Vultures - What Happened Here?

Looks like a horrible car crash - Vultures enjoyed it though

Costa Rica 3 270, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

One morning Maggie and I decided to head up to the “Peninsula de Papagayo”, having no car we decided to take a Tourisimo bus. Here in Tamarindo the price is double that which you would expect. Walking down the Tourisimo bus lineup I asked for estimates and it seemed to be a consensus amongst all the various operators that it was a journey at which they would break even at 60 000 colones each way.

I made it known that I only had 30 000 colones to spend and walked sadly away.

It was not long before I was approached by Alan who offered to accomodate our needs at the suggested price and within minutes our driver Magno was picking us up.

We had a great day. The map showed that a ruin was situated at the tip of the Papagayo Peninsula. We cruised through the dry Guanacaste scrubland, Alan pointing out places of interest; he also helped Magno guess the route. It appears that the drivers here dont use maps and nor are they very sure of how to get from one place to another. I eventually had to lend my map to Magno and that in combination with many unplanned but supposedly purposeful deviations finally got us there. One point of interest though, in not using maps, the drivers are not sure how to read them either.

Beside the road we saw this rather sinister gathering - vultures picking through some kind of auto-generated debris. Is this what happens at an accident? I hoped that Magno had his licence. Were the drivers bones still in the seat?

The Peninsula de Papagayo turned out to be a big disappointment. we cruised through an arid grassland, high into the hills along the coast - a landscape populated by lonely tin roofed shacks and lightening scarred thorn trees. Stopping for a stretch I inhaled dust and dried cattle dung - very different from the mountainous jungle around San Jose.

Thinking we were set to explore a forgotten Mayan ruin I was in the highest of spirits until we ran up against the gates of a plush vacation complex. The whole end of the Peninsula is nothing but a giant golf course and at the end - the Four Seasons Hotel. Hundreds of workers combed the imaculate lawns picking lizards and stray leaves from the fairways. Not my vision of Costa Rica - not what I had come to see. I asked Magno to turn around a few kilometers short of the ruin. I did not want to see any such relic in the middle of a golf course.