Costa Rica UofA independent study Summer 1977
Jungle Train to Li~mon, Costa Rica (pronounced Lee-moan)
San Jose, Costa Rica to Limon via Jungle Train
Hopped the train from San Jose down through the Latin American jungles to Limon on the Carribean/ Gulf of Mexico coast. It was a real experience to see pristene 1977 Costa Rica!
This rail line was built around 1890, the only train in Costa Rica ot Puerto Limon, origionally as a freight line inbound to San Jose and a bannana train - United Fruit Company- outbound, back to Limon for shipping coffee and bannanas to the US. You want to really understand Latin America?; read the history of the United Fruit Company. also Standard Brands, Smedley Butler... Thank you Marines for somebody w/ guts to finaly speak up.
The Costa Rican train stations were a walk back in time.... most masonry block and plaster built some 80+ years ago that hadn't been painted in 40+ years.... probably the original paint. All kinds of vendors doing the Costa Rica hustle of hawking anything from ice cream, to cupos - snowcones -, to fried fish in some newspaper cup with platinos... like greasy fish and chips which were actually good. The fare was about $6.
This - above- was an early stop at Pariso, a small town about 5 miles past Cartago.
Not sure the name of this train station stop/ village but it was out in the boondocks and a walk back in time.
I think this actual locomotive and steel passenger cars were from the early 1930s?. The passenger cars were a ruddy reddish brown color. Inside was coach seating, mostly worn out... floors, seat coverings, open windows that could not close... worn out as there was no money for mainetence in Costa Rica for anything. The small ban~os bathroom was like outhouse grade. the toilet seat was like a hole cut in plywood. The toilet hole was open looking right down onto the railroad bed crossties and rails. ... you went to the bathroom on the railroad line; no affluent tanks... nothing that modern.
There were a few freight cars, mostly flatcars, no pullman sleeper cars, no dining car, and several passenger coach cars with first come seating which meant you could easily have a horrible seat to choose from 'cause all the good ones went first.
The train engine was a manual transmission... you could feel the shifting of gears on the train route, up and down the mountain grades. The engine was a stick shift! When the engine would shift, you'd get a jerk forward , a pause for a few seconds, then a big jerk backwards when the engine would begin pulling again. It would shake your teeth. If you were standing in the aisle you were thrown off balance and would almost fall down. It was a joseling ride just on the RR tracks alone; you couldn't set a soft drink can on a seat without it sliding off or turning over. ... then throw in the jerks forward and backward from the engine shifting gears.
There were Ticos - Costa Ricans going back to their respective villages/ homes with supplies and whatever bought in San Jose. Some of those items were live chickens - with their feet tied together and held like luggage. When the train would shift or hit a bump, the chickens would sqwak a couple of times and then settle down. One Tico guy had a small piglett that would grunt on the bumps. It was 3rd world rail transportation.
This is how you bought chicken for dinner... live... out of the back of a farmer/ ranchers truck. ... and carried them on the train or bus still alive. Often the animals would poop and the coaches of the busses or trains would smell like a barn. And clean up was not one of the Railroads priorities.
Going around this curve beside a big river... ?The Reventazon River? not sure of the river name
We left San Jose in the morning and went about 20mph until out of the city. You saw the affluent parts of San Jose, and the slums. Then picked up speed to about 35 going into the country. You haven't seen green like this. There were farms and ranches carved out of the thick growth, many coffee plantations and processing coffee beans for export.
From the train overlooking a coffee plantation and processing business/ farm. After picking coffee, the beans are soaked in water vats to swell up and separate the husk from the coffee bean. The terraces below the red building were concrete slabs for spreading out and drying coffee beans in the sun. The beans would dry for a day then the campesinos - peasant workers (this is 3rd world Latin America; you either own the plantation,... or work on it. No middle class) - would rake and turn the beans over for drying. ... A few days to dry completely so they wouldn't rot from moisture. Coffee is very labor intensive and the campesinos are paid a pittance of wages. ie... a couple dollars a day.
The GDP per capita income in 1977 was C= Colon 12,158. at a conversion rate of 8.54 to 1 US Dollar , or US Dollars = $1,423.69 a YEAR or $118 a month. That means a couple thousand wealthy land owning families,... and 4 million peasants making a couple/ 4 dollars a day.
Bear with me a minute on this income stuff. The per capita amount of $1,423 a year is stark as to it's meaning. Think of it this way, When Bill Gates lands in Alabama for a day, the Alabama "Per Capita" income... (the average income)... your own income statistic, increases/ goes up by $10,000. One wealthy person raises the average income level... your income - on paper. The reality of Costa Rica, and all of Latin America is that the campesinos worked for about $1.00 per day. They survived and did whatever work was available for any money while the wealthy elite live very well, like aristocracy.
When I studied to find out how the government and legal structure of these countries operate, you understand how this can happen. In the US we have "inc. , or co, or Corp." behind the names of corporations, either public or privatly held. In Latin America you see "S.A." which means Sociodad Ano~nmima" = Anonymous Society = which means the directors/ owners/ officers of a corporation are concealed by law and NOT know/ listed in government charter applications.
In other words you do not know, or can't find out, just exactly who owns most anything. An 4,000 acre ranch that raises cattle may have a contract to sell beef to the US Army (or other Latin American Armies), may be owned by the Supreme Court members and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the military. The exclusive 40 acre prime real estate tourist hotel resort on the beach may be owned by the President and Cabinet members.
And when you see how the history of many Latin American governments change in a coup de tau in the middle of the night, it gives real meaning to the term "Banana Republic". ... and Costa rica is the most progressive and stable of Latin America.
There were a few stops at small remote train stations. Very isolated and run down. They had been built 80+ years ago with the coffee and bannana trade growth at the turn of the century. There was trash all over the place. No garbage service. everybody just burned trash, most just discarded trash anywhere. You have to have a certain mentality to travel in Latin America and accept things as they are.
Note here... The Costa Rican Ticos were not trashy people; they were proud, dignified people in a 3rd world rural country that didn't have refuse/ garbage pick up. Many of the local remote villages didn't have electric service... this is the 3rd world Latin America. The Ticos lived and survived as they could,... most as campasinos working for the local coffee or banana plantations.
On down into the deep jungle of Costa Rica there were few stops/ villages. Went through a few bananna plantations and a palm oil/ palm tree grove but mostly hot, humid, swealtering heat. Open windows on the train were good to feel the breeze as you viewed the Latin American country, mostly jungle, but often some vistas of beautiful valleys . Some mountains back closer to San Jose. The overlooks of Costa Rican countryside were absolutley beautiful! Some industrial hydroelectric plants in valleys.
At one of the stops there was a Tica lady with a tray selling fried fish. They looked about the size of bream fish. Out of the window of the stopped train, beside the tracks, i warned her of the oncoming side rail switching flatbed car and she hung close to our car , while the switching cars passed by ... about 3 to 4 feet clearance between rails. Selling these fried fish was her sustanance... what money she would make that day for a living. This was my education/ universality to the 3rd world Latin America of how people struggle to make a living with what they have. This Tica Lady, campasina, had a lot of dignity... to do what she could for her family.
While stopped at a village, while waiting.... This lady campasina came alongside the passenger cars talking to people at the open windows. The flatbed train car on the right was moving toward this lady as she was standing on the siding tracks, talking to me about buying some of her fried fish. She didn't know the flatcar was coming toward her and would have been run over had I not motioned for her to step close to our stopped car. I have never forgoten her almost being run over by that train flatcar! Above her in the picture is a person holding a tray also selling/ hawking something for sale.
This child was selling some fresh fruit probably picked an hour before. Fresh fruit in Costa Rica was knock you down fresh, ... the way real fruit is supposed to taste. Most fruit shipped to the US is picked green and ripens over the next month until it's on US supermarket shelves. I'd buy whole fresh pineapples for 1 Colon = 8.54 cents and cut with a knife and eat; absolutely wonderful taste! Most children worked to help their family.
This ride took about 5+ hours. Some 120 miles on the map, maybe 50 miles more going up and down the mountain passes. This train ride took a step back in time to see Latin America as it probably had not advanced/ progressed much in a hundred years. You either owned the plantation, or you worked on it as a campesino/ peasant. And Costa Rica is the most progressive of all the Latin American countries. Maybe Panama is more modern from the money from the canal.
The train station at Limon... I walked around and took a few pix of the port and a few streets,.. of the waterfront promenade ... in an hour, we got a taxi/ bus ride to Cahuita... about 15 miles south on dirt roads in swealtering heat
I don't think there was much of an electric building code...observed this very common unsafe wiring for 4 homes in shantytown. At least they had electricity. Also see the Cahuita post of where this journey is going. It gets better... a real experience!
