it took two hours from Papagayo to Playa Tamarindo and the road out to Tamarindo is very bad: the road to Papagayo was better. I didn’t really want to go to Tamarindo, though I like it, no, I wanted to go to Playa Grande which lies right next to Tamarindo. Playa Grande is part of a national park called Parque Nacional Las Baulas. Playa Grande is protected so there is no development on the beach: it feels pristine. The sunset on the beach is why I wanted to come: the colors of the sky and large clouds reflect on the wet beach. The road out to Playa Grande slowed me down so I didn’t get to see the sunset the way I hoped, but still was able to snap some decent photos. I always enjoy coming back to Playa Grande; of all the beautiful places in Costa Rica it’s my favorite.

On the 25th we drove south from Papagayo and headed for a beach with the beautiful name of Sámara. In Sámara we stayed at a German place called Brisas del Pacifico; its just outside of town in the direction of Playa Carrillo. Very nice hotel: not inexpensive. Good view of the sea and the hotel was near the beach. We tried some of the restaurants in the center of Sámara; they served seafood and Spanish food, meats mostly and rice and seafood – all very good. We went to bed early and woke up early the next day, walked the beach at Sámara and then drove past Playa Carrillo and headed back into the countryside. You drive through a small river after the town of Estrada and then we drove to Altos del Mora, and later, through a town called Jobo and other very small rural towns with names like Maravilla and Caimital. The roads were dirt and there were a few houses that dotted the countryside, beyond that there was very little in this very rural area of Guanacaste. 

On the second day in Sámara we decided to head out to Nosara; I didn’t know the place and Gabi told me she had gone years before and had liked it. Nosara was a neither nor kind of place. They have an airport. There seems to be lots of real estate being sold or not sold, it was hard to say. On Playa Pelada near Nosara there was a bar called Bar Olgas and the beach had a strange atmosphere: It was as though a confluence of forces – real estate speculation, beach life, hotel building – had met in Nosara and had not washed across one another in a very constructive way: the place just didn’t add up to me. At another place and time in my life I might have liked it, but I wanted to get away. There was a strange hotel on the hill to left of Playa Pelada. We drove up to it and it was abandoned: a Spaniard had started something here and then had left. There was a Swiss place in town that we thought we might stay in. I drove up behind the Swiss hotel on the side close to the beach to turn around and as I made my turn I noticed another hotel that looked all right. As I turned the steering wheel, I saw someone moving in the bushes near the stone and wooden gate of the hotel; behind the gate and just off to the side was a small guard house that was painted blue and there was dog in front of a man who emerged from behind the gate. He waited as I pulled forward, stopped, and slowly began to lower my windows: he patiently waited for me. I asked him if he had a room and he looked at me with eyes blazing and barked no, which was what I was hoping for. We headed back to Sámara where everything was booked, so we stayed above Playa Carrillo in a place called the Sunset Motel, which has a great view of not only Playa Carrillo, but also Sámara.

On the 29th we left Sámara and drove towards Jaco. Jaco is further south on the Pacific coast and to get to Jaco we had to cross the new Rio Tempisque Bridge which was built with help from the Taiwanese government. The bridge replaced the old ferry that once ran people, cars and material across the Rio Tempisque. We were headed for a hotel that I didn’t know called Villa Caletas. This was to be my birthday present which was the following day. So we lived a little of the high life: the hotel is placed on top of a hill that overlooks the Gulf of Nicoya. You can see ships steaming out of the Gulf and head into the Pacific Ocean. The ships slowly pass by in the distance as you relax by the pool or terrace. Villa Caletas is done in a Victorian Tropical theme and though I had seen pictures of Victorian Tropical – mostly in books on the Panama Canal – I had never actually been inside of it: I know it’s a hotel in the 21st century, but it was fun, just this one time. Each room has two doors: the first takes you back into you own private courtyard; the second, into your room. Very private. They have a nice pool and spa. We stayed one night and liked it: coffee in the morning over the Gulf of Nicoya with tropical birds in the trees. The hotel lies between the towns of Caldera and Jaco: you can see Jaco beach from the hotel.

We sat by the pool in the morning and then headed south in the direction of Manuel Antonio. If you go to Manuel Antonio you need to go to the national Park; I’ve never been – will – but know from photographs that the Park is a wonderful place to visit. You cross a small stream before you go into the Park and you must buy a ticket to go in. We didn’t have the time and needed to make the drive back to San Jose. You pass palm trees on either side of the road to and from Manuel Antonio. Palm plantations for palm oil – they have them in the south of Costa Rica near the town of Golfitos as well. Costa Rica also produces some of the best palm hearts in the world. The palm heart, which people use in salads, is extracted from the very center of the palm tree and has a unique taste and texture: very good in salads. During Easter celebrations people in Costa Rica go to the market and buy the trunk of a palm tree and then cut it open and take out the heart of the palm and cook it with eggs. 

The road from Manuel Antonio to San Jose snakes its way up over the Central Cordillera and brings you down very slowly into the Central Valley where the capital San Jose lies. The air on the drive goes from humid and hot to cool and dry; the heat of the beaches gives way to the cool nights of the highlands. The ride took four hours from Manuel Antonio. We stayed near the international airport. We lounged around the hotel and had something to eat. We cracked jokes with one another about the trip and tried to get on the Internet to see what was going on back in our lives. The next day we were driven to the airport and boarded the plane to Panama and arrived in the early evening; it was New Year’s Eve and our friend Jim picked us up and took us back home: we had a little party amongst ourselves and welcomed the New Year. 

Minor Cooper Keith

Before we left for Costa Rica one of my readers wrote me and relayed to me more information about a man who should be very interesting to both Americans and Costa Ricans: his name is Minor Cooper Keith, a U.S. citizen who lived in Costa Rica in the 1880s. I had read about Keith but did not know the details of his adventures in Latin America. I will try to outline his story here. The book to read on the subject of Keith is Watt Stewart’s Keith in Costa Rica, published in 1964: New Mexico Press. 

Keith was originally from Brooklyn, New York though I had originally thought that he was from Tennessee. His uncle, Henry Meiggis, built many of the railroads in Peru in the late 19th century as well as in Costa Rica. The Uncle (Henry) and the Nephew (Minor) were both railroad builders, though Minor started out in cattle and hogs. Minor Cooper Keith left New York for Padre Island, Texas in 1869. Padre Island is the long thin island off the southern coast of Texas, almost near the border with Mexico. It was on Padre Island that Keith started himself in the cattle and hog business. He did very well; at one time Keith owned as many as 4,000 head of cattle. From Padre Island Keith was enticed by his brother to Costa Rica where the brother was in charge of building the railroad for his uncle Henry who had gone to Peru. This was in September of 1871; Minor was 25 years old. In a very roundabout way Minor took over the rail project on the Limon side of Panama. His uncle did not intend for this happen, maybe would have been against it, but these kinds of twists always happen when something great is about to begin.

Now Limon is a city on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica and the idea of the railroad was to connect the Caribbean coast to the Central valley which was 3,500 feet above sea level. The railroad would transport coffee to the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica and then the coffee would be shipped on to Europe. Up until this point in time, coffee had been taken to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and then shipped around Cape Horn, with the coffee first stopping in Chile. The difficulty, and one of the reasons why the railroad had not been built earlier to the Caribbean, was the difficulty of the terrain: first rugged mountains, followed by a very dangerous jungle: people in Costa Rica at that time just did not go to the Caribbean coast; there was too much disease and danger in the jungle. There were few people on that side of Costa Rica; the British had some influence in the area but even they were a very weak force in the region. The original inhabitants of the jungle and mountains on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica had migrated to Colombia in the 10th century – they resettled in the Colombian Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta where they were known as the Tairona. Therefore there was little local labor on the eastern side of Costa Rica; this meant that Keith would have to bring in labor from outside

Keith assuaged peoples fear of whether or not he would be successful in his railroad project by telling them this: “Where a river goes, so can a railroad”, this was his motto. He eventually found labor in three places: New Orleans, Italy and Jamaica as well as the other Caribbean islands. Keith went to New Orleans in 1887 and shipped to Limon the most desperate elements he could find in the city, or so said the police chief of New Orleans at the time. They left New Orleans and sailed for Cuba where upon landing twenty-five men disappeared; they then sailed for Belize where the ship they were on got caught on the second largest coral reef in the world which runs along the coast of Belize. The captain drank too much and passed out. Keith had to take over and steer the boat and lead the crew to safety in Limon. 

Once in Limon most of the men from New Orleans quickly left for Panama where they found better pay working for Ferdinand de Lesseps on the French effort to build the Panama Canal. With the exodus of labor from New Orleans, Keith talked of bringing in Asians, but there was strong resistance from the Costa Rican public to that idea and so Keith contracted Italians from the Piemonte region of Italy. They came and were the first people to lead a large scale strike in Costa Rica. This was in the fall of 1888. The strikers were not too interested in solving the strike which was based on the fact that they had not received from Keith what had been promised by Keith’s middle-man in Europe. They hung around for a while in Costa Rica and then went back to Italy and to their families. What saved Keith in the end was Ferdinand de Lesseps failure in Panama: the workers from the Canal project went to Costa Rica, and Keith was able to finish his project: these same workers would return latter to Panama when the Americans picked up from where the French had stopped. To this day there is a very close relationship between the city of Colon in Panama and the city of Limon in Costa Rica: both towns have close ties to the Caribbean - all contributed the labor for the building of the railroad and the Panama Canal. Jamaicans, Barbadians, Grenadian, Trinidadians and Toboggans and others came to the Central American Caribbean coast and worked with things like dynamite - they did the most dangerous jobs on the Panama Canal.

The capital for Keith’s railroad project was raised in the City of London; in fact, Keith and his Costa Rican wife, Doña Cristina, whose mother had designed the Costa Rican Code of Arms and national flag, lived in London for two years in order to secure the needed loans. During their time in London a very unfortunate event happened: Doña Cristina accidentally fell down an elevator shaft, a fall which affected her memory for the rest of her life. 

In the end, however, Keith was triumphant: the first car to ride on the tracks of the railway did so on December 7th, 1890. Engine No. 15 pulled into San Jose on that day. The Costa Ricans threw a party that was a national event in a country that knows a good party. On December 31st, 1890 at the National Palace all of Costa Rica partied in honor of the completion of the railroad.

The women of Costa Rica dressed in the long flowing gowns made by the most popular fashion houses of the country, names like Batalla, Cardona, Uribe and Alfaros – these are names you know if you live in this part of the world - dressed the men and women of Costa Rica. At the time, the style among women in Costa Rica was to wear their hair in a bun with a large tortoise shell comb in their hair. Some put natural or artificial flowers in their hair. The men wore black, not white like in Panama, and beards and mustaches or at least mustaches. The National Palace was covered in flowers. Keith fought with the government later over money he thought he was owed by the government of Costa Rica: he did get some of his investment back. He went into bananas in a big way in Coast Rica after the success of his railroad and not only in Costa Rica, but in Panama and Colombia as well. In Panama his company was Snyder Banana Company; in Colombia his company was called Colombia Land Company, Limited which operated around Santa Marta. 

Later Keith would go into business with the United Fruit Company which he never liked. He wanted to build a railroad from Panama to New Orleans, but shipping was a much more economical way to transport goods, though Guatemala and El Salvador did build a railway connecting each other which was part of Keith’s planned railway through Central America. 

Keith returned to New York after 1900 and settled in Babylon, Long Island where he went into poultry farming, always keeping one foot in Costa Rica. He died on June 4th 1929; at the time of his death, Keith was estimated to be worth 20 to 30 million dollars; however, his money disappeared in the collapse of 1929. 

The executors of his will never released the accounts to Keith’s wife. She along with her maid spent two years in Long Island after Keith’s death and then returned together to Costa Rica where she died in 1942. Today the railroad Keith built is not running.  I wanted to hike the path of Keith's railway; it must be wonderful, but have not had the time to do so. There is talk of bringing the train back which would be interesting.

Information

If you are interested in staying at high end resorts in Costa Rica, then the following link should be of interest to you Click Here.

In Sámara we stayed at the following link:Click Here

Other articles by the author:

• Lost Valley Of Panama ~ Agua de Salud
• In Search Of The Scottish Colony ~ History And Adventure In Panama
• Santa Catalina And Coiba Prison Island ~ Little Known Frontiers
• John Wayne Island ~ In An Imaginary Tropical Western
• Return To John Wayne Island ~ Beautiful Isla Taborcillo
• Hiding Out In Panama - The Hotel Ideal
• Interview With Pedro Sarasqueta ~ Answering Questions About Investing In Panama
• Vista Mar Resort ~ Living On Panama's Pacific Coast
• Travel To Nombre de Dios ~ A Very Famous Unknown Place
• Living And Investing In Panama ~ What To Look Out For
• Looking At Property On Contadora Island ~ Exploring The History And Landscape Of An Island
• Isla Grande ~ The Lost Sides Of Isla Grande.
• An Interview With John Carlson ~ Talking With An Old Hand About Investing In Panama
• Altos del Maria - Another Look
• Carnaval 2003 - Hanging In
• Cerro Jefe ~  In An Old Cloud Forest
• Daytrips In Panama ~Looking At Real Estate And Passing Through Colon
• Deep In Veraguas - Traveling Down Backroads In Panama
• El Cope, Cocle ~ And Some Other Ideas
• On The Pacific Coast Of Panama - Traveling Through The Mountains And Beaches Of Panama
• Up On The Contential Divide And Down In The Desert ~ Hiking And Discovering Panama's Beauty
• Playa Grande - The Beauty Of A Remote Panamanian Beach
• Italy In Winter - From Rome To Venice
• Panama And Costa Rica - Thoughts On Both
• The Panama Railroad ~ Panama City To Colon
• The Chiriqui Highlands - R&R