BECOMING GREEN - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 189

This was straight out of the how-to list for responsible ecotourism: “The Company of-
fers the means for local small entrepreneurs to develop and sell sustainable products that
are based on the area's nature, history, and culture.”
Our last day was a reminder of how fortunate we had been sailing through the wilder-
ness with few other humans nearby. During the night we had sailed past the old banana-
exporting port of Quepos and anchored in Drake Bay opposite the Manuel Antonio Na-
tional Park. This is one of Costa Rica's smallest preserves as well as one of its most popular.
We learned why when we landed on its shores before nine o'clock that morning, ahead of
the hundreds of tourists expected that day and in time to see the monkeys playing around
in the cool of the morning before the heat sent them off to siesta.
The capuchin monkeys swung around to greet us on the first leg of our hike. There
are no fierce predators threatening these and the other mammals at the park, and plenty
of tourists feed these irresistible creatures. Our fellow travelers were helpless in the face
of the capuchins, with their famous monk-colored coats, long sinuous tails and sensitive
pale faces. They snapped photographs and took videos of the capuchins, muttering that
the monkeys were so “curious” or “intelligent” or “playful” or “adorable” until the guides
said “Enough” and we continued up the path.
Capuchin monkeys and the colorful toucan birds are practically mascots of the Costa
Rica park system. Thanks to them and the other wild critters, the number of foreign visits
has skyrocketed over the last thirty years. The National Parks Service was only created in
1977, yet foreign tourism took off immediately. From 1985 to 1991, visits to the park quad-
rupled from 63,500 to 273,400 foreign tourists. A few years later in 1995 tourism eclipsed
coffee and bananas as the top income earner in Costa Rica. Today the wilderness parks
help draw the more than 2 million foreign tourists to Costa Rica every year. While Costa
Rica is universally praised for its decision to live in “peace with nature,” pioneer ecotour-
ism, prohibit oil exploration and protect its tropical rainforest, that doesn't mean that all of
the tourism hotels and lodges in the country are so respectful of nature. To sort out which
places were truly “ecotourist” establishments, the government created a Certification for
Sustainable Tourism program that evaluates and scores all types of hotels in the country.
On our hike back down to the beach, the monkeys put on a show for our last walk
through the jungle. Howlers screamed to the heavens and capuchins swung over to the
trail, jumping from tree limb to tree limb until they disappeared inside the green forest
wall of trees and vines. How could you ever tire of these jungles, especially when you had
a comfortable ship anchored off the coast to welcome you after the daily excursion with a
warm shower, comfortable bed for a nap, and a delicious meal?
That night at dinner we sat at a table with Isabel and with Mike and Judy, a couple
from Seattle—my old hometown—and discovered we had friends in common. At break-
fast on Saturday we said goodbye to Jane, an artist from Stow, Massachusetts, whose cabin
was near ours on the small boat. We climbed into a bus for our ride to San Juan and our