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The idealization of democracy; the 'easy' Catholicism; and the value of their life of culture rather than of technology. Those observations made by the Biesanzs in 1944 and then in 1981 still hold true.
Their son Barry Biesanz owns and operates one of the best fine woodworking shops in the country located up in the nice Bello Horizonte residential area in the Escazú hills.
Rodolfo Cerdas, reputable political annalist and columnist for La Nación in September 2002 also wrote about the things that differentiate Costa Ricans from the people of other countries of the region. He explained that when the invading filibuster William Walker was defeated by the Costa Rican forces in 1856, the prisoners that were brought to San José were given a very human treatment and not imprisoned. Instead of receiving hatred and anger, they received food and forgiveness. Some even were invited to partake in the festivities celebrating the Costa Rican victory. Years later, one of the men who had fought for Walker and who had returned to the States, went back to try to understand why in Costa Rica there was no hatred and violence, but peace, work and solidarity.
He found then that the Costa Ricans were not belligerent but a peace loving people, and that education and solidarity took preference over military violence and a lack of interest in education that existed among its neighbours. Through the years, Costa Rica has become better developed than the other countries of the region mainly because of the emphasis it continued to give to education, equal opportunities, justice, social development and adherence to the law besides abolishing the array. All this, of course, causes its northern neighbours, except Panama on the south, to not like Costa Ricans very much but to look at them with an envious eye.
The late Costa Rican professor Rafael Obregon in his Geografía Patria writes: "in the centre of beautiful America there is a happy and fruitful nation of a virile, industrious race...Costa Rica..... Its soil is so varied and fertile and encloses such rich treasures that it stands out on the map of the world like a beautiful garden".
I could go on and on reproducing laudatory expressions by international writers extolling the many virtues of the country. But the best thing is for you to see and experience everything yourself and then decide if what those observers wrote is true or exaggerated.
Tourists Arrive in Growing Numbers
Each year more tourists aboard cruise ships arrive at the ports of Puntarenas, Caldera and Limón to take a glimpse of the country despite the recession being experience internationally. During the
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