REFLECTIONS OF COSTA RICA, AS I HEAD FOR PANAMA

Travellers I met in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua had warned me that Costa Rica was expensive, so when I crossed into Costa Rica and paid 7 dollars and 5 dollars for a private room with shared bathroom for my first two nights in the country, I started to think things had been wildy exaggerated by penny-pinching backpackers trying to scrimp their way across Central America. 

As it turned out, they hadn't. Things were a lot more expensive than in the other Central American countries I have visited up to now. A bottle of coke cost the same in Costa Rica as it does back in Britain, and an Imperial beer cost the equivalent of GBP 1.50 in most places, which despite tasting good was a a hard cerveza to swallow when I had just been paying GBP 0.50 for a bottle of Toña in Nicaragua, and similarly low prices for cervezas in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. I nearly fainted when I got charged GBP 1 for a stale iced doughnut, and today, I almost fell into a coma when a thieving taxi driver tried to con me out of fifty quid for a 10 minute taxi journey.

Life may be 'pura vida' here in Costa Rica, the self-named Switzerland of Central America, but its definitely an 'expensive vida' as well. Looking at my depleted bank balance in a Panama internet cafe this afternoon makes me want to break down and start crying, as asides from an expensive game of golf in Costa Rica (that cost more than eighteen holes at St Andrews), I have absolutely no idea where I spent all my money...