When John Travolta describes his impression of Amsterdam to Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction he says it's just the little differences, the mayonnaise of fries, and beer in McDonald's that stick out. For me it's exactly the same with Costa Rica, it's the tiniest aberrations that catch your attention. Everyone wants the latest mobile with the most gadgets and accessories. Costa Rica is totally overpopulated with MaccyD´s and Burger Kings, just with one added regional dish, which is all the same ingredients but in a flour tortilla. You get everything you do at home, for the same price, which is extortionate for the natives.

So the ‘little differences' are things like all the sinks having hot taps, but only running cold water, or not being able to put toilet paper in the toilet because the plumbing can't handle it. Instead you stick it in a festering wastebasket trying not to think about all the urine and fecal matter you're smelling (knowing that when you smell something, its molecules are breaking off and making contact with yours - so the shit and piss are actually becoming part of you). In Costa Rica, they don't believe in queues (a concept unfathomable to an English person), whether it be at the post office, bank or airport, seemingly respectable middle-aged ‘Tica' women look at the line and pick a spot that looks nicest to them and stand there. But Costa Ricans pride themselves on being a courteous and correct people, in response to ‘gracias' they say without falter ‘mucho gusto' - ‘with much pleasure' - instead of the obligatory ‘de nada' all travellers memorise as their one essential piece of colloquial Spanish they can use to impress the locals. Costa Ricans are also very clean people, they shower constantly! When I first began my volunteer programme, the focus of an entire afternoon lecture was on the necessity of a clean vagina and my gay middle-aged coordinator (who had probably never seen a vagina in his whole life) insisted that we wash our private areas twice a day to ward off potential infections.

The obsession extends itself to the home where the women of the house never stop cleaning! However, in a tropical climate with so many bugs of various shapes and colours (particularly numerous cockroach population) this seems a sensible OCD to me if ever there was one. But it leads me to an enigma, the sons don't help with household chores, but they also don't perform traditionally male roles like killing unpleasant things, lifting, or changing light bulbs. They are drones! Maybe it is because they are neither physically stronger nor taller than the women (I would cruelly refer to Costa Rica as ‘Hobbit Land'). But then, some kind of evolution occurs because they are by far the most openly affectionate and tactile fathers I have ever seen. Throughout your day you'll encounter just as many dads out alone with their kids as mothers.

Other differences that I adore are the complimentary hard-boiled sweets you're given free when you buy something from a pulperia (corner shop), a treat I never thought I'd be permitted as an adult. Or when market vendors offer you some delicious tropical fruit as a present because they see you pawing about the unfamiliar delicacies and know you've never tasted it. A difference particularly endearing to me because of my tiny bladder is never being refused use of a toilet at any restaurant or bar of which I am not a customer.

Some differences really appear to be specifically those of the developing world. There was no concept of city planning implemented in the creation of San Jose (the capital). There are no real addresses as we would recognise them. The address of the house I stayed in was 100 meters west of the Super El 15 pulperia, 100 meters south of El Porvenir primary school, next to the flower shop, the house with the roof the colour of papaya. You can imagine the impossibility of navigating the first time I came back late from a bar. Every night I'd hear the delivery bike honking up and down all the streets in a 300 meter radius until the person who ordered the food runs out on to the street and hollers until the driver can locate where the sound is coming from.