Rick's November Tirade
Travel Advisory
Once again I've succumbed to the call of the tropics, that brilliant green
belt around the earth's plump waistline. My inner beachcomber dreams of
riotous palms, smooth white sand and warm waves the color of Kate Winslet's
eyes. I long to spy jeweled hummingbirds and other creatures of paradise
hovering within arm's reach; I desire long nights of humid breezes and black
velvet skies, with a hundred thousand stars glittering like rare and
unattainable diamonds.
That's the dream. The reality is that I'm headed to Costa Rica, ostensibly
the most congenial of the Central American republics, there to drive across
its emerald landscape with my friend Anne D., recline on its Pacific shore
and explore the verdant mysteries of its interior, renowned for an abundance of life both fair and foul. I had assumed that Costa Rica would effectively
be a Caribbean Island writ large, with jungles and jaguars, howler monkeys
and hatchet-billed toucans added for entertainment value. Costa Rica was no pastel haven for comfort-seeking yuppies; you could probably search in vain
for steel-drum bands and deep red drinks served with little paper umbrellas. But the country had won a reputation as a place of pilgrimage for
enlightened ecotourists, and it seemed to offer a ripping good adventure for the stout-hearted.
I didn't realize just how stout-hearted you had to be until I started reading a few guidebooks and travelers' reports on Costa Rica. So help me, it never occurred to me that I'd be embarking on a journey into the throbbing heart of the Third World, where disease and death continually dance at the heels of the unwary. My travels in the Caribbean had spoiled me with expectations of genteel ease and comfort; Costa Rica, on the other hand, appeared to teem with dangers not dreamt of in our pale Northern climes: killer bees,
mosquitos juicy with blood and fever, pestilent chiggers that burrow into
your skin, predatory crocodiles lurking in streams and rivers, scorpions and
giant venomous spiders hiding in your shoes and closets, and the deadly,
belligerent fer-de-lance, a nine-foot-long pit viper whose bite frequently
necessitates the amputation of limbs, if not the disposal of the entire body.
Adding to the potential carnage were reports of sudden volcanic outbursts,
armed robbers preying on gawking birdwatchers, roads that washed out and
became impassable in rainy weather, and the highest motor vehicle fatality
rate not only in Latin America but (are you ready for this?) the ENTIRE
WORLD! Yes, apparently the locals have won world bragging rights for their
tendency to barrel down twisting mountain roads without regard for vehicles,
pedestrians or stray goats that happen to be approaching from the opposite
direction.
Here, for your reading pleasure, is a disease risk summary for Costa Rica handed to me by my doctor: dengue fever (painful and unpreventable but rarely
fatal), dengue hemorrhagic fever (painful, unpreventable and usually fatal),
encephalitis, leishmaniasis (don't ask), malaria, trypanosomiasis (also known
as Chagas' disease, which sounds just as evil), cholera, typhoid fever, helmenthic (parasitic worm) infections, hepatitis, leptospirosis,
paragonimiasis (oriental lung fluke), plus run-of-the-mill maladies like
diphtheria, rabies and year-round influenza.
And here's the official word on driving conditions from the same report: "Traffic laws and speed limits are often ignored; turns across one or two lanes of traffic are common, and pedestrians generally are not given the right of way. Roads are often in poor condition, and large potholes with the potential to cause significant damage to vehicles are common. All of the above, in addition to poor visibility because of heavy fog or rain, makes driving at night especially treacherous."
Yes, I'll be paying good money to frolic in that den of terrors for ten days,
the way some people actually pay money to jump from airplanes with flimsy
packs strapped to their backs. Yet I'm probably being unfair to Costa Rica,
which, after all, enjoys a reputation for peace, stability and superior
healthcare facilities that its banana-republic neighbors must surely envy.
How disease-ridden can it be if elderly Americans are actually choosing to retire there? Of course, those retirees could be harboring an unconscious
death-wish. But let's face it: life is dangerous, friends. It's a veritable minefield, and we never know where the next step will land us (or random parts of us). We northerners expect to live as if we're fine-tuning a $10,000 stereo system: we work and sleep in climate-controlled interiors, create the precise color schemes we want for our computer desktops, even favor purebred dogs because we know exactly how they'll turn out (unlike our own wayward children). Our lives border on the antiseptic. But the more I think about it, the more I feel we'd have to issue a special travel advisory for
unsuspecting Third-Worlders who set foot in a bewildering republic like the United States.
My warnings wouldn't focus on infectious diseases or venomous reptiles or
even our dreaded inner cities. No, I'd have to warn them about some of the psychic perils of dallying on these shores.
Americans like to think of themselves as friendly and accommodating, I'd tell them. And, to be fair, many of my countrymen exude an air of chummy good
fellowship. Some of us even appreciate the sanctity of true friendship. But
most Americans don't even know their own neighbors -- or care to know them.
Let's say we'll know you just well enough to report you to the authorities if your grass grows too high.
Watch out for backstabbers: they prowl in the undergrowth like vipers; they turn against colleagues and acquaintances the way you'd slaughter a sheep
that you'd just nurtured for a year. But at least it's nothing personal. We Americans just like to be on top of our little heaps. The more dead bodies we can arrange to be in the heap, the greater the likelihood we'll be on top of it.
We like to think of ourselves as the greatest nation in the world
-- even the greatest in history. The fact that most of us know piffle
about the world outside our borders reinforces our claim to superiority. We
don't have to learn about you, the reasoning goes, because you inevitably
learn about us. Look at the way our movies and manners have conquered the
world; you don't see anyone flocking to films made in Luxemburg or Honduras,
do you? Be prepared to be regarded as second-rate.
We're proud of our self-control; we need it to survive the relentless stress
and demoralization of our jobs. We need it to convince ourselves that we'll
eventually enjoy the fruits of our toil, that we'll eventually succeed like
Bill Gates or even Geraldo Rivera. (In America, success is next to
godliness.) Sometimes this flimsy illusion of deferred fulfillment snaps like
a rubber band, and when it does -- look out! We'll gun down total strangers,
run you off the road, fire a shot at your car and blow up an office building
just to release our seething wrath. Beware of angry Americans; we take life
more seriously than you do, and we don't like to finish second.
Americans enjoy access to a mindboggling array of artificial entertainments.
We cherish our celebrities like the royalty we never had, and we keep them
ensconced in regal splendor until they start to bore us. We read about their
private lives, fantasize about them incessantly, model ourselves after them,
even feel that we know them. Worse yet, we like to feel that they know US --
that they'd invite us over to their table for a friendly chat and a prankish laugh. We don't even seem to resent them for luxuriating in undeserved riches, probably because most of us don't realize how many centuries it would
take to earn what they do in a few blithe months. Beware of celebrity-struck Americans; their numbers are legion and the disease is extremely infectious.
Beware of Americans, yes -- but feel sympathy for us, too. We may not fall prey to malaria or dengue fever; we might not have to look for scorpions in our shoes; we rarely fret about Chagas' disease or washed-out roads. But we suffer in ways you can't imagine, mainly because we've become so infernally complicated. More of us could benefit from the example of Costa Rica: lead a pure life and a real life, even if it means dodging killer bees now and then. |
