Personalities In Our Midst | Quepolandia in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

Don Gilberto Gómez Barquero

Don Gilberto Gomez Barquero, dressed in a wide brimmed hat, cowboy boots and blue jeans, a knife and cell phone tucked into his leather belt, is a familiar personality around Quepos. He can also be seen riding along the beach on Damas Island at sunset or in the hills around Londres guiding a group of sunburned tourists. He usually appears animated as he points out highlights of the area. But as we settle into his office at Iguana Tours he strikes me as a shy man, perhaps more comfortable with groups than in one to one conversations.

It’s easy to see that Gilberto is a multi-tasker. He doesn’t waste a minute. He speaks on his cell phone while leafing through the newspaper, all the time keeping up a steady conversation and motioning to me to be patient.

Don Gilberto, born in Purescal, completed his Bachelor of Education degree from La Escuela Normal de Costa Rica in 1973. He says the school gave him a profound education “in the sense that all the professors there were very strict – from teaching us how to dress – to how to look after a child. We had to wear grey pants and a grey tie. If your tie wasn’t properly knotted you would be reminded about it. The second time you would be sent home.” Read More…

Filed under: Carol Vlassoff, Personalities in Our Midst on February 20th, 2010
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Barry Biesanz

By Carol Vlassoff

Barry Biesanz pulls into my driveway, hops out of his car and wastes no time settling onto a patio chair for our interview. He does not need any prompting: he clearly has a message to share.

“People ask me,” he says, “I bet you’ve seen a lot of changes here over the last 40 years. They assume they have all been for the worse – but they haven’t. Sure, there are some ill-conceived projects, drugs, prostitution and corruption. But there are far more monkeys than there were in 1971, and much more prosperity.” Most of Manuel Antonio, he continues, was being converted to pasture and crops, even much of what is now the park, and all the mangroves near town were cut to make charcoal.

“The United Fruit Company was the only employer aside from two huge and many small cattle farms. With the switch to tourism, forest cover increased and species that were been gone for decades have returned. Living standards are very much better for Quepeños.”

Carlos López Alvarado

(en Español)
Carlos López Alvarado is perhaps best known by expatriates as the man who owns a chunk of prime land in the Manuel Antonio area. His holdings include 70 hectares of hilly land overlooking serene beaches, seven houses in Manuel Antonio, the Costa Rica Spanish Institute, the building beside the bus station where he now has his office, and more. But López was not always a rich man and even now, is humble and unpretentious.

Born in Limon on July 10, 1922, Don Carlos moved to Quepos when he was 18. He remembers the date exactly – it was March 19, 1940. He says that his father was a foreman of the Compañía Bananera de Costa Rica, a subsidiary of the United Fruit Company. In the mid-1930′s the company, based in Limon, began amassing large landholdings in the Central Pacific and by 1940, its production exceeded that of the Atlantic region.

Luis Alberto Bolaños

by Carol Vlassoff
(en Español)

L.-Bolanos-colour With his grey blue eyes, fair skin and closely cropped silvery hair, Luis Bolaños may not look like a typical Tico. But he’s a Tico through and through. He has a deep social conscience, is proud of his country and is well informed about its history, politics and the challenges it faces.

We meet in his office in the Best Western Hotel Kamuk, a landmark in Quepos because it overlooks the levy and the Pacific beyond. Its restaurant on the third floor, Mira Olas, provides a panorama of the entire waterfront.

Milo Bekins Faries

Milo and Tey Bekins by Carol Vlassoff
(en Español)

Milo Bekins Faries and his attractive wife, Tey, meet me in their forest home, four kilometres from Londres on the road to Cerro Nara. We sit on the veranda that encircles four sides of the house. True to the Bekins’ lifestyle, the house is built of cedro amargo and teak. Milo planted these trees on his own property years ago, with the idea of seeding their “house-to-be”. It is surrounded by forest gardens and a running water ditch moat that keeps their house amazingly insect free.
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Filed under: Carol Vlassoff, Personalities in Our Midst on September 29th, 2009
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