A Tale of Woe
Costa Rica 2021
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| Costa Rica |
It came two days later. Our travel company wanted to bring us straight home, but I demurred and we eventually lost only one day of our holiday. The airline industry was shutting
down and we had to fly Havana-Paris-Amsterdam-Birmingham, arriving home the day
after the first lockdown had started.
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| Where are they all? Driving home from the airport after the start of the first lockdown. March 2020 |
By summer the prolonged lockdown had worked, the number of cases was much lower and stayed low even after restrictions were lifted. I was no Covidiot, unlike the
Prime Minister, Lynne and I had obeyed the rules meticulously, but I was always a
hopeless Covoptimist. By the end of August, I thought Covid was over and the
world would soon start opening up. We booked a trip to Costa Rice for February 2021.
But of course, it wasn’t over, autumn came and cases rose. The Prime Minister promised a ‘normal Christmas’ even though he was in possession of the facts and
projections, but he was, as usual, saying what he thought people wanted to
hear. The second lockdown came, I contacted the travel company and we
rescheduled for 2022.
Where Were We (not) Going?
Costa Rica has become a popular destination and I was surprised by how many people I have spoken to recently have been there. No doubt, they
know where it is, but others seemed less sure. They know its not one of the
Spanish Costas, so it must be across the Atlantic somewhere, but where? Confusion
with Puerto Rico is common, and understandable, but Puerto Rico is an island,
Costa Rica isn’t, it is a slice across central America.
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| Costa Rica's position in Central America |
It is not large, 150 km from the Atlantic to Pacific coast and 400 km north to south. Our plan was to cherry-pick the best of Costa Rica, stopping at five
locations across the country.
Flying Gatwick to San José, we would look round the capital and then journey by bus and boat to Tortuguero, a National Park on the Atlantic coast. It was
the wrong season for the turtles (never mind, see Oman (2): Sur and Turtles), but we were guaranteed howler monkeys, sloths in the
hotel garden and an early morning boat trip to see what we could find. From
there we would travel to La Fortuna at the base of Arenal, an active volcano, for lava walks and a dip in a thermal pool.
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| Costa Rica with our intended stops marked in red |
Stop 3 was at in the cloud forest at Monteverde, with walkways through the canopy – as featured in the Paddington movies, even though it is not ‘darkest Peru’. Then down to the
beach at Sámara on the Pacific coast before returning to San José and home.
Costa Rica in 2022
Little did we know it but the 2022 plan started unravelling in September 2021.
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| Tortuguero Canals Sourced from Wikipedia, photo in public domain |
Lynne was suffering from a persistent and very unpleasant cough and extreme tiredness. Coughing fits regularly left her retching, but when one brought up a
little blood, it was time to consult the medical profession. A series of blood tests,
an x-ray and an CT scan failed to throw light on the cough, which by January
had gone away on its own, but they did flag up a potential heart problem. We
were not worried, Lynne had open-heart surgery in 1954 and as the heart/lung
machine was yet to be invented the surgeons had only minutes to perform the
operation to avoid brain damage. Looking inside the chest now, is alarming – to
those who understand these things - but the experimental operation was a complete
success and she has been able to live a normal life for the last 70 years.
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| National Museum of Costa Rica by Eric T Gunther Reproduced from Wikipedia under Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported |
We were to travel on Thursday Feb 24th. On the Monday evening a cardiologist phoned us, saying he needed to see Lynne immediately. She said we were going to Costa
Rica in two days. He sounded sceptical. Lynne gave him a brief history and he
asked if she had regular check-ups. She told him she used to, but was signed
off in 2002. ‘They wouldn’t have signed you off if they had seen what I have
just seen,’ he replied. And that sentence effectively finished Costa Rica 2022.
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| Arenal Volcano photo by Leonora (Ellie) Enking Reproduced from Wikipedia under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. |
A week or two later Lynne had an ECG and we walked into his consulting room. He looked surprised, I think he had been expecting an invalid. To be fair, he
had been checking her history; we knew (and he discovered) that parts of
Lynne’s notes have gone walkabout, but he had clearly done some extra digging and was
well informed. He showed us the apparent massive pulmonary aneurysm, ‘larger
than those we operate on’ on his screen. He listened carefully, asked
a few questions and suggested Lynne have a MRI scan in a few months’ and if
nothing had changed, he would accept it was stable, meanwhile he would support
our insurance claim. In June Lynne had her scan, nothing had changed and she
will have another in a year. Our travel insurance paid up in full and
reinstated Lynne’s cover.
What Makes Costa Rica Special
Costa Rica – The Rich Coast – was so called because the conquistadors claimed to be impressed by the gold ornaments worn by the natives. They were lying.
From 1609 to 1821 Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. Being a long way from the capital and forbidden to trade with its
southern neighbour (Panama was part of the rival Viceroyalty of New Grenada) it
was remote and sparsely populated. In 1719 a Spanish Governor described Costa Rica as the poorest and most
miserable Spanish colony in all America.
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| Coat of Arms of Costa Rica |
At independence in 1821 the Captaincy General became the Federal Republic of Central America. Fighting between the constituent
provinces doomed the Federation from the start. Costa Rica withdrew
in 1838 and proclaimed itself independent, but by then it was unclear if there
was anything to withdraw from.
One major reason for Costa Rica's early poverty was the lack of a significant indigenous population
available for forced labour. In the mid-19th century this disadvantage turned
into an advantage as the lack of a substantial oppressed community enabled
greater social cohesion and political stability. Economic expansion loves stability, and coffee, first planted in 1808, became, and remains the most important crop.
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| Laura Chinchilla President 2010-14 CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International |
Being Latin American, Costa Rica had to have at least one military coup; in 1948 a disputed presidential election led to an armed uprising and a bloody 44-day
civil war. The would-be military junta lost and to make sure it never happened
again Costa Rica abolished its army. Since then, 18 presidents have served single
4-year terms and been replace in free and fair elections. President Laura
Chinchilla, served 2010-14, was Costa Rica’s first female president.
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| Rodrigo Chaves, President since 2022 CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International |
Costa Rica is today by far the most prosperous of the 5 republics that made up the Guatemala Captaincy, its per capita GDP is almost three times that of Guatemala the
second most prosperous. Costa Rica’s Human Development Index, which
takes account of life expectancy, education and income is rated 'Very High'.
Costa Rica 2023
We rebooked for February 23rd 2023 - surely nothing could go wrong this time. Early February all seemed well, but as departure approached that cough, the one that
had led indirectly to last year’s problem, returned, but I convinced myself it would get
better. 24 hours from departure I checked in and then we drove down to my
sister’s in Sussex. She had generously offered to put us up for the night,
provide car parking and drive us to and from the airport.
I was confident we were going when we sat down to dinner. Lynne ate, but did not really do justice to an excellent meal. She started coughing when we went to bed and coughed solidly all night. I might have had 60 minute’s sleep, or maybe less.
At some time in the small hours she said quietly ‘I can’t get on that plane
like this.’ My mind had been so set on going, that was the first time I
realised the trip was in jeopardy.Removing my head from the sand I could see it was impossible.
Instead of being driven to Gatwick, I drove us home. Lynne went to bed and stayed there for most of the next fortnight. The cough subsided, but the tiredness still lingers.
Costa Rica 2024
The first cancellation was just Covid, it was not the only trip we cancelled that year. The second was, I am sure, unnecessary but looking at it from the point of view of the doctor I cannot see what else he could have done, and he left us with no real choice but to cancel. With hindsight it was clear that from the moment Lynne was sent for a chest x-ray the consequences had to play out, but instead of foreseeing the problem we just sleepwalked into it – and the timing could not have been worse. Cancellation three was just unlucky.
Will there be a fourth attempt? Who knows?