09 Dec 04
A grinning tour guide barks out soundbites about his country from the front of a Toyota bus. Costa Rica is the size of Denmark. Largely rain forests and loamy farmland. Home of four million people, most of whom congregate in Costa Rica's few cities. Natives grow sugar, bananas and pineapples and now, computer chips (Intel has just built a new factory in San Jose - more jobs good, modernisation good). Earnings average about $400 per month (bad, but economy "stable" and "better than our neighbours'"). Half of Costa Ricans speak English (helpful, since my Spanish barely makes pidgin grade). Peacenik Costa Ricans abolished their standing army ages ago, apparently, and are as wholeheartedly democratic as they are Catholic (over 95 percent). Not to mention nice - Costa Ricans, the tour guide tells us, are some of the nicest people we are likely to meet. Kidnappings and things of that unsavoury nature would not be on the menu for the next few days. Everything in Costa Rica is buena vida (the good life), he says. I'm going to like it here.
This land, folded between Nicaragua and Panama in the mountainous spine joining North and South America, is to be the latest setting for Toyota's epic treks over some of the world's most taxing terrain to test the abilities of its Land Cruiser off-roader. The old warhorse has seen nearly a dozen incarnations over the last 53 years, the latest version offering every conceivable aid you'd need to go cross-country. Recent outings have traversed Icelandic glaciers and South African pampas, but Costa Rica's peaks will be an altogether tougher trial.
That Toyota chose Costa Rica for its latest land assault is no surprise; the world's number two automaker has always had a substantial stake in the car industry here, selling more vehicles than any of its rivals. Indeed, the capital San Jose's vast fleet of carrot-orange minicabs rarely features any other badge. But outside the cities, four-wheel drive dominance is complete: it's well-nigh impossible for a front- or rear-drive passenger car to manage Costa Rica's knolls and valleys which threaten to become more overgrown by every hour. It's a noteworthy irony that in this nation where more than a quarter of the land is protected by law from deforestation and other damaging activities, the only way to get around is in gas-guzzling SUVs. A point not lost of Toyota, which is working hard to cut consumption and emissions from its cars, but still recognises the incongruity of the situation.
European and (particularly) American cars are rarely seen clambering along these pock-marked roads. Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki and the Koreans Kia and Daewoo lord their supremacy over GM and Ford here, with 'premium' cars like BMWs and Mercedes reserved only for travelling dignitaries, and usually penned in air-conditioned car ports most of the year. Even the rare Land Rover Defenders or Series Is that we saw were usually slapped with signs saying en venta (for sale), or else vanishing into rusty graves by the roadside. Testament, surely, to the Japanese car industry's commitment to reliability and endurance, borne out year after year in customer satisfaction surveys.
