Costa Rica Leather Shop

Fat old woman, with a tourist bulge. Pocketbook swelling. Stopping at stores to buy things made just for you. Probing dark mysteries of a hobby-horse head. "What does it symbolize?" you stupidly ask.

See the country, and its people, witch, not the traps spun for tourists. Climb a volcano, and sweat out a jungle. Walk with laborers, and talk with men whose lives are lived by days.

Mingle in a market – the name flows from the tongue: Masaya. Mingle with sweat and toil and ducks tied in a bunch, waiting for the axe. See bananas harvested and the stinking poverty of old Panama slums – contrasting casinos clattering chips.

Fly with hawks on mountaintops, lungs laboring in thin air. Walk the moors and meadows. Feel the life and real live death – they do not fear it here. Seek out the people and the land!

Desert your tour-guide.