Costa Rica Trip: Arrival, Waterfall Hike & Canopy Zipline

December 26, 2015
Day 1 Arrive in Costa Rica:

I arrived at the San Jose Airport at 7:30pm.  It only took 30 minutes to get thru customs and was then greeted by my Dad, who arrived the day before, at the airport exit.  We booked all of our hotels, rides and activities through a company called Pacific Trade Winds.  Our first part they arranged was a mini-bus to take us from the airport to La Fortuna, about 3-4 hours drive northwest of San Jose.  The drive was on a windy, two-lane road and we didn't see much because it was dark.  We arrived at our hotel, Hotel La Fortuna in the heart of the town, around 11pm.  The town is big for the area, with probably more than a hundred buildings and over 5,000 people.

On the drive, we passed many "sodas" which is what Costa Ricans, or Ticos, call small local restaurants that serve low-cost meals.  They are in all of the towns here.  There are bull rings and soccer fields in every town.  According to our guides, there is a bar next to every soccer field (and as of the 4th day he hasn't been wrong).

December 27, 2015
Day 2, Hike to Waterfall and Canopy Zipline:

We got up around 8am.  We ate the hotel breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs, beans, toast, cereal and really good plantains.  If you've, never had cooked plantains, they are like sweetened bananas, but really soft.  The meal of meat, rice and beans which is a typical Costa Rican meal called "casado" (which literally translates to 'marriage').

We had planned activities for most of the trip but had left this morning open.  So we consulted with the front desk clerk who was very helpful.  We decided to take a taxi to a waterfall called Catarata La Fortuna (catarata means waterfall) which is about a 15 minute drive away.  The taxi was only $8 and we shared the cab with a couple from New York going to the same place.

We arrived and there was a line of about 25 people to pay the $11/person entrance fee.  In our first encounter with the wondrous rainforest, we made about a 15 minute hike down concrete/mud/cinder block stairs and arrived at the base of a very powerful waterfall.  The pool beneath the 100ft or so drop was really small and the rapids it was creating were very large.  It was impossible for anyone to get in the water and not get carried away. There was a less powerful waterfall adjacent to it, which was actually prettier because you can see it cascading down the vertical rock face.

We stayed about 30 minutes, and then hiked back up to the base where we ate lunch at a restaurant inside the park.  I ate a local version of a hamburger and my Dad had a vegan salad.  We then decided to walk back to our hotel, which our hotel man said would take about an hour, and we had an hour and half until we were to be picked up for our organized tour at 230.

On the way, we stopped at a really cool local artisan shop that had wooden carvings of local animals, human sculptures and even small jewelry boxes.  I bought a pair of toucans for myself and a cooking-related gift for my girlfriend as a present.  We then looked at the clock and saw it was 1:20 which meant we needed to pick up the pace to get back.  Around every bend in the road we thought we were going to see our next turn, but it didn't come until about 2pm, which meant we had to really hustle to get to the hotel in time.  Luckily I had taken a picture of Google maps so we could take a shortcut through a neighborhood behind our hotel.  We arrived at 2:24, go up to our rooms, and switched out the gear we need and hurried back downstairs.  Our bus arrives 1 minute after we get downstairs - whew!

We are now on our way to do a zipline tour with a company called Ecoglide in the rainforest canopy.  We get to the tour office and we find there are couple dozen people already there.  We then get geared up with a harness, helmet and gloves.  After we we sit down, more and more people keep getting off buses --  I estimate around 50 people in total.  I was hoping they break us up into smaller groups as I didn't want to be waiting too long on small platforms with a bunch of people, but they put us all in one big group.  Strangely, we and a couple others are the only ones who decide to wear our rain jackets. And it takes a long time to get everyone their gear, so we don't take the truck up to the top until about 3:20 -- keep in mind that the sun sets at 5:20-5:40 here.

In all, there are 14 separate ziplines plus a "Tarzan swing" in the middle that is optional.  This is not your average zipline-park style -- 50 ft long ziplines.  The first one and last one are a short 50-100ft but beyond that, most of them are over 400ft, with the second to last one being a massive 1380 ft.  You can pick up some serious speed, over 30 mph on many of them,  and the only way we can stop is with a leather glove on our dominant hand.  The guides end up doing 70% of the stopping for you with a safety system they have on each cable.  After about the 4th cable, it starts to rain on us and we are glad we brought the jackets, but less excited about having to try stop yourself on wet cables.  We quickly find out that it is near impossible to stop yourself with the glove so we then rely on the safety system to do 95% of the stopping for us.

We get to the Tarzan swing, where you essentially fall forward, standing, off of a ledge and swing out beyond a platform which is about 40 ft below.  Then you swing back and forth a few times like a swing and these two guys below you try to slap your legs to slow your swinging so they can lower you to the ground.  Sometimes they grab the person to stop them, which they did to me, but I kept swinging and almost took the guy off the platform with me.  Luckily the other guy grabbed us and all was well.  My Dad then followed me in doing it and he did not like as much as I did because of the spinning while swinging.

Towards the end, we ended up waiting on two platforms for about 30 minutes each, compared to 5ish minutes on other platforms as we had to wait for guides to come through and man each platform in front of us.  The company did not seem prepared for the logistics of managing 50 people.  It was partially difficult for them because there were 4-5 kids who needed to be escorted the entire way by a guide.  By the time we got to the 13th platform it the sun had set by 5:30, so we did the last two in the dark.  As you can imagine, doing this in the dark is no fun at all.  They gave everyone free drinks and beer at the office to try to make us feel better.  Overall it was a thrilling experience.

Then we walked to a restaurant, Cafe Mediterraneo, about 10 minutes from our hotel. We thought it was pretty good.  My Dad had wood fired pizza and I had gorgonzola gnocchi.

Buenas Noches!

Why are there no Free Agents in international soccer?

Soccer is an international sport with unusual economics because Free Agency has almost no power and is seldom used by soccer players to change teams.  The following is a perspective from an American's point of view, where free agency is incredibly prevalent in other American sports.

A very small minority of soccer players change teams when they are not under contract.  Most players are actually 'bought' by another team while under contract for what is called a 'transfer fee'. A transfer fee is essentially when one team/club pays another team/club for the transfer ownership of a player's contract.

The transfer fee concept, known in whole as the 'transfer market', is akin to the American colloquial for a 'trade'.  However, in these transfer deals, the overwhelming behavior of clubs is to simply purchase a player's contract as opposed to American football, baseball or basketball, where a trade only involves players or draft picks (Baseball trades seldom include cash-for-player).  Soccer's transfer market also differs from other systems because it is an international system which spans 50+ different leagues in 50+ different countries, all governed by an international body, FIFA.  But why would free agency in soccer have less power than any other sport?

As far as the business process, there must first be a structure of fees agreed upon between the buying club and selling club.  The buying club must then also agree on the personal terms of the salary with the player.  This is where the player benefits or at least has some leverage.  When the teams agree on a transfer fee, the transfer will not go through without a new contract/salary for the player at the new club.  It is highly common for a player to request (and receive) a raise in a transfer negotiation, otherwise they typically reject the transfer to stay at their current club.

I don't understand why a player doesn't wait for their contract to expire, and then seek the highest salary offered by another team.  This use of leverage is supposed to exist in a free-market-principled system.  This leverage is what so many American players use to gain bigger contracts with their current clubs, or to test the free agency market by negotiating out of contract.  Yet you rarely see a soccer player take this course of action.

Some of the elite players are being transferred for tens of millions of dollars.  But when their contract runs out, they are suddenly worth $0 in the transfer market.  The player doesn't even benefit from the transfer fees -- only the club does.  Imagine if more players used free agency -- we would likely see the median price paid in transfer fees plummet.  

Some high profile players have sought free agency but this is typically only done by players who are in the twilight of their career (31+ for soccer).  Notable examples include Andrea Pirlo, Steven Gerrard and David Beckham.  Players at their age are rarely valued at any substantial amount of money (largely because it is assumed they will retire soon and suddenly be worth $0) in the market, so it is not worthwhile for teams to try to get transfer fees.

There are of course a few rare exceptions for players in their prime like Robert Lewandowski, who was once worth over $40 million in transfer fees, who signed a free agency contract with Bayern Munich, because his employing club, Borussia Dortmund refused to make the transfer deal.

I hoped to have an answer for my title question, but in all of my research, I have no answer to why free agency is seldom used by players in international soccer.  I am truly asking the following questions and happy to receive comments or answers:

When will free agency finally garner the same power it has in America?  Why hasn't it happened yet?  And when will it become common for players to negotiate new contracts with new teams on their own terms?