Chapulin literally means grasshopper in Spanish. In Costa Rica it can mean a kind of tractor or juvenile delinquent. Most often this term was used to describe the latter or a group of young thugs which assaulted people on the streets of San José. The following gives new meaning to the word chapulin.

There is a new breed of gringo that does not rob anything material from you. Instead the rob your dreams by disseminating alarmist and erroneous information about Costa Rica to feed their hungry low self esteem.

They have no vested interest in you moving here, so they don’t really care how they portray the country. Since they have made the move like many others they have to tell the world about their miraculous accomplishment. They think they are experts just because they moved here. They put up websites, blogs, organize newsgroups and even publish newspapers to show you how much they know about the country. They like to sensationalize events to draw attention to themselves and all seemingly have an area of expertise. They even give themselves nicknames like Mary Tica, Super Tico etc. The term Tico, buy the way, is the a nickname for a Costa Rican. Funny, some of these people try to pass themselves off as Costa Ricans without even being citizens or for living here for many years. Indeed, expatriates behavior can be strange. I guess they are trying to reinvent themselves or it may be something in the air or water here that leads to this absurd behavior.

They love to pray off the food chain of people who are seeking knowledge about moving here. It is always hard for the neophyte to tell who is for real especially when there is such a huge amount of information on the Internet.

The best thing you can do is to gather all of the information you can about Costa Rica and in the process try to find out who is for real, who isn’t and who has the correct information. It’s not easy but if you take the time to do your homework and beware of the Gringo chapulines.