Liberia, Costa Rica 🇨🇷
Transamerica 2021 STOP 11Â
October 10, 2021
Panama City, Panama – Liberia, Costa Rica
Flight distance: 398 nm
Hours in the air: 1:12
Liberia & the Peninsula Papagayo, Costa Rica – the land of plentiful
A good hour and we landed in Liberia, in the western part of Costa Rica. Handling was not only pleasant and professional, it offered an extra level of lavishness. 🙄
For the first time ever without auxiliary reasons we are taking almost 4 days off and try to experience what Costa Rica has to offer. Plus we are still working on the surprise which should happen on Tuesday, right after the festivities of tomorrow.
Today saw different activities. First of all our birthday boy Marc-Philippe and the pilots went of deep sea fishing. And guess who caught a quite sizeable Mahi-Mahi, yup, you guessed it. The writer continued on what he has been doing in the background, time allowing which is studying. Yet in between I went on a short hike around the peninsula walking through dense rain forest climbing a good amount of staircases and catching some fine views, did I mention high temps and humidity made this a huge sweating exercise!
Once the fishermen were back we were figuring out how to best spend the next days here and hope for some more action. Marc-Philippe and myself will try to go on another adventure very early tomorrow morning, it’s not clear yet what the pilots will do.
But most important we properly celebrated 25 years of Marc-Philippe at a nearby resort restaurant with a cake, and since we are a nice bunch of guys, we shared the left over cake with the family at the next table.
For our last day in Costa Rica we decided to make a dive into local life and fauna by first visiting a local farm, one of the biggest in Costa Rica. Here they produce mostly fruit and vegetables for the world market and deliver to brands also known to us like Del Monte. Their biggest crop by far is sugar cane. From this plant they produce obviously sugar, but also ethanol for energy production and rum, also a specialty coming from here. At the ancient farm house we were shown how all the products were made in the old days, this farm goes back to the middle of 19th century, and Victoria not only showed us around but prepared the food the traditional way.
Later we moved on to Palo Verde National Park to embark on a cruise on the local river where we got to see more animal life, such as alligators, monkeys, birds and quite a few sizable iguanas.
The rest of the day passed very fast especially when, like almost every day in this season, the late afternoon rain showers hit. We had the last dinner together with Marc-Philippe who will go his own way from here, hopefully enjoying further adventures. Starting tomorrow the three of us will head east towards direction Europe, Costa Rica being the furthest point away from home.
Last but not least we were greeted at the airport by our favorite handler which complemented our very nice stay here.
Facts &Â figures
Costa Rica, the former southern-most province in the Spanish territory of New Spain is a Central American country of largely European rather than mestizo descent.The country has coastlines on both, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. It is bordered by Nicaragua in north and Panama in south east.The country covers an area of 51’100 km², this is about the size of Slovakia or slightly smaller than the U.S. state of West Virginia.
Costa Rica has a population of around 5 million people,capital city is San José. Official language is Spanish. Costa Rica is generally regarded as having the most stable and most democratic government in all of Central America. In 1949, under President José Ferrer, the country abolished the army, and used the money set aside in the development of education and health care. Although still a largely agricultural country, it has achieved a relatively high standard of living. Land ownership is widespread. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversified to include sectors such as finance, corporate services for foreign companies, pharmaceuticals, and ecotourism.
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Stone tools, the oldest evidence of human occupation in Costa Rica, are associated with the arrival of various groups of hunter-gatherers arrived around 10’000 to 7’000 BC in the Turrialba Valley. Agriculture became evident while mainly growing tubers and roots. The impact of indigenous peoples on modern Costa Rican culture has been relatively small compared to other nations, since the country lacked a strong native civilization to begin with.
The name la costa rica, meaning “rich coast” in the Spanish language, was in some accounts first applied by Christopher Columbus, who sailed to the eastern shores of Costa Rica during his final voyage in 1502 and reported vast quantities of gold jewelry worn by natives.
During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, nominally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In practice, the captaincy general was a largely autonomous entity within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica was described as “the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America” by a Spanish governor in 1719. Like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain. On 15 September 1821, after the final Spanish defeat in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–21), the authorities in Guatemala declared the independence of all of Central America. Finally in 1838, long after the Federal Republic of Central America ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign.
Source: wikipedia.org / nationsonline.org
