Training for Costa Rica

Some people prepare for a long distance hike by stuffing five-pound sugar or flour bags in their backpacks to get used to carrying the weight. Similarly, you could prepare yourself for moving to or visiting Costa Rica.

In no particular order, here are some tips (a few of them decidedly tongue-in-cheek) to prepare you for some common sights and sounds you may encounter, based on our experience.

• Find a recording of a weed eater or leaf blower and listen to it for hours at a time. Bonus points if you start it at 6 a.m. We do love Mario, but he likes to get started early.

• Drive down any street anywhere and wave & smile at every single person you meet. Holler “Buenas Dias!” regularly. 

• Get used to shaking your towels or shoes before you use them or put them on. Spiders and other bugs are a thing here. (Breathe, K80, it’s ok.) Once your house or B&B lodging has been basically de-bugged, this isn’t as much of an issue, but that doesn’t means the crawlies are all gone. They lurk. Bastards. 

• Go to a fair, buy a ticket to the bumper cars and instead of finding the fun in ramming your friends’ cars with yours, actually try to avoid contact with anybody else’s car. This is good practice for Costa Rica driving. 

• If you are coming to the mountainous Central Valley, give up your car cup, at least in a moving vehicle. Car cups are not an easy thing here. Our mountain roads are insanely bumpy and curvy, and drinking from a cup when the car is moving is ill-advised. Drink only when you are parked or still, lest you end up wearing your liquid. My friend Brooke usually has a cup in her car but I’ve never seen her drink from it while the car is actually moving. 

• Learn to love tile floors. Most every building I have been in here so far has tile floors and concrete walls. It's a thing. And it's all well and good unless you drop something delicate (or hurl your body off a ladder.) Then it breaks whatever hits it. Badly. Think multiple tiny pieces. Think plates and screws, surgery, physical therapy. Think … oh, sorry, fell into a little PTSD dark place there. No worries. I’m ok. Yep.  Nothing to see here.

• Buy yourself a laminated "Wildlife of Costa Rica" foldable infocard. You can get one almost anywhere. Keep it in your pocket or purse everywhere you go. You will find all manner of new friends in the new bugs, new birds & butterflies, new plants you encounter. We’ve discovered that one of our favorite birds here is called “Bobo” (fool) by the locals because he’s so unafraid of people and will just walk right up to you or let you walk to it. He’s also pretty cool looking and has this excellent Zen circle right on top of his head. Check him out:

• Become proficient in using Google translator. Better yet, learn Spanish before you come. Ticos are more than happy to welcome your attempts to communicate in their language. But it’d be really great if you knew their language to begin with. It’s their country and their language. That’s a real goal for both of us. A little at a time, better every day. 

• Learn Spanish numbers (and more than from 1-20 like the wuss I am, er, was.) Knowing what, say, veintiséis mil means is useful when a vendor at the market wants that much and the line behind you gets longer while you try to figure it out. It’s downright embarrassing to hold out your hand with various bills and coins and let them find what they need. 

• Next time you have an appointment with someone, pretend that they show up, oh, at least half hour late, sometimes more, or sometimes not at all. Tico time is real. Think “approximate.” When they show up, they’re always happy and cheerful and seemingly unaware they were actually expected an hour before. The great thing about this is that it forces you to give up the American anxiety about clock-watching, being late and learn to embrace what the Ticos call “tranquillo” - calm, no worries, be happy. All will be well in the end. 

• On a neighborhood drive, play “find the pothole” and scream “hueco!”  every time you spy one. It means “gap” but is Tico slang for pothole and it’s very useful to help a driver stay focused.   

• Get a recording of a pounding rain. Turn it up full blast and hold an otherwise regular conversation by screaming at each other to be heard. This is great practice for rainy season in a tin-roofed house. 

This also makes for some fun conversations. Recently, while it was pouring like a monsoon outside, we were deciding what to have for dinner. Melanie suggested we make pizza from scratch.

Me: “Pizza is always fun.”

Melanie, across the room, alarmed: “There’s a spider? Where?”

It is definitely an adventure getting used to all kinds of new things. When you visit Costa Rica, it will help if you bring your wild curiosity, your grateful heart, your open mind, and your sense of humor. 

All that said, I offer up one last guideline for the time being, and this one is muy importante. 

• Prepare to give yourself over to incredible beauty overload. Every single day. Watch a YouTube drone video of CR landscape and understand that you can see that for real here. When you’re here, you’ll need time to absorb incredible vistas, to listen to the daily bird symphony, to hear the rivers and waterfalls flowing. Tranquilla, they call it. The beautiful views are everywhere. You don't even have to look hard. This is the view from my physical therapy pool.

You won't be tempted to take this beauty for granted. You'll be amazed every single time. You will feel tears of gratitude gently drip down your cheeks. This is the point of Pura Vida. 

Costa Rica is the real deal.

Living my best life.

Watching Melanie live hers.

It’s amazing.