Today, we said goodbye to our host families and left Heredia. On our journey to La Fortuna, we went on a pineapple tour and swam in the La Fortuna Waterfall. Comparing the farm to the tourist traps we’ve been to, differences are very clear. In the hot weather, with rough terrain and wind blowing, it makes sense that the younger generation doesn’t want to stay on the farms. Tourism provides a more fun field of work that is less labor intensive. I believe this is why the younger generation is leaning towards this field. Our trip today was so thrilling that even from a worker’s perspective, I can’t see how that wouldn’t be a fun career to live. It seems more profitable for them with the amount of tourism Costa Rica brings too.

However, if too many people lean away from farming, Costa Rica loses a crucial field. It reminds me of careers in the US, like nursing and teaching, that with bad working conditions means there’s a shortage of necessities. Their economy relies on tourism, but it also relies on agricultural exports. We’ve been to so many of these sorts of tours (coffee, chocolate, pineapple, strawberry, and dairy), but there’s little tourism without these. The beaches and rain forests can only take a country so far without upkeep. If the position dies entirely, there’s more that Costa Rica would need to import from others, instead of using domestic products and they would be losing money from exports. In the US, farmers often get incentives from the government, which would in turn make the cost of living for everyone else more expensive too. With a better work life balance, but a loss in the food Costa Ricans eat and one of the biggest factors of their economy, moving toward tourism could definitely have negative impacts and unintended consequences.