Interview with Mario Cordero

Mario has been leading tours and coordinating trips in Costa Rica for ExperiencePlus! since 1993. We recently took a few moments to catch up on his life in Costa Rica.

You are a favorite on family tours. What is your secret to connecting with both the young and the not so young?
Maybe the fact that my age is right in the middle.

Maybe the fact that I honestly enjoy being around all the people that come on our tours.

Arenal Volcano is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and practically sits out your back door—anything to say about that?
After living here for 6 years it has become part of the everyday life.  I turn to look at it every morning when I run or bike, or when I’m riding my scooter to the office.  Sometimes it’s covered in clouds and you forget about it, but when it’s clear it is simply impressive. 

The weather changes here every year in September and October when we have several weeks of less rain and clear skies.  So the views have been incredible every day for the last two weeks.  Unfortunately we get fewer visitors during these months. 

People in the area are not afraid of it.  It’s the source of prosperity for the whole community.

Costa Rica’s National Parks system and its protection of habitat and ecosystems must add to your excitement of being a licensed Naturalist Guide.
This year Costa Rica ranks 5th in the world in the Environmental Performance Index, behind only Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Finland.  This makes us leaders and an example for others.  But it increases our responsibility because the whole world is watching.  There are values we promote and it’s great to have places where we can show that the ideas we promote really work.

On the other hand, we still have some big problems.  For example we haven’t paid for all the land of the national parks.  There is also serious over-development in some beach and mountain areas, poor handling of garbage and sewage waters, illegal logging and hunting, birds and other wild animals taken as pets.  So if we are leaders and we still have so much to fix, you can't help wonder what’s going on in other countries? 

If we are looking for a good cup of coffee, is Costa Rica our destination?
Oh yes!!  Being a poor country, for decades we exported all the good coffee and drank the cheap stuff.  But that has changed in the last 20 years as Costa Ricans have learned to appreciate good quality coffee.  Today we keep enough of the best coffee for ourselves so you can find an excellent cup in almost any town.

As with wine, everybody likes different things.  So if you liked the coffee at a particular restaurant or hotel, ask what kind it is and we’ll help you find it to take some home.    

Care to share a favorite wildlife viewing or encounter story with us?
Could be the Margay (a small wild feline) taking a nap in the fork of a tree as we hiked by earlier this year.

Or the Laughing Falcon catching a snake, flying to a nearby tree and eating it, as we watched from the side of the road by Lake Arenal.

But the best one has to be the young female Tapir at the beach, right by the mouth of Río Sirena, on the Osa Peninsula.  We saw her in the middle of the day, and she was eating. We approached her slowly coming within 5 meters (15 feet).  We watched her eat for 10 minutes and when she was done, she went to rest in a mud pool nearby.  She did not care about the flashes from cameras, the noise or the amount of adrenaline in our bloodstream.

If we handed you a pair of binoculars, what bird would you hope to see?
Today, it’d be the Bellbird because I haven’t seen one in a couple of years. 

Costa Rica is a world leader when it comes to being green – what steps have you taken on tours to make them environmentally friendly?
I like the new broader concept of “environmentally friendly” which includes our social and cultural environments besides just the natural.

We eliminated disposable plastic water bottles and changed for re-usable bottles.  We are now looking at biodegradable bottles for next season.

We don’t use chemical degreaser to clean our bikes.

We don’t go to chain hotels or restaurants and work only with locally owned accommodations.

We choose hotels where we don’t need to drive long distances to dinner.

Small changes for an already pretty “green” style of travel.

Costa Rica has so much coast line — have you ever wanted to be a beach bum?
Never.  I am a mountain person.  I tried surfing and couldn’t do it.  I don’t like the sun and being hot all the time.  I’m happy in the shade of the forest.  I love the moisture, the smells, the sounds of the mountains.

How would your colleagues describe you?
I’d like to hear them respond to this one!!

I enjoy working with all my colleagues.  I hope they enjoy working with me too.

Now we will put you on the spot—what is you favorite European country to visit?
I get this one all the time while on tour.  I always say I am against declaring the best of this or my favorite of that.  Every European country is so different and fascinating that you can’t choose just one.  And I think our favorites change with the time… But, right now, my memories of Spain have developed an especially good feeling to them.  Connections to our cultural roots, walking the streets of Madrid late at night, the seafood…

When was the last time you saw snow?
Two years ago I spent three weeks in Switzerland studying French.  I went hiking up in the mountains a few times and there were little bits of snow here and there when we hiked high enough. 

And before that it must have been in Colorado in 2004 when we were visiting the ExperiencePlus! office.

What regional cuisine is an absolute “must have” when visiting Costa Rica?  
A good seafood plate on the Pacific coast.

Mackerel with coconut milk and “Gallo Pinto" (rice and beans) on the Caribbean coast.

And a good Café con Leche with homemade tortillas in the Central Valley.

Your lovely wife Karla is also your business partner, any words of wisdom on being a successful team?
After years of working together we now make a good team by dividing the tasks according to each others strengths and weaknesses. And lots of patience.

We have totally different approaches on how to face most problems, so for most important decisions we always ask the other’s opinion.   This way we usually end up with a better solution and are able to find details or mistakes that were not obvious at first.  We can say that we have developed complementary visions and skills.

When we are not on tour, we go home every day for lunch and discuss all the business issues.  During dinner it is totally forbidden to talk about work.