Costa Rica, San Jose

Sitting on a stool in a corner of one of the common rooms of the tastefully decorated Hostal El Chante Limitada, which was opened in July by a group of fashionable Costa Rican women in their early 20's, is an electric IBM typewriter. Massive and metal and battered, its presence succeeds in giving the room an air of antique charm. It is the same model of typewriter upon which I learned to type in high school.