I have been quickly reminded once again that one can starve in Costa Rica if one does not know the local routine and does not anticipate for days of endless rain. Not paying attention, I realize I am already adjusting down to one small meal a day. I am slowly rediscovering the six-pack abs I once had in High School. I now know the local fish truck comes on Tuesday and Thursday, but one must order ahead and also be on standby when the truck passes through. If I am not home, I will miss this truck. When I was here before I would often miss the weekly vegetable truck and painfully paid the price by having nothing to eat for days.
To get to an actual grocery store I have to go to the nearby beach town of Tamarindo. This requires a trek through the woods, a bike ride, and a boat ride with a backpack full of provisions. This is going to be necessary as I will have no access to a car. Nonetheless, I intentionally came here to live as simply as possible. Foraging on foot is about as simple as it gets. Making the run to Tamarindo also requires crossing through crocodile waters with a week’s worth of food on my back. This is a bit unsettling.
So today, with an already empty fridge aside from half of a browning avocado, I headed for the very tiny market mercado down the road. Bear in mind it is the size of a one car garage and the shelves are normally half empty on a good day. The store was hit especially hard during the pandemic. I headed out just as it began to pour torrential rain and the store was closed for some unknown reason, despite the “abierto” sign displayed out front. I would soon come to learn this is not at all unusual for Costa Rica and would become a frequent and challenging experience.
Instead, I made my way over to the cafe where I ordered a steak taco served by Grace, along with an Español lesson for the day. She explained to me about the vegetable truck as well as educating me on how to make homemade tortillas.
I have often said, a week in Costa Rica is like a month anywhere else in the world. Time comes to an abrupt slowdown like watching paint dry and you become aware of the sheer endlessness of perceived time and how malleable it actually is. Tico Time as they call it. It is only our perceived construct of linear time in modern culture that has made time seem so urgent and limited.
To live as the Costa Ricans apart from the major cities do is not a radical or primitive concept. It is simply how one might have lived 50 or even 100 years ago. It is quite freeing to realign with the natural rhythm and way of being in the world.
Every other week during 2023 I will be posting an excerpt from my upcoming book, Five Thousand Steps: A Rainy Season in Costa Rica. It is a travelogue of sorts, my journals and observations from my initial three months in Costa Rica along the Guanacaste Coast. I hope you enjoy following the journey.
Please send a request by email if you would like to pre-order your copy of the book which will be self-published and released in 2023. Please also consider supporting the release of the book by become a paid subscriber or a donor.
Field Notes
Observations from an Early Morning Nature Hike
Monkeys
Iguana
Tayra
Vulture
Canary
Hawk
Falling leaf
Toucan
Blue/ Yellow Tiny Bird
Blue Morphe
Snake
Green / Brown Butterfly
2 Lizards
From the Archives
Enjoy reading about Muso Soseki from the archives.
Subscribe. Donate. Share the Journey.
Zen and Ink Journals represents hundreds of hours of writing over the past decade, sometimes from a train in remote China or a coffee shop in Kyoto, a hammock in Costa Rica or a simple cabin on a mountaintop in Boquete, Panama or Ciudad Colón.
On these pages, I share my observations of kindness and beauty from my adventures in the world and invite you to listen quietly for the call within you to explore the places that beckon your soul.
If you would like to become a regular subscriber, please consider foregoing the cost of one cup of coffee and a pastry each month ($8) and becoming a monthly subscriber.
If you would like to stop receiving emails from Zen and Ink Journals simply click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email.