Tourism matters enormously to the local economy, she says — it has brought real job opportunities and better infrastructure to Tamarindo. As an elder, she stays active in a cultural dance group that works to keep the old traditions alive. Does it get results? Sometimes. Every so often, they're invited to perform at the hotels.
Like most things here, tourism cuts both ways. On the upside, the education system has improved substantially, technical education especially, driven by the steady demand for young people in construction. On the downside, cattle-breeding — once a mainstay of the region — has all but disappeared. The grasslands it depended on have been turned into hotels, and the farmers who sold their land are left with no income at all. Almost all of them are elderly, and none of them can find work in tourism to replace what they lost.
She's glad, of course, that her grandchildren's generation has tourism to work in. But the industry here is dominated by a surfer culture that doesn't always extend much respect to older people. Tourists, she says, behave in ways that openly offend the older generation — sunbathing naked, having sex in public.
“If you showed us a little more respect, perhaps our young people would too.”
Because the young imitate what they see, she believes tourists carry real responsibility to set a better example. If visitors showed more respect toward elders, and more restraint around alcohol and drugs, she thinks it would ripple down to the younger generation too — and make tourism feel more welcome in her eyes, not less.
Her cultural group has a plan for the income the hotel performances bring in: start a project against drugs and alcohol, and hire a teacher to revive the traditional dances properly. If tourists show real interest in their culture — and ask for it, by name, at the hotels — it gives her group the opening they need to make it happen.