All,
This is the third part of my trip report. I just finished a three month trip to Nicaragua, Cuba and Costa Rica and I have written about the other two countries here.
In Costa Rica I spent time in San Jose and in a small but growing resort town called Dominical. I also took a one day trip to Flamingo.
I have heard and read that Ticos (Costa Ricans) are loathe to tell you "no", and thus will say yes when they mean no, to avoid a confrontation. I have found this to be true.
I first experienced this when I looked up a woman I had met through the internet 18 months earlier. We wrote for a while and then it died out. But I called her anyway when I was in San Jose. She told me she would be glad to see me, but I would have to meet her in a resort town called Flamingo, an eight hour bus ride away. Well, I went out and it was obvious she was not interested in me at all. So I left.
Later I met Sharon through an internet ad, a remarkable woman. She was half Spanish and half Italian, a striking combination. She had been a carpenter making kitchen cabinets, but a car accident and a long recovery forced her to sell her tools and to get a job selling telephones. Since she had two kids, I was the only man who responded to her ad. We went out four times. I came to realize that this woman was extremely bright. I would guess her IQ is 180. Her English was quite good, and she was so eager to learn more. One night we went out with two of my American friends, one who lives there and one who is just visiting. She held her own and sparred with us heartily. My friends were impressed with her intelligence, too.
I really wanted to get to know her more, but I don't think she had any romantic interest in me. However, she kept telling me she was interested in me. Nor did she seem to want friendship, for that matter, as she has declined to correspond with me by email since I left town.
I called another Tica who I met through the internet. This woman was not that attractive and I doubt that she got many letters, but rather incredibly when I tried to arrange a date and had only an evening available, she declined to meet me because she said she didn't want to take a bus or taxi at night. An unadventurous sort like that has no interest for me.
I heard a lot of stories from men there that often Ticas sucker some Gringo into marriage and he only learns how many kids she has (or that she has some at all) at the wedding. Thereafter he is responsible for many more people than he expected, and/or she seeks divorce and some of his property. But I have no way of knowing if this is an aberration or a trend.
What all this led me to conclude is what the guide books and others before me already know: Ticas are not very motivated to look outside for a husband and don't want to go to too much trouble about any of this.
I did get to enjoy the company of the friendly women I met in the famous Hotel Del Ray, where the bar is often populated by 20 gringos and 40-60 Tica, Colombian and Dominican prostitutes. When their solicitations got too intense, I told them that I was here wife-searching. They all wished me luck and then moved on in search of paying customers.
Hamlet
