www.CostaRicaTicas.com

According to an article in Inside Costa Rica this morning San Jose is becoming a family destination according to a poll of American Express Travel Agents.

This reinforces the argument made here that hotels like the Sleep Inn and the Holiday Inn that are chica tolerant and the Gran Hotel Costa Rica that is chica hostile are seemingly flourishing without monger business. It might also help to explain the Presidente dress code enforcement.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

I could see this coming about a year ago. More and more I've been hearing non-mongering people talk about a vacation to Costa Rica. Hell my boss just asked me about it. And for him to ask, believe me the Yuppies are coming.

ID,
I read that article this morning, and I was thinking the exact same thing.

Do these hotels need our monger business to sustain their occupancy rates? It certainly doesn't look like it. Especially after reading articles like this, along with others.

Gentlemen, Costa Rican tourism is alive and well, whether we want to believe it or not. We all need to accept this fact, and try to understand the various hotels' stance, when it comes to being "chica friendly" or not. Quite simply, they make the rules, and we've gotta play by them. It's NOT the other way around.

You can boycott different hotels because you don't like their rules, or their dress codes, or their chica fees, or their tolerance/intolerance, etc.... But IMHO, you're only cutting off your nose to spite your face. The room that you don't take, will be filled by the next phone call from Mr./Mrs. Eco-Tourist.

From a hotel's perspective, THEY always have an option......NEXT!

Sorry, but we don't make the rules............ Ok, go ahead. Flame away if you disagree!

Mucho Gusto

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You ALWAYS have an option ....... "NEXT" !!!

Now if we could get some information on the travel sites regarding the rise in street crime it might not only make it safer for us but discourge some of these families.

A win, win for us.

I.D.

Thanks for posting this.

I don't argue with the premise that Costa Rica is a popular tourist destination for families, however I believe that San Jose itself is at best a transition point for tourists who are on their way to monkeys, mangroves, beaches and bananas.

Aside from a poorly-maintained zoo and a handful of smallish museums, San Jose itself offers very little for the average tourist, other than a place to clean up, eat, sleep and prepare for trips to other parts of the country.

Even so, this transient business is valuable to hotel and restaurant proprietors. And yes, it does explain at least in part the increasing resentment being demonstrated by many Gulch businesses toward prostitution and those who participate in it.

The nice thing from our perspective is that we may encounter Mr. and Mrs. Whitebread once during one of our trips, but we'll not encounter them twice. They're on their way to an overpriced all-inclusive in Manuel Antonio...

Thinking aloud: Can you imagine what a tourist attraction we ourselves are for the average family tourist? "Look at that guy with the girl half his age! Margaret, do you believe this! How sordid! <tongue clucking>" So guys, dress your best for Mr. and Mrs. Whitebread.

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Pura Vulva! Wandering through the dark, I am El Ciego.

Once he sees that, Mr. Whitebread starts trying to figure out how he can get away for a while and get him some of that too, while Mrs. Whitebread is watching the little Whitebreads in the hotel.

El C is right on about the lack of interesting things to do/see in SJ and it not being a destination as much as a waystation to more interesting places. For 'non-mongers' of course, as it is THE place for us, obviously.

I do think that the monger trade is still essential down here, but due to the stigma places like the Presidente feel the need to keep a 'respectable' front. If the situation were reversed and mongers were the ones who were offended by the 'whitebread' folk, there would be dress codes for the whitebread women, requiring them to show leg and cleavage, no matter how scary. My point being that the monger trade is STILL vital to gulch-area businesses. If the Prez was truly able to do without monger trade, I believe they would.

Let's face it, we are a troublesome bunch. Loud partying at all hours. Robbery reports and general problems galore. When I walk by the News Cafe, I see a shitload of well-heeled, over 30 'gentlemen' either sitting together or with young local women. If the monger trade were to magically disappear from San Jose, vacancy rates would skyrocket (a totally empty Del Rey would have a lot of rooms by itself). If you walk around town, as I do, you see three main tourist groups. Group 1 are the mongers. Group 2 are the backpackers. Group 3 are the whitebread group. In my own very informal and unscientific estimate, group 1 is bigger (downtown) than group 3. Group 2 seldom stays in mid-to-upscale hotels, so are a non issue.

IN CONCLUSION... (a sigh of relief fills cyberspace) I think that mongers have a giant impact on gulch hotels, and it will never be overtaken by the Whitebread family. In other words, hermanos, 'tranquilo!'

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"The only normal people are those you don't know very well." Joe Ancis

Mr. Whitebread needs to shoot his little doughballs in his fat gringa wife and leave the latina poosie to the real men. Truth is...he wont be looking at us for long. San Jose is a dump with very little to do for these types of tourists.They stay 1 night in SJ and then go camping somewhere. I've gone in places 4 hours away where these goobers out-number the locals. I believe the younger/poorer ecos who stay in the gulch area are led there by the taxi guys at the airport. Mr whitebread definately had advance reservations & probably got them from a site like travelocity. From what I've seen... The Whitebreads and the hippies watch every penny. They don't spend shit in CR compared to alot of us. NO one can tell me our dollars wouldn't be missed if we took our show on the road.

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"With foxes, we must play the fox." ~ Thomas Fuller

El Ciego wrote:



Orange wrote:


-or how he can quietly slip back down in 3 or 4 weeks.


Shawn4DelRey wrote:


No one can tell me that we (as a group) will take our show on the road.

Stinky

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"An intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting than sex." – Edgar Wallace (English author) - then I must be a complete moron.

What a city.....

Nice Diesel air- good for the lungs- take a deep breath

Nice beggars on the streets

Hey Mildred-"look at those transvestites near the parque morazon", I wonder if our friend Nucknfuts knows about these? better tell him, you know how he likes surprises"

Hey Mildred- " Why don't you go to the Gold museum", " look at the artiifacts for a couple of hours"? I want to go to that pink building up the hill, I hear it is a historic monument". I hear it is a museum dedicated to the hard work of the working class women of Costa Rica"

" hey Mildred", "Those guys over at Mariscal eating chicken look familar"? I think I saw them in the Hot Dog eating contest on ESPN, they did well but lost to the Japanese guy"

"Hey Mildred", can I get soem blue towels for our suite, " It will brighten up our bathroom" ( an inside joke among a few presidente regulars). One guy
whom is on this board actaully goes into withdrawl if he does not have blue towels.

" hey mildred", this reminds me of bangkok, except for no lizard testicle soap being served in the restraunts". It looks familar except that not too many Aussies, but these guys look older than me and they have these younger women with all the eyeshadow and makeup on their faces hanging with them, I wonder what they are up to"? Hmmmm. " hey mildred, can I trade you in?, I want a divorce, you can keep the house, the station wagon and the cat"

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" Lo Siento pero mi no pagar cien dolares por medio hora de malo sexo, preguntar del gordo hombre con la camisa Miami Hurricanes, El Pagar Dos cientos dolares Y llegar addicional dinero para taxi.

As a matter of fact I have already done so on a few boards. It won't do much good but it may drive the odd visitor away.

Just wanted to add my dos colones to some things that have been said in regard to the explosion of eco tourism in Costa Rica. I put a resounding second to what El Ciego and Bilko have said.

As someone who fits both categories I perhaps have a somewhat different prospective of Costa Rica.

Costa Rica is the ONLY country in the world that doesn't spent a dime on a military industrial complex. It's taken the money they would have spent since 1949 and poured it into developing it's own natural resources. The government is constantly buying back the land from the robber barons of United Fruit and others. What we are left with is one of the most diverse ecological systems in the world and the only one in the western world.

Yes I'm a tree hugger and damn proud of it. I hug them, but I'm not into DFKing with them or tapping their bodily fluids

My point is that we have nothing to fear from the ecological visitors. They are truly the life blood of Costa Rica. With the exception of the African Palm tree plantations, a rather insignificant coffee production, and an even smaller banana industry, Costa Rica has no industry, no major exports, but exists solely due to the tourist trade (including us). If the government of Costa Rica decided to go the way of Brazil and cut down the trees, fouled the water, and destroyed their own envirnment you would soon discover that mongering was reduced to the level of Mexico's border towns.

We owe a lot to the tourists and rather than turning up our noses at them we should be thanking them for making Costa Rica a paradise for us.

El Ciego and Bilko pointed out that San Jose is little more than a transitory point enroute to the touristy parts of the country like Arenal, Monteverde, and Manuel Antonio. None of us are staying in those big expensive hotels out near the airport, they are being supported almost 100 by the tourists.

AM Costa Rica had an article several months back that said the average tourist spends less than a half day in San Jose. They fly in, meet their tourist buses and are on their way elsewhere. At the end of their trip they may take a few hours to hit the every popular Gold Museum and the National Theatre and then they are gone. The number one hotel is "central" San Jose is "Clarion's Amon Plaza." They probably have 20 tourist guest for every one at the El Presidente. (This according to a leading travel agency's booking service)

Is our collective ego so big that we really think these tourists give a shit about what we are doing ? Last year I spent at least 20 mornings having breakfast in El Presidente. Being a gregarious guy I struck up a lot of conversations with "Mr & Mrs Whitebread and the little Whitebreads" and found them delighted to be offered a little help with their planning. With "older" guys and young chica cuties surrounding us, I never heard one gringa mention the May-Dec relationships. I did hear several women comment about how cute our little chicas were.

When some of us think of tourists we think of the little blue haired ladies in tennis shoes scrambling around London, Berlin, and Tokyo. Them days is gone my friends. Today's ecotourists are either tattooed, pierced hippie types (no offense meant to them either) on their way to the beach, or the average above middle class family who are on their way to see the volcanos, the birds, butterflies (and like me.........el monos They could really give a shit less about who we are, and what we are doing in Costa Rica. Just a guess, but I'd say that the average US or Canadian knows that boys go to Thailand, Cambodia, and other asian destinations to screw young girls (or boys) but that reputation has not extended itself to Costa Rica and hopefully it won't.

I made whatever points I was trying to make and will now climb down from my soap box. Just remember, the Fer de Lance and the Bushmaster will never bother us if we don't bother them........the same goes for the ecotourist. I'm guessing that the new restrictions placed by the Presidente (many of them agreeably unfair) were put in place because some non-CRT members paraded drunk thru the lobby cursing and puking on the other guests. I want no part of those as__holes either.

Thanks for your time

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69 isn't just a number, it's a way of life

Well said & absolutely correct the way I see it ! I love the options we have in San Jose & I do it very quietly. Why call attention to my mongering ways it will only come back to haunt me. I try not to make it obvious or rub it in the other peoples faces like I see other LOUD drunk uglies do. Sure I am as happy as the next guy but why be so insecure & call attention too it by wearing it on my sleeve or shorts like so many guys do ? There is more than one way to monger so why not be smart & do it in a way that works best for longevity?

Very Good thoughts & ideas here all of you!

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"Run silent, run deep"
Spunk glazed Chicas are the building blocks of the universe!

I guess it all depends on who you listen to. Yesterday's AM Costa Rica said on page one that the tourism industry in CR was in decline. They blame,first and formost the deteriorating infrastructure especially around the attractions that the tourists most want to go to. Come to think of it,they really should fix the potholes outside the DR. So which is it....are the eco-tourists coming or not. Maybe the Presidente should charge THEM a chica fee for their wives. (even though there probably isn't any sex involved.

Yes, I think SJ is a great family vacation spot

I think Disneyland should open up a Junior Del Rey for the K*ds

Sort of a training ground for what's to come in the future.

Mom can go to Pujo's.

Dad of course can spend his time in the DR, KL and Zona Blue

They can all meet later and discuss the day!!!