Whither Costa Rica?

Pardon my whimsy in lapsing into Letters to the Times, circa 1930. Over the last couple of days, a topic of conversation that has popped up now and again - usually when we are looking at some condo/house that is going for $600,000 US - that the Costa Rica of years past is long gone, swamped by a flood of tourists and those that feed off these fat and slow-moving fish. It is not that this is necessarily a bad thing - I don't know enough about things here to comment intelligently one way or the other - but it is apparent that rising prices, enthusiastic building of resorts, condos, future golf courses and the like have changed Playa del Coco forever. The little fishing village of the past has joined the choir invisible, or most of it has: see pictures of the little soda on a back street where we had lunch, included here for your edification and enjoyment. The price we paid was probably 20% higher than it would have been in a town not full of touristas like us.