by Rod Hughes
Want to see rural Costa Rica as it was until electricity, TV and the auto caught up with it?
The July 25 celebration of Guanacaste province’s annexation to Costa Rica (as this is written, 183 years ago) is the place to do it. Everyone gets into the mood, including Housing Minister Fernando Zumbado who kicked off this year’s festivities, not with a long-winded speech, but by whipping out his accordion and dancing, according to the newspaper, Al Dia.
Folk dance is very much a part of this colorful festival,.which lasts all week. So is the food, with delicacies that, in this day of packaged food, has all but disappeared from daily fare—it isn’t all rice and beans, by a long shot.
In San Jose the Ministry of Culture has organized not only song and dance but exhibits of the typical trappings of the old life in the northwestern province when the oxcart was the favorite mode of transportation—and the only one.
In the old provincial capital of Nicoya, (Liberia is, today, although Nicoyanos still begrudge the honor) the celebration is taken seriously, indeed, with fireworks and a concert Wednesday, plus plus a corn festival where you’ll taste corn in a variety of dishes and forms difficult to imagine.
Traditionally, the unicamera congress, the Legislative Assembly, abandons its San Jose headquarters to meet in sessions there during annexation week. (It is hoped that they will get more work done in this fresh environment than they did last week, when absences caused the body from reaching a quorum three of the five days.)
Guanacaste province was part of Nicaragua up until the 19th century when the residents opted to hold a plebesite and voted to voluntarily become a part of Costa Rica.

by Rod Hughes
When tourists want to visit Costa Rica, by Jove! they’re determined to do so at all costs!
When Air Plus Comet flight A7981 with 200 passengers aboard, bound for Costa Rica, was forced to return to Barajas, Spain, Monday, due to a problem with the flaps, the crew thought their problems were over when they touched down on the runway. But they were just beginning, reports the Associated Press.
Even though the crew explained that, after the mechanics finished mending the technical problem, they would be off again in several hours, 60 of the passengers refused to leave the plane until they were guaranteed that they would leave soon and be given hotel accommodations to wait. One passenger complained to AP that some of the tourists had been booked on a San Jose-bound flight for Saturday but this had been postponed.
(And you thought it was only a crew that was supposed to mutiny, didn’t you?)
Further, their tempers had not been sweetened by the four-hour delay at the new Barajas airport before takeoff.
Finally, they trooped off to an airport hotel. The Air Comet flight finallly took off again at 4 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time.
Welcome to Costa Rica and have a good time, folks.