Last week I celebrated my birthday and with it the realization that over half my life has passed since I first set foot in Costa Rica. Despite my personal economy and the constant need to live within a modest budget, I have no regret about the long ago life change. The pace and pura vida attitude of Costa Rica suits me better than the urban, higher pressure life I once lived up north.
As is common with the passage of time, nostalgia can kick in, and I thought back to the Costa Rica I met upon arrival, and the ways the present day differs. Following are a few examples of the way it once was:
I remember when banks had few if any seats available for clients. Standing patiently in line seemed to be in the DNA of locals. A wait of an hour or more was not uncommon. And when you finally reached the teller, you handed over a bankbook where your withdrawal was duly noted.
My earliest days here, the largest bank note was the 1000 colon bill. Also widely distributed were 500, 100, and 50 colon notes. And I once had a 1 colon coin, the size and heft of a US silver dollar. In later years, all banks had a prohibition against use of cell phones within the premises. There had been an infamous bank robber in the US, a young woman who talked on her cell phone to her accomplice while she robbed the bank. She was caught, but the ban here went on for years.
I remember a downtown San Jose without high rise buildings. The Holiday Inn and the Banco Nacional building were the two tallest; They are now dwarfed by taller office and residential towers throughout the city. There were once numerous movie houses throughout the city, and in smaller provincial towns as well.
In San Isidro del General, a local returned from several years away working in the US and opened a movie theatre complete with a castle-like facade. It did great business in the later 1990s, but like so many theatres, its future ended with the movie rental places, that were then made obsolete by Netflix.
I remember when any bar that wanted business offered a free boca to snack on with each round. While in the bar, you may have been solicited by a person off the street wearing medical scrubs, offering to take your blood pressure for a small donation. They were neither medically trained or in need of the scrub suit, but no one objected.
I occasionally paid the 100 colons and amazingly my blood pressure always indicated that I was in great health– even after several beer and boca combos. I also recall drinking in bars that were essentially the front room of a house, where the proprietor lived in the connected area behind. I still see pulperias laid out in this fashion, but this type of bar is seldom seen.
I remember weird, thankfully brief fashion statements such as transparent bra straps and young guys wearing oversize belts that left the extra length dangling between the legs like a false phallic promise. The number of women sporting newly enlarged breasts has dropped, as has the number of pregnant teens, though I doubt there is any correlation between the two.
I remember when every adult Tico looked physically fit, and when every pedestrian actually watched where they were walking. Grass was cut with a machete and one of the most common 4×4 vehicles was the Russian made Lada Niva. When you departed Costa Rica by air, you first waited in line in order to pay an airport departure tax– that is now included in the price of a ticket.
And then, like that, I return to the present. However long I live, the fact is that most of my life is now behind me. The year 2026 may some day be looked back upon with the same foggy sentimentality, whether or not I am still around to recall it.
Read more of Don Mateo’s writing from his newly published ebook.
