It’s never your fault, is it?

(Sunday, 10 May 2009)

Google map: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=pt-PT&geocode=&q=tortuguero+costa+rica&ie=UTF8&ll=10.401378,-83.489227&spn=1.264253,2.801514&z=9

It’s around 10pm and I’m walking on the beach of Tortuguero with Beto, a local guide, in search for turtles.

We hear the noise of an airplane above us, but you can’t see a thing besides clouds and lightings, which shed light on the deserted beach in a beautiful way. “Damn plane”, says Beto. “I hate them. They pass here every single night, always at this exact hour, and never have a single signalling light on”.

It’s very likely a narco-traffic airplane. Costa Rica is a busy bridge for drug shipments coming from South America and heading to Mexico, and then the US. Less than 2 weeks ago it was a helicopter that crashed in Cerro de la Muerte (not very far from the Cerro Chirripó that I climbed) with more than 400 kilos of cocaine in it. It has been on the news since then, competing head to head with swine flu as the most popular story of the moment.

Of course, Mexicans were to blame in the helicopter crash. When not Mexicans, they’ve to be Nicos (from Nicaragua) or Colombians. Never Ticos (from Costa Rica). The pilot (who, along with the only other occupant – a Mexican, of course!, was killed in the accident) was Tico, but was “beyond doubt” being forced to fly by the drug dealers, as he had his family under threat.

I say "beyond doubt" with some irony, of course. It may well be true, so the last thing I want to do here is suggesting the poor man’s soul wasn’t that clean after all. I’m just reacting to how I’ve heard Ticos comment the episode. “Of course the pilot was flying against his will – those damn Mexicans are the ones to blame!”.

I had heard it before: there is plenty of xenophobia in Costa Rica, and the poorer neighbouring countries are typically the ones to blame for crime. Either them, or the Caribbean black people.

It’s never your fault, is it?