Life Inside the Blue Zone That Can’t Be Bought
by Scout MacKay
Step into almost any home in Nicoya’s Blue Zone or its surroundings, and you’ll find black-and-white portraits on the walls — faces from another century. They’re not antiques. They’re family. And each one of them has something to teach you about time. The faces stare back at you from another century, framed in teca (teak), surrounded by the faint smell of café (coffee) and smoke from the fogón (woodstove). They are reminders of a time when everything — the pace, the noise, the ambitions — moved slower. When people lived long not because they were trying to, but because life itself demanded paciencia (patience).
You think that’s an exaggeration. Then you meet Don Vicente, who walks two miles uphill every morning before coffee, eats a chorreada (corn pancake) with natilla (sour cream) made his daughter, and tells you he remembers when cows were the only alarm clocks. He’s 94 going on 49. You think he’s an old man who’s lost his marbles as he sits with his guíjula (a long stick to drive oxen) looking out at the pampa (prairie) — and then you talk to him and realize he has way more marbles than most. His mind is sharper than a new machete, and his humor could light a galerón (rustic large shed). When he talks, you realize he’s not reminiscing — he’s teaching, in the same way his father once taught him, without ever calling it that.
You’ll know you’re in the Blue Zone when the ox carts aren’t set for show, and the whinnies echoing through the madrugada (dusk) mark the presence of the sabanero, the Costa Rican cowboy. These men once rode across the endless plains of Guanacaste, chasing cattle under skies so wide they looked like the Pacifico turned upside down. Cattle farming began booming here in the 1800s, around the same time Costa Rica’s heroes like Juan Santamaría were shaping the national spirit of valentia (bravery) and simplicidad (simplicity). The sabanero became part of that story — symbols of hard work, honor, and endurance. They didn’t wear watches; they measured time in light, in hoofbeats, in the sound of the wind changing.
These are people who lived through everything — wars, hurricanes, earthquakes — and somehow stayed calmer than you do when your Wi-Fi drops. Some of them were already adults in 1948, when Costa Rica abolished its army after the civil war. They heard José “Don Pepe” Figueres declare, “Las armas se guardan bajo llave y se dedicarán a escuelas, hospitales y obras del pueblo.” (“The weapons will be locked away and devoted to schools, hospitals, and works of the people.”) Imagine that: trading soldiers for maestros (teachers), and war for sabiduría (wisdom).
They don’t have apps for atención plena (mindfulness); they are mindfulness. They know what time it is by looking at the light, not at a screen. They can tell when la lluvia (the rain) will fall by the way the leaves turn upward, or when the mist starts rolling in from las montañas (the mountains) instead of el mar (the sea). They carry generations of sabiduría (wisdom) that never needed to be written down — how to identify plantas medicinales (medicinal plants) for teas and natural antibiotics, how to build a home with a single martillo (hammer), how to keep your back straight when life gets heavy.
Their houses blend into the land — built to collect rainwater with sticks and tin, cool the heat with shade and crosswinds, and stand long enough for great-grandchildren to be born under the same roof. (Of course, they’re born in hospitals now, but Don Vicente, you can bet, was born in his house.) They cooked with leña, wood that filled the air with smoke and comfort, and the firewood was delivered by carretas de bueyes, ox carts painted in brilliant colors, or not, that clattered slowly down dusty roads. They were slower, and so was their world.
When a 100-year-old tico was born, Costa Rica didn’t have supermarkets — it had neighbors. There was no “farm-to-table” movement because everything was the finca (farm) or the mesa (table). People didn’t talk about sustainability; they just didn’t waste anything. Life was communal, circular. You gave, you received, you repaired, you reused. A gallina (chicken) was dinner when it stopped laying eggs, and a jícaro wasn’t trash, it was a canvas waiting for the artesano (artisan). The luxury wasn’t in possessions — it was in connection. And it was in time.
The reason why the Nicoya peninsula is one of the world’s few Blue Zones — places where people routinely live past 100 — isn’t because of a magic vitamin, a supplement, or a secret diet you can order online. It’s because their way of life never broke. Their days are balanced between movement and rest, solitude and conversation, work and laughter. Their diet is simple: beans, corn, rice, fruit, a little coffee, some for the carajillos (kids) to taste, and everything in moderation. But their secret ingredient is invisible — purpose. Here, people don’t retire; they adapt. They rise each day with a reason to keep going — to feed the animals, tend the garden, fix a portón (gate), greet a vecino (neighbor). Science and series call it plan de vida (a life plan). Don Vicente just calls it mañana (tomorrow).
Living here feels like living inside a slow secret. You realize the greeness of Blue Zone isn’t a magic spell or a diet; it’s not something that can be bought — not for a million colones, not for a million dollars. Nor should it. Because what’s for sale is usually the first thing that loses its soul. The people here hold on to what the rest of the world keeps trading away: time, trust, and a kind of peace that comes from not needing more than an old wooden house with an open door.
Because when you drive to the coasts and watch the roads become too busy for the sabaneros, for the bueyes and mulas, where the new cafés pop up with oat milk and playlists in English called “Chill Tropical Vibes,” you feel something else: a quiet fear. The fear that this living museum of longevity is becoming another tourist filter. You see carretas traded for cars, handshakes for Wi-Fi passwords, names for statuses, and you fear that the secret that made Guanacaste so special is being plowed over, one latte at a time. Here, where I’ve tucked myself away from the madness, it feels safe. It’s all zanate squeaks and Brahman moo’s for now.
But it’s strange, watching a paradise outlive itself. To live in and around a Blue Zone and see it turn gray — not in the way the people age, but in the way the world forgets how to. It’s not death that threatens the Nicoya Peninsula and surrounding areas; it’s distraction. Because every minute we save with technology seems to make us live a little less. Every wall we build gives us one less neighbor, one less conversation, one less human connection. Every square meter we crave in a house gives us less land to gaze out on when we’re older.
So when you see those black-and-white photos — faces wrinkled like the hills, eyes bright like wet leaves — remember:
They’re not just the history of Guanacaste. They’re instructions from Guanacastecos.
Live simply.
Love Costa Rica more.