Two members of the foreign relations committee of the United States Senate passed through Costa Rica on Friday to meet with President Oscar Arias and President-elect Laura Chinchilla.

Thirty-year senator Chris Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, who recently announced his decision not to seek another term, and his freshman colleague, Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, spent only a few hours with the Costa Rican leadership before leaving for Honduras, where they planned to meet with newly installed Honduran President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo.

For Dodd, this wasn't his first visit to Costa Rica. He had come in the 1980s for the Arias-led Central American peace talks and returned again when his brother, Thomas J. Dodd Jr., served as ambassador to Costa Rica between 1997 and 2001.

“When I first came to Costa Rica, I had completely black hair,” he said, standing on the doorstep of Arias' home in the western San José neighborhood of Rohrmoser. “Now I have pelo de cana, as they say here.”

Speaking to reporters in Spanish, Dodd said, “We haven't had a country that is a better friend to us than Costa Rica.”

Corker, who was passing through Costa Rica for the first time, called it a “tremendous honor” to meet Nobel Prize winning and second-term president Oscar Arias.

“He is known in our country for having great wisdom,” said the 57-year-old longtime businessman. “When he speaks, we always listen to what he has to say.”

Before leaving to San José's Hotel Corobicí, where they spoke about pending agenda items with President-elect Laura Chinchilla, Dodd praised the Costa Rican people for another “animated election.”

“Congratulations goes not only to (Chinchilla), but also to the people of Costa Rica,” he said. “Seventy percent (turn-out) is incredible. In our country, 52 percent is big.... It's just one more example of what citizens can do.”