THE COSTA RICA VACATION OF THE HONORABLE PIRATE AND THE MOTHER OF ALL BURIED TREASURE
When you travel Costa Rica, look out over the clear waters and imagine Christopher Columbus discovering and naming this land "Costa Rica" and Sir Francis Drake landing in the tropical waters along the southern Pacific coast in a bay now named after him and----pirates. For Columbus, Drake, the pirates, and now you: welcome to Costa Rica vacation travel! Let your imagination soar a little.
I promised you a real treasure map for your Costa Rica vacation. Here's one, drawn in 1883 by a pirate accomplice. It shows where treasure was buried years earlier--but never recovered by the pirate captain (I think the problem was that he was hanged before his next trip to Costa Rica). 
And, here's ANOTHER MAP, drawn in 1820 by the actual pirate captain who stole the Treasure of Lima. This really is the mother of all buried treasure, much, much larger than the piddly Devonshire Treasure (valued at only a few hundred million dollars in today's dollars), and I’ll help you read it in a moment. But, first, that year, as the story goes, there was an insurrection against Spanish rule in Lima. Afraid that a fortune in gold and jewels might fall into the wrong hands (you know, the people from whom it had been "liberated"), the Spanish Viceroy of Lima decided that it should be put on a ship and taken out to sea until the insurrection was over. This is a tale of good news, bad news. First, the bad news. There was but one ship in the harbor and it was British. But, good news! The captain was the well-respected William Thompson and he promised to return the gold and jewels (which included a full-size Madonna made of solid gold, and lots of diamonds and rubies!) in a few weeks when the Spanish were back in control. Well, everybody knows that an Englishman’s word, and particularly a captain in H.M.S., is good as . . . gold, so the Viceroy entrusted several million dollars in gold and jewels--some say up to $60,000,000 (in 1820 dollars!)--to Thompson. Several Spanish guards went along to guard the gold. But, temptation can be a terrible thing and, lo and behold, the honorable captain decided to keep the gold for himself (that made him a pirate) and hid it on . . . you guessed it! Cocos Island. And, unfortunately for the Spanish guards, they weren't appreciated by pirates so. . . .they met a violent end. Cocos was a VERY popular buried treasure spot! Click to read about the buried Devonshire Treasure. Why Bury Treasure on Cocos Island?You might ask, “Why did pirates keep burying treasure at Cocos Islands?”Simple. It was far from the shipping lanes (where the pirate-hunting ships tended to be), it was one of the few islands that had fresh water, the only one with a rainforest for wood, and most importantly, it was filled with coconuts, the perfect ingredient for pirate drink (hint: not coconut milk). All in all, Cocos Island was a perfect Costa Rica vacation for a pirate! A perfect place to get away from it all for a few days. Thompson's map shows the buried treasure to be on the north side of Cocos Island where there are two bays, Wafer and Chatham. On your Costa Rica vacation, look about for the buried treasure about 200 feet off the shore near the small river shown on the bottom of the second pirate map. Though hand-drawn, the map is very accurate. Just look at the northern coast of Cocos Island from this modern map and you'll agree. See Wafer and Chatham bays at the northern part of the map? Just like pirate Thompson drew. 
But, like most other pirates, he and his crew were caught. All were duly hanged except Thompson and one other mate who promised (you know how good Thompson’s word was, don’t you?) to take the Spanish (did I mention how gullible they were?) to the buried treasure in return for their lives.Well, when they got back to the island, Thompson and his mate ran into the rainforest (remember, I told you about the rainforest earlier) and escaped. The Spanish never found him--or the buried treasure. Legend has it that Thompson later made it off the island when a whaler came by. Without the treasure. Lots of people have looked for it but it’s still there. Maybe they didn’t have the pirate map. But you do. Two of them. For your Costa Rica vacation. When you travel Costa Rica, happy hunting! Pura Vida!
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