As I arrived at Arenal Xilopalo hotel after spending a week in Costa Rica’s capital, a car carrying a couple from San Francisco whizzed by. They were being chauffeured back to San Jose for a flight home. Costa Rica was shutting down. I checked into room 22, nevertheless. It would be my home for the next 51 days. The next day at breakfast, served by Gadiel, the hotel’s wide and deep deck was empty when I arrived. The large verdant pasture visited by brown cattle and white ibises, stretched to the Bogarin Trail Wildlife Center only observed by me.
STAY
ARENAL XILOPALO Located in the heart of La Fortuna, but away from the hustle and bustle of this normally popular tourist town. I received the best hospitality I have ever had.
Email: arenalxilopalo@gmail.com
Tel: 505- 2479-7207.
CASA ROLAND HOTEL
The surrounding neighborhood gave me pause but it was perfectly safe. The hotel has a welcoming staff, art on every surface, and a maze of comfortable rooms.
DO
Enroll in the US DEPARTMENT OF STATE’s Smart Traveler Program. I received regular updates from the US embassy that were very helpful.
Walk the BOGARIN TRIAL
subscribe to T-MOBILE. No roaming charges for overseas use. You’ll get a nasty email about your foreign usage not meaning to be permanent. I would stretch out my weeks of continuous use and buy a data pass when I thought T-Mobile’s patience was coming to an end. But I found I could always go back to the free plan.
EAT
SPECTACOLAR CANTINA. The pastor tacos were my favorite but everything was delicious. Chatting with Danny & crew was always a delight.
POLLO FORTUNENO. Serves chicken in all of its forms, roasted out in the open each day. Two locations.
GO
TERMINAL 7-10. Bus Transportation from and to San Jose and various tourist locations throughout Costa Rica. Modern but it bit tricky tonavigate.
LEARN
Arenal.net is a good source of information; comprehensive listing of higher-end (but still affordable) hotels and resorts.
Two Weeks in Costa Rica. Everything you want to know from two American expats enjoying Pura Vida.
THE TICO TIMES. English Language news site. Lots of ads but useful information written for ex-pats and visitors alike.
PRESIDENT ALVARAO’s “Covid-19: Three challenges and one opportunity” inspires Costa Rica.
Legend. La Fortuna is noted for having escaped a fiery disaster in 1968. On that July day, La Fortuna earned its name in contrast to two nearby smaller towns. These pueblos were destroyed in a lava flow while Fortuna was spared. That, however, is not how the town received its name although you are sure to hear that story.
I was drawn to La Fortuna and its iconic volcano during a time when nature was demonstrating that fiery fury was not the only danger it offered. I did not need to fear an eruption of lava but form a microscopic silent virus. I had first confronted the coronavirus in Daegu, Korea, which at the time was the largest outbreak outside of China. Was I ready to face it in Costa Rica.
On my way to La Fortuna, Carlos Alvarado, President of the Republic, announced a state of emergency. Included was the imminent closure of the nation’s borders as well as its national parks—which I had come to see. With better-than-expected cellular coverage with my T-Mobile plan (an Unlimited 55) I learned this in messages from a friend in San Jose, news from the Tico Times, and emails from the cracker-jack US. Embassy staff. Within 48 hours, a series of ever tightening internal restrictions to protect Ticos and visitors against the coronavirus would take hold. (Costa Rica had had its first documented case on March 6; the case load had risen to 41 in ten days. It was nearly 1000 when I left.) Restaurants would soon be halved in service area; grocers would work behind plastic shields. Closed national parks, beaches, and roads would be visited only by patrols of the local and national police and the occasional furtive sunbather. La Fortuna had captured my imagination during my first time in Costa Rica – during its first hurricane — in 2017. But was this fairly remote small town where I did not know anyone a place where I could remain for weeks? Even months?
Xilipalo means petrified wood in Spanish and carpenter in Greek. Both fit. It might as well mean hospitality as well. The inn has a plain almost utilitarian rusticity to its 20 or so rooms and lush grounds. It is also home to the Salis-Hildago Family and the expression of a deeply felt personal vision of the patriarch Norman. (You have to pay attention to the handiwork and the art to see.)
On arrival, I knew that everyday life in Costa Rica was about to change. Where would I be safe? How long could I stay? How would I be able to return to the US? Jose & Norman told me that they would never ask me to leave. “Usted es familia. This is from the heart, Edward,” they said in unison pointing from their chests to mine. As quickly as the necessity to make a decision became clear, my mind was made-up. I would stay. La Fortuna would be my lockdown home and Arenal my companion for the next 52 days.
My routine at included waking at around 7am and reporting to breakfast on the deck at around eight. I had volunteered to make my own coffee, cut my own fresh fruit daily, and wash my dishes afterwards. I was the only guest here. They treated me like family. A knock on my door brought a plate of food. Leaving for a walk included being offered sandia (watermelon) or cookies. Another knock and I was off to the family’s nearby plantation, soon to be pulling out radishes to take home to snack on as I wondered why all the horses in La Fortuna were white.
Long gone were the duos of young European women in summer dresses and groups of white-haired Europeans drinking mid-day at restaurants such as Lava Rocks. The bookish young American males who caught my eye are gone as well. Absent too were the local weed touts who did not take no for an answer. Pollo Fortuneno and its roast chicken spit closed. So too did nearby SpecTACOlar Cantina with its delicious tocos and burritos. Danny, who owns the place and the nearby Container Hostel is a friendly, good-looking entrepreneur who quickly remembered my name and filled my need for companionship. One day, a Federal Policeman asked to take my picture because he hadn’t seen a tourist in weeks. One restaurant and store after another closed. The open-air pavilion architecture of so much of the town’s shops and eateries shuttered by roll-down steel doors. The town’s pulse soon reduced to anemic levels.
When I decided to become a nomad two years ago, one of the voices in my head wanted to know what I would do if something bad happened while I was abroad. How would I handle an emergency, an illness or crime or natural disaster alone overseas? I churned over that concern and others for weeks. I came to realize that “something bad” will happen whether or not I’m a nomad.” The coronavirus doesn’t care if I’m traveling fulltime or at home. My nagging question was the wrong one. I needed to ask, “What would I do differently to face an emergency from what I had done in the past?” I realized that I would make it through the tough times as a nomad just as I had during any location-specific time of my life. I’d rely on combination of resourcefulness, strategic savings, good fortune, and, maybe most importantly, the kindness of strangers.
After Holy Week, life started to slowly return. Danny reopened SpecTACOlar and I could rent a car again from Geraldo at Alamo. My last two weeks in Costa Rica allowed me to visit Monteverde, La Playa Hermosa, Lake Arenal Brewery and Hotel, and stay at Villas Canaveral in Ujarras, and Casa Roland in San Jose before my flight home.
As a nomad, you learn that home is wherever you decide home to be. Yet now, I think that maybe I had gotten that wrong during my early nomad career and the Salis Family have taught me that home is where strangers open their hearts to you. I will always be grateful.
