Photography in Costa Rica

Part 1: The Country

Costa Rica forms the relatively narrow strip of Central America between Nicaragua to its north and Panama to its southeast. Its other boundaries are with the Caribbean Sea to the east and the Pacific to the west. The two low-lying coastal strips have a tropical climate, but the central plateau at over 1000m has pleasant and temperate conditions all the year round, and the majority of the population live here.

Most of the population are of Spanish descent and the country is at least nominally 90% Roman Catholic. There are extended and colourful festivities around Eastertide. The Caribbean coast is home to a strong black minority, which is largely protestant and speaks a Creole rooted in Caribbean English. In some other areas there are native Indian communities with their own language.

Costa Rica attracts many visitors for its abundant wildlife, with an incredible diversity of species, especially in its many wildlife reserves and over 20 National Parks. There is also plenty of spectacular scenery with waterfalls, active volcanoes, lakes and other features. Costa Rica is generally a peaceful country and extends a warm welcome to visitors, although rather conservative standards of dress and behaviour are expected, with T-shirts and bare flesh being frowned on in city streets.

Before the first Europeans arrived, the area was occupied by several groups of indian tribes. Most advanced were the Cherotegas who moved into the north from Southern Mexico in the early 14th Century. They built spacious towns with central squares, had well organised agriculture and manufactured beautiful jade and ceramic objects. Like the Mayas and Aztecs, their society was rigidly hierarchical with priests, nobles and slave labour, and a highly organised army. Most of the rest of the country was only sparsely inhabited by tribes from South America.

Columbus was the first visitor from Europe, receiving an extremely hospitable welcome in 1502. The gold decorations worn by the natives impressed him, and according to one story, they led him to give the country its name of the 'rich coast' (Costa Rica).

The Spaniards soon found there were no great gold mines in Costa Rica, and their first attempts to invade were beaten back by tactically superior and highly trained Indian fighters and by tropical fevers. It was not until 1562 that the first colonial capital was established in the highland Cartago valley. Unlike other colonies, there was no supply of native labour to enslave, and the Spaniards had to work the land themselves, and there was little scope for inter-marriage and the growth of a mestizo community. The main areas of Costa Rica developed slowly as a rural and relatively democratic society of poor Spanish farmers.

When Mexico declared independence from Spain in 1821, the rest of Central America followed suit. It took a month before Costa Ricans found out this had happened, and it prompted a series of arguments about whether to join Mexico or the new United Provinces of Central America, which eventually led to a brief civil war. The winning republicans forces supported Central America, which they joined as an autonomous unit in 1823. A new legal system was set up, the first newspaper established in the country and public education expanded, but perhaps the most important measures were those encouraging the cultivation of coffee, including free grants of land to growers.

It was coffee that brought prosperity to Costa Rica in the second half of the nineteenth century, but it also created a coffee growing elite who came to dominate politics. However, apart from a brief Civil War in 1948, political differences in Costa Rica have always been settled democratically. After the Civil War, a new constitution widened the electorate to include women and blacks, and also abolished the armed forces, leaving Costa Rica as 'the only country which doesn't have an army.'