Before I go any further, I want to emphasize the the two examples below do not include all woman. I know many single woman who have moved here and had happy, productive and successful lives.

I have two single women friends who live in the States. One is in her 60s and the other in her early 70s. Both are retired and lead very active lives in California and Washington State respectively.  They have visited Costa Rica on several occasions and are amazed by the country’s beauty. They have even entertained the idea of moving here.

We  talked at length about the prospect of relocating and both of my friends decided in the end  that they were better of where they were presently living. One is very involved in ceramics and painting and lives five minutes away from San Francisco’s De Young Museum where she is involved in many activities. Costa Rica does have a couple of museums, but not on the scale of the De Young. My friend would never be happy unless she had access to the amount of culture a city like San Francisco offers.

My other friend live near Seattle, Washington and is also very active and involved with numerous organizations. She is a serious student of yoga and has about 15 schools in the area from which to choose. Gourmet cooking is another one of her hobbies and there are certain ingredients and classes she could never find in Costa Rica.

On top of all of this both women have expressed the desire to get involved romantically if they moved to Costa Rica. The paragraph below pretty well sizes up the odds of having a successful relationship in Costa Rica for a woman in any age group.

The following is from the 15th edition of my guidebook, “The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica.”

“Ladies will find gentleman admirers if they so desire.  Due to machismo, Costa Rican men are more flirtatious and aggressive than North American men.  Most Costa Rican men think foreign women have looser morals and are easier conquests than ticas (Costa Rican women).  Be careful to take time to develop a long-term, meaningful relationship and do not rush things.

As one local expat pointed out, ‘Tico men have the best labia in the world. Labia when used in slang, means ‘rap.’  Costa Rican men are charming, witty, and know how to treat a woman. They can seduce almost any woman, regardless of nationality. I have a few tico friends that could get a woman into their car and to a mirador (lookout) overlooking the city within five minutes of meeting them.’

‘Usually, however, these relationships, if you can call them that, don’t last too long. The conquest is a big part of the tico male’s psyche, and then it’s off to the next one.  Don’t be fooled by these modern-day Casanovas, that is of course, unless you want to.’

Many single middle-aged women have a tough time finding a mate because they cannot compete with the young curvaceous ticas. As one expat woman put it,  ”We just happen to live in a country of traffic-stopping gorgeous women, — all of whom seem to have been raised in the Geisha School of Relating to Men. If you are planning to move here based on some dream of meeting a Ricky Martin or other Latin stud, think again.”
Furthermore, if you do meet a Latin man, he may have a hard time handling an independent American woman. Latin men also like to have a lot of girlfriends on the side. Many Latin men measure their virility by the number of women they can seduce.”

The 1964 Alaska earthquake, also known as the Great Alaska earthquake,was the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. and North American history, and the third most powerful ever measured by seismograph; it had a moment magnitude of 9.2 and registered 8.4 on the Richter scale. I had some friends who had just moved there and they described it a a “living hell.”

Around 1970 there was a huge 7.9 quake in the Callejón de Huaraz area of Peru which killed over 30,000. I saw this area a few years later and it still showed the effects of this terrible disaster. The 1972 6.2 quake that flattened parts of Managua was the same intensity as the one that occurred here last week. The 1985  “big one” in Mexico City which killed thousands and was around  8.1. I visited there about a month later and the center of the city resembled a German city that had been bombed during World War II.

Despite all of the destruction and the people who lost their lives last week, we were very lucky because it could have been much worse. We count our blessings because we are alive and continue to live our retirement dreams unharmed. Fortunately, natural disasters and few and far between here.

As most of the readers of my blog probably know by now, I have lived in Costa Rica almost 30 years and am considered to be the pioneer in the field of retirement and living in Costa Rica.

About 20 years ago the country and all it had to offer for retirees inspired me to write the first edition of my perennial bestselling guidebook, “The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica.” Since that time I have written 15 more editions. Each one has been an improvement over the previous edition. Shortly after I published my first edition John Howells, a renowned travel writer, released the first edition of his book, “Choose Costa Rica.” Around 1995  another author published the “Official Guide to Costa Rica.” However, it was discontinued after four unsuccessful editions. It wasn’t until 2004 that Erin Van Reehen came to Costa Rica for a year to write the first edition of “Living Abroad in Costa Rica.” I had been approached a few years earlier by her publisher Moon Publications to discontinue  my guidebook and write the first edition of “Living Abroad in Costa Rica.”  When I looked at the numbers it just didn’t make sense and most of all I would lose creative control of the content of my book. Thus, I chose to keep writing and publishing my own book. Finally, in 2005 Tessa Borner published her book about living in Costa Rica entitled, “Potholes in Paradise.”

Around the year 2002 a new wave of gringo expatriates started to move to Costa Rica because of its popularity. Instead of being retirees this group consisted mainly of people in the thirties, forties and fifties who were looking for some way to make money here. Most went into real estate and tourism. While others tried their luck in the relocation retirement field where I had blazed the trail many years earlier.

By popular demand in 1997 I started monthly relocation/retirement tours. They were an immediate success. Since that time several other Americans from the new wave have copied my idea and formula and are offering similar tours. Other people have put up websites and made retirement videos trying to get their piece of the retirement market. However, since they don’t have my track record or experience none of them have ever really reached my level of success.

I really feel flattered and more successful than ever since almost all of these people have tried to adopt my time-tested formula. Needless to say there will be others who try to nudge their way into this niche market but with little success. I wish everyone the best of luck. Competition is good. It helps one perfect their product and become even more creative and successful.

Some people were evacuated from their workplaces and some buildings in San Jose.

Almost all of the clients on my monthly relocation/retirement tours ask me about earthquakes. I tell them that since I have lived in Costa Rica I have felt an occasional tremor and been in two major earthquakes. Yesterday’s quake of 6.2 was the strongest of all of them. At 1:21pm Costa Rican time the earth shook violently.  The quake lasted 40 seconds, but seemed like an eternity. It affected some of the country’s infrastructure causing landslides and mud flows that swallowed entire sections of roads near the epicenter. Unfortunately a few people perished as a result.

Some parts of Mexico, Central and South America are earthquake zones. I am originally from California and have been in much stronger quakes there than yesterday’s big shake. I was in the Sylmar quake of the 70s and the San Fernando Valley quake of 1994. None of the quakes I have experienced here were as large nor nearly as deadly as the  California quakes.

In 1972 a 6.2 quake hit Managua, Nicaragua, leveled the city and caused thousands of  deaths. Yesterday’s quake in Costa Rica was the same intensity as the one in Nicaragua but in comparison only caused minimal damage. In 1985 there was a 8.1 earthquake in Mexico where thousands died and hundreds of building collapsed. I visited Mexico City shortly after that tragic event and the city looked like a German city after a World War II bombing.

Costa Rica is truly blessed because it  has been spared the wrath of the major hurricanes and devastating earthquakes which have occurred in the region during the last 30 years. So you should not let natural disasters be a factor when making your decision to retire or invest here.

Costa Ricans have a great sense of humor. When you retire here and learn Spanish you will learn to appreciate how funny the Costa Ricans can be. It seems they are always joking about something. They say that everything here is a vacilón (fun).

Here is an example of Costa Rican humor.

The ticos (Costa Ricans) say that the three most important things in a Costa Rican man’s life are: Beer, women and soccer. Not necessarily in that order.

They also say that the three biggest lies in Costa Rica are:
(1) This is last drink of the night or zarpe (as it is called here).
(2) I’ll pay you the money I owe you tomorrow.
(3) I won’t penetrate you when we have sex.

Here are the most common lies you hear from Gringos who have moved here. If you have resided here for any period of time I am sure you have heard most of them from your fellow countrymen.

(1) I speak fluent Spanish (In reality it takes years to speak the language well)
(2) I have the best lawyer with the best contacts in Costa Rica (every American brags about this to feel important)
(3) I am an expert in real estate (I have heard this one 1000 times)
(4) I am an expert on Costa Rica retirement (This one is getting really old)
(5) It was her first night in the brothel (I must have heard this hundreds of times from naïve males)
(6) I was  a Navy Seal in Vietnam  and war hero ( Believe or not I have heard different versions of this)
(7) I didn’t lose any money with the Brothers (a popular investment with foreigners that went belly-up a few years ago. Most people won’t admit they invested there or they say that they got all of their principal back because they didn’t let their money ride.)

Surely I will add to this list in the not too distant future.