Costa Rica

Heather:
After three weeks in Cuba it's been something of a culture shock arriving in Costa Rica. It feels like the two hour plane journey didn't just bring us to another country, but also shot us forward in time several generations! Suddenly the roads are filled with cars, with not an animal-drawn vehicle of any kind to be seen. There are people cutting the vegetation with strimmers instead of huge macheties. Suddenly the billboards displaying Communist slogans are replaced by blinding adverts for all kinds of tempting crap we don't really need. The American pollution (did I say 'pollution'? Maybe influence is more polite) is everywhere in the form of Dennys, Burger King, Wendys and of course the evil Mc Donalds. Prices are all in dollars, the locals all speak perfect English (if you can call American English 'perfect'!) and refer to us as "guys" and our counterparts are all teenagers who appear to have stepped straight out of an episode of 'Beverly Hills 90219' - aaagggghhhh!!!!

However, the up side of all this of course is... The food is fantastic. Everything runs ultra-efficiently. You know exactly what you're going to get when you hand your cash over. The facilities are astonishing; WiFi internet access in your room? Swimming pools? Roof-top bars? Hammocks? Cable TV? Folks that arrange everything for you? Pick ups from the door? Whoever said this travelling lark was hard?!