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Rick Steves’ Travel Blog

Here you can browse through my blog posts prior to February 2022. Currently I'm sharing my travel experiences, candid opinions, and what's on my mind solely on my Facebook page. — Rick

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Blue Angels in Costa Rica

I like fancy culture: music, art, and history. For me (while I love being in and enjoying nature) learning about flora and fauna ranks near the bottom, just above geology and genealogy. But for 48 hours, I’ve been steep on the learning curve in the best classroom I can imagine for getting turned on to plants and critters: a remote national park on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. Charming, knowledgeable guides — like Pablo, who led us on a four-hour hike today — make exploring vivid and experiential.

Walking under a jungle canopy, I hear rustling and look up. A troop of white-faced Cappuccino monkeys swing by like a class of grade-school Tarzans out on a field trip, their tails gripping branches as dexterously as their arms. Suddenly, the “alpha male” breaks off a branch and throws it down as if to remind us, “No one has sex with any of these monkeys but me. Bop juh wah wah wah.”

Later, Pablo explains how termites contribute to the finely tuned ecosystem, eating only dead wood. (The bad news: houses are made out of dead wood — that’s a reason why you won’t find many old houses around here.) The termites’ smell keeps other insects away, so monkeys smear them on their fur — giving “bug juice” a whole new spin. Then, popping one into his mouth, Pablo reminds us that termites are also full of nutrition…if bitter.

Dark, furry balls hang like stuck basketballs high in the canopy. They are sloths, which literally sleep away most of their lives. They hang upside-down so well that they are even found dead just hanging from their favorite branch. Then Costa Rica’s second biggest rodent, the agouti, romps clumsily by. This is a “planter”: it steals fruits and nuts, digs a hole, and buries them. As they generally forget to come back to eat their stash, they spend their lives unknowingly planting lots of trees. That makes them everyone’s favorite rodent.

Nature here is great at deception and camouflage. A butterfly wing attracts a mate with a stunning, iridescent blue on one side, and scares away predators by looking like a snake’s head on the other. A plant called a rattlesnake tail is tastier than it looks. And lizards sit still as a knothole, looking like the bark of trees they hang out on. Many plants are nicknamed for what they look like: machete flowers, the bullhorn plant, parrots’ beak flowers, and even fruit that comes in pairs called the horse’s balls.

Here, in this narrow isthmus, in what locals call the healthiest ecosystem in Central America, this hemisphere’s vast variety of life is funneled and therefore condensed into a narrow stretch of land. The leading industry is tourists coming down here to enjoy the nature. Eco-friendly is wisely a big theme for tourism here. After jetting down with so many big-spending gringos, I think that eco-friendly is nice — but we’re not completely off the environmental hook.

After a great day out, we’re back at the lodge. I feel as if I’m living in a teak treehouse. Sitting on the deck, I enjoy the slightly burning reminder that I got a lot of sun today as I stretch tight muscles after lots of walking. The jungle tumbles to a green horizon — everything seems to reach for the sun. I think “plush” and feel thankful to be so alive. I look up and see a V-shaped line of birds. They’re in formation with Blue Angels-like precision, as if to remind human visitors — especially urbanites like me — that there is a powerful, all-knowing, and respect-deserving order in nature.

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Stripping the Meat out of My Lobster Tail, I Prepare to Surf

Christmas already seems long ago, as our entire family is enjoying this year’s Christmas gift — a week in Costa Rica. I’m just relieved to be here, with the surf crashing outside of our dreamy hotel in the remote Pacific Coast beach resort of Manuel Antonio.

I was a bit edgy getting out of Seattle. Snow was stranding people wearing Santa caps at the airport. I had logged on to the airport website to check on parking, which told me that all parking lots in and near the airport were full — even people with reservations were being turned away. So, since we couldn’t drive ourselves, I had to scramble at the last minute to find a loved one to brave the icy roads to drive us there.

And that followed a bigger fright. Two days before Christmas, my daughter Jackie realized she left her passport back at her dorm in Washington DC. We scramble to get it FedExed — but had no assurance that it was actually sent, as much of the country is snowed in. So the day before Christmas, not about to risk our long-awaited family vacation over a passport stuck in a snowstorm somewhere, we spent hours in downtown Seattle getting an emergency replacement passport.

There was a long line of people, the computers were down, and snow was threatening to close the office. We were nervous, telling the woman at the counter, “This is a real emergency — our entire family vacation depends on Jackie getting her passport today.” The woman curtly responded, “It’s the day before Christmas — it’s an emergency for everybody in this line.” We do the paperwork, they declare Jackie’s existing passport lost and cancel it, and send us away for two hours while they issue the new passport — but they say that with more snow threatening, they don’t know how long they’ll be able to stay open.

Trying to relax, we got word that Jackie’s original passport is actually on its way via FedEx and should be in Seattle shortly. Then the irony sets in. If the snow closes down the passport agency office, we could actually have gone to heroics to get her existing passport to Seattle while simultaneously cancelling it, and be unable to pick up the newly issued one before we were to fly out. Thankfully, the snow held off and Jackie got her passport (which was good, since the FedExed passport never made it in time). Flying out at midnight on Christmas night worked great. A quarter tab of Ambien gets me three hours of good sleep to Houston (dreaming of a four-legged tree and two happy monkeys). We then grabbed a burrito breakfast and good coffee before catching a flight to San Jose, Costa Rica, where another quarter tab of Ambien gave me the second half of my Christmas night’s sleep. (Ambien meets Starbucks…and Ambien wins.)

I feel clueless about Costa Rica. I simply signed up for the best eight days that my friend’s Costa Rica tour company could offer. I can’t even find where we’re going on the map. It’s fun being clueless. I actually brought the last of our Christmas Satsuma oranges all the way to Costa Rica, where the customs official made me toss them out. Not knowing what plugs work here, I needlessly brought European adapters. I’m paranoid that our iPhone will be accidentally on, and we’ll be roaming 24/7, racking up a huge bill…we’d be sipping cheap drinks while going broke.

At the small San Jose airport, we climbed into a tiny six-seater plane for the herky-jerky ride over lush mountains to a jungle landing strip and a quick shuttle to the remote beach at Manuel Antonio. The flight seemed pretty dangerous, but I kept looking at the pilot and his young co-pilot, who were incredibly nonchalant as they motored their airborne jalopy into a dense cloud, managing to push the right little buttons and switches as the entire cockpit rattled away in a complete whiteout. Eventually, like a stray chunk of two-lane highway, our landing strip came into view.

The kids are into this vacation. Jackie spent much of the flight reading up on Costa Rica’s civil war, local gender issues, and lively bars near our hotel. Andy’s all for getting up early tomorrow for our guided nature walk through the national park.

I’ve never been to Central America to simply relax. As golf carts are ready to shuttle us down to the beach at a moment’s notice, I’ll do my best not to think about economic realities over the border in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Costa Rica is the Switzerland/Disneyland of Central America, and for the next week, it’s our rum/sun/fun-soaked play zone. Tonight, stripping the meat out of my lobster tail, I told my family I need to get in shape in a hurry. The day after tomorrow, I learn to surf.

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Jetsam for All this Yuletide

Here are a bunch of paragraphs too precious and sentimental or weak to make the cut in my upcoming “Travel as a Political Act” book. I thought you might enjoy giving them a read before they are entirely zapped:

Being a traveler is fun because you can be both small and big in your outlook. As travelers safely back in our home port, we enjoy the best of both worlds — both small and big. The waitresses, newspapers, and barbers here are talking about a “World Series” which the world beyond our culture knows almost nothing of. I’m fine with that because we know there’s a “World Cup” about which my world is just as oblivious.

While I love the political fray in the USA, I lose more battles than I win. But, win or lose, I’m thankful. I know the winner will ascend smoothly to power and I’m respected (and safe) as part of the loyal opposition, while much of the world staggers politically from one bloody coup d’etat to the next.

Regardless of where I return from, my travels accentuate the many ways I’m thankful for the corner of the world I call home: from India — population sparsity; from Greece — trees; from El Salvador — affluence; from Iran — religious freedom; from Europe — a free-wheeling business environment; from China — civil liberties; from Bosnia — no heritage of ethnic strife and no risk of hosting a war; from Russia — respect for the law and those who enforce it; from Turkey — sidewalks without cars parked on them.

Across America, communities are struggling with immigrant labor issues. Because I sat with Beatrice in her hut in San Salvador, I know the importance of remittances to loved ones left behind by migrant workers. After seeing Beatrice’s love for her daughter, I know the consequences of a single mom losing her home because of medical expenses. With that empathy, supporting groups tackling structural poverty in my own community comes naturally.

Those who are well off have the most to conserve…and therefore, the most reason to be conservative. While I’m inclined to be conservative (and was before travels opened my perspective), my travels balance my political views. As our society struggles with conformity and freedom, I think of Denmark — that “most content” land with plenty of reason to be conservative. It’s a land of extremes — homogenous and so well-ordered, yet where people march with banners reading, “Live life artistically. Only dead fish follow the current.” In studying Denmark, I can see issues that challenge my society in high contrast and therefore more clearly.

I remember the first time I walked through Seattle’s Hemp Fest — a party of 80,000 far-out people filling a park, most of who, frankly, scared me. A man named Vivian in a utili-kilt and dreadlocks yelled “give it up” for a band whose music sounded only like noise to me, and people went wild. Then I got to know Vivian who explained to me that this is a subculture that once a year gets to come together here on Seattle’s waterfront. I walked through the crowd again, with a different attitude. I celebrated the freedom and tolerance that made that tribal gathering possible. Last year I noticed I got strangely emotional when talking with police who said they enjoy the Hemp Fest assignment as a two-way celebration of respect and tolerance.

Noisy citizens were expected of Greek democracy. Only today do we have professional politicians and professional talking heads hired to do our political thinking for us. Ancient Greeks considered the size of the early polis or city-states important. They were just big enough where you could walk across them in a day, populous enough so you’d have all the various talents to cover the needs of your society but not too big where everyone — as citizen politicians — couldn’t gather on the main square and vote by a show of hands (or swords) on the great issues of the day. Of course, with a political unit as large as today’s nations, that is not workable. But we can and should still be engaged.

We have extreme poverty. A billion people trying to exist on $1 a day is a humanitarian crisis and, one could argue, a threat to our national security — as miserable, uneducated worlds like these are fertile grounds for fanatics with nothing much to lose who blame the USA for their sorry lot in life. There’s the Iraq War and potentially failed states of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Islamic fundamentalism — like fundamentalism of any kind — is a threat. There are other challenges and, of course, global warming may very well make all other problems seem insignificant. I hate the thought that New Orleans is the first of many major cities inundated by violent weather and a rising sea. Those images of highways clogged by Americans fleeing the latest hurricane will pale in comparison to a future with literally hundreds of millions of climate refugees (half of Bangladesh, with a population of 140 million, is less than 3 feet above sea level).

Wisely or unwisely, sooner or later, we will address each of these issues. How we address them is shaped by our world view, and our world view is shaped by an interesting grab bag of influences. We each have a different approach to these problems because we each have a distinct world view shaped by our unique life experience. My mom’s world view is shaped by her husband. My sister’s world view is shaped by Support Our Troops. My neighbor’s world view is shaped by a potent cocktail of fear and patriotism. My uncle’s world view, what’s good for his investments. All of our world views to a great extent are shaped by commercial television. I’m thankful that my world is shaped to a large degree by my travels.

With globalization and our modern, efficient affluence, I see ideals, heritage, and cultural roots in danger of being paved over. As I strive to keep ritual and tradition in my life, I’m inspired by the strong cultural roots of places I visited like Turkey, where workers hold their chisels proudly in the sky and where shepherds still play the eagle bone flute.

By saying things that upset people so they can declare they’d fight and die for my right to be so stupid, I feel I’m contributing to the fabric of our democracy.

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New Bridges and Fresh Fish…Change in 2009

One of my favorite moments of 2008 was in Istanbul. The prayer service had just let out, and a sea of locals surged for the door. Being caught up in a crush of locals where the only way to get any personal space is to look up is, for me, a ritual connecting with humanity. I seek these opportunities out. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to experiencing the joy of body surfing above a mosh pit.

Going with the worshipping flow, I scanned the dark sky. That scene — one I had forgotten was so breathtaking — played for me again: hard-pumping seagulls powering through the humid air in a black sky, surging into the light as they cross in front of floodlit minarets.

Our society’s theme for 2009: change. I’ve been thinking about change and reflecting on the last year’s travels. Sometimes change is forced on you, as if caught in a teeming mob scene. Other times you plan for and dictate change — which seems like change, but is actually more of the same…just better designed.

 

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All societies morph with the push and pull of the times. Walking down to the Golden Horn inlet and Istanbul’s churning waterfront, I crossed the new Galata Bridge, which made me miss the dismantled and shipped-out old Galata Bridge — so crusty with life’s struggles.

Then I realized that, while the old bridge was gone, the new one’s been engulfed with the same vibrant street life — boys casting their lines, old men sucking on water pipes, sesame-seed bread rings filling cloudy glass-windowed carts.

Walking the new Galata Bridge and still finding the old reminded me how stubborn cultural inertia can be. If you give a camel-riding Bedouin a new Mercedes, he still decorates it like a camel. I remember looking at tribal leaders in Afghanistan — shaved, cleaned up, and given a bureaucrat’s uniform. But looking more closely, I see the bushy grey bearded men in dusty old robes still living behind those modern uniforms. I remember seeing a Californian who dropped out of the “modern rat race” in Katmandu — calloused almost-animal feet, matted dreadlocks, draped in sackcloth as he stood cane in hand before the living virgin goddess. Somehow I could still see Los Angeles in his eyes. The resilience of a culture can’t be overcome with a haircut and a shave — or lack of one — or a new bridge.

 

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On the sloppy adjacent harborfront, the venerable “fish and bread boats” were still rocking in the constant chop of the busy harbor. In a humbler day, they were 20-foot-long open dinghies — rough boats with battered car tires for fenders — with open fires grilling fish literally fresh off the boat. For a few coins, they’d bury a big white fillet in a hunk of fluffy white bread, wrap it in newsprint, and I was on my way…dining out on fish.

A few years ago, the fish and bread boats were shut down — they had no license. Now, after a popular uproar, they’re back. A bit more hygienic and no longer wrapping in newspaper — but they’re still rocking in the waves and slamming out fresh fish.

Regardless of where 2009 leads us (our retail sales, retirement accounts, stock market, the dollar versus the euro), we’ll still be rocking in the waves and slamming out fresh whatever-we-produce.

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Hot Greece in the Winter…

I’ve been concerned about the riots in Greece (as are some of the people signed up on our Greece tours). We just got this report from Athens by David Willett, who leads our Athens & the Heart of Greece tours. I think David is brilliant on anything relating to Greece, and his report sums things up nicely. I thought I’d share his take on the problem with all of you. Here’s David’s analysis:

The police shooting of the boy was the catalyst for the rioting, but not the underlying cause.

The underlying causes are economic — static wages and spiraling prices, particularly for food and fuel.

The government is very unpopular and seen as insensitive. It’s also a lame duck, holding a single-seat majority in parliament. Its problems began with its pathetically disorganized response to last year’s wildfires, which occurred just before parliamentary elections that the government had been expected to win easily. Since then, it has been involved in a continuing major corruption scandal involving a land swap with one of Greece’s biggest monasteries.

Elsewhere, this mix might also lead to demonstrations, but in Greece things invariably turn violent. This is a legacy of the street protests and university sit-ins that undid the Greek colonels’ military junta in 1973, which had the effect of legitimizing violent street protest in the eyes of many Greeks. A general dislike of the police that borders on hatred at times is another legacy of the junta years, when the police were one of the tools of repression.

Greece has a lot of anarchists and fringe leftists, who have been out in force agitating as usual, but the intensity of what’s been happening shows how desperate the economic picture is for Greece’s many, many highly educated young people who graduate from university expecting something better than a €700-a-month job in a service industry. They are referred to as the “700-euro brigade,” and they are the ones who are angry.

I’m sure this will lead to an early election, but not to an early solution. I think Papandreou has infuriated many Greeks by sitting back and gloating during the riots instead of calling for calm. He has also fiercely opposed much-needed reform of the pension system, and reform of the bloated public service, so I don’t know what he has to offer.

Whoever holds the reins will be answerable to Brussels on economic policy — or rather to the European Central Bank, which lays down very strict guidelines to the Eurozone countries.

It will be very interesting to see whether the ECB takes this as a warning, and acts to head off similar problems elsewhere.

The good new is that no-one has tried to blame America for what’s happening. There hasn’t been a single march on the US Embassy, which lets us know that Greeks see this as a domestic/European problem.

I don’t foresee any problems for our tour schedule or for Americans in Greece as a result of what’s going on.