Retirement in Costa Rica

I was struck by a recent hub which quickly garnered the hallowed 100 score in Hubpages entitled “Ten Great Reasons to Retire in Costa Rica”, whose author has never been to Costa Rica, and which was eulogized by scores of avid readers, mostly from the United States, and most of whom have never been to the country either. Imagining a stampede of lemmings wearing rose-colored glasses, hurtling towards the cliff-edge, I felt compelled to lend some assistance.

Firstly, everything that you read in the article and all that you have seen in the glossy holiday brochures and in the realtors sales documents about retiring in Costa Rica is absolutely true. Yes there are beautiful beaches a great climate, nature reserves, wildlife, etc but before you sell up lock stock and barrel and move to the paradise of your dreams, perhaps you should pause and take a reality check.

Please try to understand, especially those of you who are of an American persuasion, and who have never travelled outside of the USA (rumour has it that George W. Bush did not even have a passport before he became President), that living in another country is VERY different to visiting it for a short while.

As someone who has visited the country regularly over the past three years, and who now lives in Costa Rica permanently, I do have some credentials. My apologies in advance if, in the process, I burst the bubble of your unrealistic expectations.

I am flipping the coin of paradise here, so that you can see what is on the other side.

So please, put away the glossy brochures, take a break from packing your suitcases, discard the mental images of you sitting on an empty white-sand beach watching a glorious sunset, whilst sipping your martini, and take the time to read my ten things you should know before retiring to Costa Rica:

1) Lack of reliable Infrastructure. There are frequent power cuts, the water goes off inexplicably, and the Internet simply stops working. These irritations can last for seconds or for many hours at a time. Once, when I was in the costal resort town of Jaco, the whole town was blacked out for hours, and this is not uncommon. There are rural communities in Costa Rica where there is no electricity or running water at all.

2) Security. I live behind bars and high walls with barbed wire on top. There are security guards everywhere (housing compounds, shopping plazas, restaurants etc) armed with pistols and shotguns.

3) Climate. In the rainy season (renamed “green season” by the tourist trade, which lasts for seven months of the year) there are grey skies and rain almost every day; and the rains can be torrential. The roads can become rivers, literally.

4) Bio-diversity. Judging by the variety of insects that I see crawling across my living room floor some evenings, there is certainly great bio-diversity, and my house is not in the middle of a rainforest. I live in Escazu, four miles west of the capital, San José. I have to fumigate the house regularly to stop the place becoming home to colonies of tiny ants. There are also (more prevalent in the hotter coastal areas) poisonous snakes, tarantulas, scorpions and vampire bats.

5) Cheap to live. If you live like a local, yes. However most ex-pats will not want to do this. Most locals do not own a car, do not eat in restaurants, and have a staple diet of rice and beans with some protein (meat, fish or chicken, called a casado). If you live an American/European lifestyle you will not find it much cheaper in Costa Rica. You can pay $200’000 upwards for a two bedroom condo. Inflation runs at 14%, and the local currency, the Colon, is pegged to depreciate each month against the dollar and other currencies.

6) Property Fraud. Believe it or not, in my local branch of ScotiaBank, they offer a fee paying service, to check on your behalf each month in the National Property Registry, if you are still the legal owner of your property. Scams and fraud are rife, as are corrupt attorneys and notaries.

7) Language. Contrary to the popular belief of the untravelled masses, English is not understood everywhere. To live in Costa Rica you need to be able to communicate in Spanish. Understand also that unless you learnt the language as a child, you will never be completely fluent; no matter how much effort you put into it (this is true of any second language). So, you will always be an outsider and probably never fully integrate into the local community, understand their jokes, local theatre etc.

8) Hygiene. Most of Costa Rica, including Escazu does not have a mains sewerage system, and so relies on septic tanks. To avoid blocking the system, you put your used toilet paper (yes, even after number twos) into a bin at the side of the WC. For those of a sensitive disposition this can take some getting used to. Also, there was a ban imposed recently (temporary I hope) on emptying septic tanks, as there is nowhere left to empty them to.

9) Roads and bridges. The terrible condition of the roads and bridges in Costa Rica is legend. Yes, you are never more than four hours from a beach, but those four hours are perhaps spent winding up a mountain road at ten miles an hour behind a truck spewing out clouds of black smoke, whilst watching out for frequent (and often enormous) potholes, and being careful not to drive off the road into the wide ravines at each side. The bridges are often single track and perilous to say the least. In october 2009 a bridge over the river Tarcoles collapsed while a bus was on it. The bus fell into the river killing five people and injuring thirty four.

10) Driving in Costa Rica. Not only do you have the potholes to contend with, but the covers of manholes are often stolen and the hole is left uncovered. If you drive into one of these then your journey is ended. Car insurance is expensive and optional, and so most local motorists don’t have any. Be careful who you have an accident with! There is no point in suing someone who has nothing.

Above all, don’t forget that Costa Rica is a poor country. It rates 88^th in the world with a per capita GDP of $5’000. The figure for the USA is $44’000.

So, am I performing a public service here by revealing the realities of life in Costa Rica, or am I in fact trying to discourage you from coming here so as to keep this particular corner of paradise to myself? Well, that’s for you to decide.

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Copyright © 2009 Michael Curley. All rights reserved.