Week 1 in Costa Rica: Dolphins, Gravel, and Finding My Place
They say in travel that the first week is the real introduction not the airport arrival, not the first night’s sweat, but the moments that catch you off guard and make you laugh later.
My first day of supposed “work” turns out not to be a workday at all. My hosts just got back a few days before I arrived, and the couple who had been holding the fort for the past month are meeting me for the first time. So we start with introductions, laughter, and no immediate labor in sight.
But then someone mentions Tower Road.
“We’re hiking at 5 a.m”., they say.
“Sure”, I say, imagining something like a pleasant morning walk. And just like that, we’re up before sunrise because in Costa Rica, the strategy isn’t about starting early, it’s about starting before the sun hits so hard you melt into whatever shade you can find.
We’re guided by a local who does this hike often. And I have not done this in years. My desk-bound life back in Toronto, those long work days, the lack of exercise — it all weighs on me (literally; 225 lbs doesn’t help on steep inclines). One kilometre in and I’m already exhausted. My water runs out. We’re barely a quarter of the way up (the total is 4 km), and I’m panting like Rocky in his day of training climbing those Philly stairs.
My hosts have to share their water. We press on.
By 3 km, there’s a lookout point. We sit. And for a moment, the exhaustion fades not because the view is beautiful (though it is), but because nature does that: it stops you in your tracks.
From up there, we see Golfito Dulce Bay a tropical fjord, water framed by steep green hills so lush it feels cinematic. I remember the line from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty:
“To see the world, things dangerous to come to…”
And I realize: this is the kind of place I came here to find.
The young couple? They laugh. This is nothing to them. I try to laugh too, trying to pretend I’m fine.
The sun is getting hotter. Our pace was too slow getting up there, so we make the decision to head back down. But the hike back down is even more treacherous. Gravel underfoot, steep decline. Our local amigo slips hard tearing open his knees. We’re still 1.5 km from the bottom. Suddenly, this isn’t a hike, it’s a crisis, and adrenaline replaces exhaustion.
My host runs down for help, finds another expat, and they return with a six-seater quad improvised rescue vehicle #1. We get the amigo to the hospital. A 3 hour hike became a 6 hour ordeal. Exhaustion and fear blended into something that doesn’t feel heroic but feels alive.
After that, real work begins not dramatic, just daily.
I help in a number of ways from keeping leaves out of the pool; cleaning the pool deck; vacuum the pool once a week; walk the dog (more of this in a later post); scraping the walls of old paint; cleaning the clogged drains; whatever is need I am there and I start contributing in small but confident ways. I even take initiative: making fruit salads and smoothies in the morning with the delicious local fruits papaya, mango, banana, pineapple from a vendor who blares his own version of the Costa Rican fruit anthem as he rolls through in this truck twice a week.
My hosts are generous not because it’s expected, but because they’re genuinely kind. They treat me like someone who already belongs.
They book a dolphin tour. We see a school of 300 dolphins — not distant silhouettes, but brilliant, playful, close enough to feel the joy in their movement. I’ve tried for years on other vacations to see dolphins like this. Always a distant sighting, always a tease. Here, they swim under the boat, around us, like the ocean itself knows we needed this.
We later beach near an organic farm for lunch — real farm-to-table, all vegan, with fresh juices like noni, turmeric, and kombucha I can barely pronounce but love anyway. Costa Rica is wild and generous. It’s a country where 2 % of the world’s wildlife exist in a space this small a fact that isn’t tourism fluff, it’s ecological poetry. (Note: source checks vary, but Costa Rica is indeed rich in biodiversity and home to an astonishing variety of species.)
Then there’s Stupid Fridays — a weekly expat lunch that earns its name honestly. Lots of beer, loud laughter, and the kind of stories that start out coherent and end up legendary. I meet more of the expat community. They welcome me warmly. There’s a dinner invitation. Another laugh. Another connection I didn’t know I needed.
By the end of this first week, I feel like I’ve come here to live. And then a thought sneaks up on me: Don’t they realize I’m not staying forever? I have plans.
But I don’t feel urgency anymore. I feel presence.