Sprightly octogenarian Berta Dalia appears from her modest, dimly lit kitchen, faded apron tied round her waist, yellow fluffy slippers providing a pop of colour to her hard-working feet.
At 86, the mother of four and grandmother of nine looks considerably younger than her years as she sits down on a simple wooden chair to join her husband, José, a toyboy at 72, and reflect on her secrets to longevity.
They live in the Nicoya Peninsula in the north west of Costa Rica, an 80-mile stretch just south of the Nicaraguan border, popular with tourists for its abundance of wildlife, landscapes, surfing and culture.
It’s also one of the world’s six ‘Blue Zones’, areas where people are reportedly living longer, healthier lives compared to the global average. The country’s national saying ‘pura vida’, associated with a sense of wellbeing, positivity and gratitude, is no coincidence.
In 2023, the Netflix documentary Live To 100: Secrets Of The Blue Zones, co-produced and presented by American author, National Geographic explorer and longevity researcher Dan Buettner, brought the Blue Zones phenomena to a wider audience. It charted basic threads that connect the longest-lived: a plant-based diet; regular, low-intensity activity; an investment in family; a sense of faith; and sense of purpose, known as ‘plan de vida’.
Other Blue Zones are Okinawa in Japan, Ikaria in Greece, Sardinia, Loma Linda in California and most recently Singapore. I’ve chosen to explore Nicoya, home to one of the highest concentrations of centenarians in the world, to find out how holidaymakers might experience a little of what this life affirming – and lengthening – country has to offer.
The couple, who own Atardecer Dorado, a well-known restaurant serving traditional Costa Rican fare in Manzanillo overlooking the Pacific Ocean, used to take a modest fishing boat out to catch what the diners – and the family – would eat, supplementing their diet with the mangos, papaya and watermelon grown on their patch of land.
So, what’s their secret to a long life?
“The salt air from the ocean, the fresh food we eat – rice and beans, eggs, plantain,” says Berta.
“The community is important,” José continues. “We all help each other. Farmers exchange produce, and in the beginning the community didn’t have houses but 10 or 15 of us would get together and build for each other.”
In the early days Berta would cook on wood – shellfish and snapper, tortillas she had made with the corn she ground herself – and they would climb the steep hill next to their plot armed with machetes to cut down the branches of guava, madrone and guazuma trees to fuel the wood burner.
By incorporating elements of ‘Blue Zone’ living into well-being focussed holidays, hotels in Costa Rica are offering visitors to chance to learn about local culture.
In the small coastal town of Santa Teresa – essentially one long street of restaurants, cafes, surfing rentals, ATV (all-terrain vehicles) hire and souvenir shops selling pretty jewellery and beach ephemera – the boutique luxury beachfront hotel Nantipa has launched a Blue Wellness package, inviting guests to enjoy enhanced physical health, minimal stress and fulfilling encounters.
We experience real life on a typical Costa Rican farm with a Tico family ($132/£105pp for 3-4 people, bookable through hotel) where traditional methods are used to rear animals, cut sugar cane and make cheese.
After negotiating bumpy, potholed roads, we are warmly welcomed by a family who have run their 75-acre plot for three generations, living off the land.
It is higgledy-piggledy, raw and rustic. Two-day-old chicks huddle in plastic crates, pans hang from beams outside, while turkeys and ducks strut around our feet waiting to be fed. We venture to a pen where cows are milked and visitors shown how to do the job properly. There’s a definite knack. I fail to extract a drop.
The family works hard to serve up our breakfast of local cheese, which tastes like a cross between ricotta and cottage, fresh tortillas made by the matriarch and other home-grown delights, before showing us how the oxen walk in circles to drive a vice which crushes the sugar canes and squeezes out the juice.
We hear of an uncle who reached 105 – his widow is now 91. Our guide Ernesto Rodriguez explains: “Down here most people live to 90 and a lot to 100. It’s about no stress, good food and families being together.
“When you get old your kids take care of you, or the grandchildren do, and we don’t have (care) homes to send people to, so it takes a lot of stress away and makes the old people happy.”
It has been found that the world’s longest-lived people don’t pump iron, run marathons or join gyms, but they do live in environments where exercise is built into their daily lives through gardening, walking and general activity.
As part of Nantipa’s path to ‘blue wellness’, visitors can increase their physical health by hiking through lush rainforest, swimming under waterfalls, ziplining through tree canopies, or enjoying horseback riding or surf lessons.
I opt for a yoga Shala, a thatched wooden open-air building where my gentle stretching and mindfulness session begins. Deep breathing, feeling in the present and, of course, the obligatory gong soundscape, all calm my busy head space.
Being close to nature is easy in Costa Rica, with plentiful hanging bridge journeys and hikes to see the biodiverse country’s trademark sloths, howler monkeys, iguanas and the amazingly colourful and prolific bird population of toucans, hummingbirds, parrots, and hundreds of other species.
Roadside we spot coatimundis, a relative of the raccoon, with white snouts and light rings on their tails, looking for scraps.
Diet is also key in Blue Zone longevity, but tourists don’t have to live on casado (rice and beans with fish or meat) all the time – although it is tasty – because many restaurants offer menus which are as delicious as they are healthy.
Ceviche – a zesty dish made with raw fish or cooked chicken and dowsed heavily with lime – is a staple, with added home-grown fare including avocado, mango and passionfruit. Coconut is, unsurprisingly, plentiful and fish is caught daily.
All too soon we are venturing away from our coastal resort, five hours’ drive north to La Fortuna, a town in the foothills of the active Arenal Volcano, which has wellbeing at the top of its agenda.
The volcano last erupted in 1968, devastating the town but creating lava flows and rich volcanic soil where the rainforest soon re-emerged.
Here, there are natural thermal waters bubbling up from underground springs, which the Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa has been able to use to its advantage.
A maze of structured pathways at the nearby spa of the hotel lead to 24 pools where guests can soak in the natural thermal waters from the Tabacon River.
I wallow in hot springs of 100F amid mini-waterfalls, a river bed floor and tropical planting. Unlike other volcanos I’ve visited, there isn’t a whiff of sulphur.
The springs apparently have restorative qualities to help repair tissues, bone fractures and skin complaints, and to benefit circulatory and respiratory system, and aid relaxation.
Sitting in those pools surrounded by nature, wild cerise pink orchids and orange and red ginger plants providing colourful accents against emerald palms and other native flora and fauna, I’m not sure I’ll live longer, but I’m certainly making the most of the time I have on this planet.
How to plan your trip
Red Savannah (01242 787800; redsavannah.com) offers an eight-night private journey in Costa Rica from £3,195 per person, including three nights on a B&B basis at both Tabacon Thermal Resort & Spa (tabacon.com) and Nantipa (nantipa.com), one night in San José, return flights from London Heathrow to San José, a domestic flight within Costa Rica and private transfers.
