OPTIMIST VIEW: Quarantined in Costa

Rica
By MARVIN LANES April 3, 2020  (from www.optimistdaily.com)

“The absurdity (and the beauty) of this moment, is palpable”

The newspapers today read like a Gabriel

García Márquez novel: the stories seem
completely unreal, and yet, we are obliged to
believe them. The question on every mind, “Is
this really happening, or am I going crazy?” 

The opening chapters of the Columbian

author’s most-read work, One Hundred Years
of Solitude, describe how an insomnia plague
strikes the fictional town of Macondo, leaving
all its inhabitants completely incapable of
sleeping and causing the town to quarantine
itself from the rest of the world. 

One of the insomnia plague’s symptoms is that

it erodes the memory, so much so that people
must start putting labels on every object just
to have a chance of remembering what it is
and how it functions. 

The local fortune-teller starts offering

readings, using the same tarot cards she
previously used to predict the future, only now
her readings tell people about the forgotten
past, creating an imaginary reality for the
townspeople “which was less practical for
them but more comforting.” 

Eventually, a cure does arrive in Macondo, but

not before the town endures an irreversible
psychological break away from its past. After
the plague, Macondo can no longer return to its
old ways. 

The parallels with our present reality are

glaring. Here we are today, all of us in some
form of quarantine, trying to remember what
the world was like when we could leave our
homes freely and embrace our neighbors in the
streets—a time where we met in physical
places rather than virtual Zoom rooms.

The absurdity is palpable.

If Macondo provides any clue, it is that when

these days of quarantine are over, the world
we will return to is bound to look very different
from its former self. 
Watching from afar

I know I’m not alone in feeling the surrealist

weight of the coronavirus times, but what has
given the last few weeks an extra touch of
absurdity for me is the seat from which I am
reading the news. 

California is in lockdown. The Netherlands is in

lockdown.

Both these places have served as home all my

life, but during these quarantine times, I am in
neither. As I write to you, I sit in a garden in
Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.

I have been contributing to and editing the

Optimist Daily for years, but you have hardly
heard from me personally. I prefer to keep my
identity unknown online. But given the present
circumstances, and at the request of my
Optimist Daily colleagues, I am venturing out
of my bubble and sharing how life is here for a
young man living in Costa Rica during a global
pandemic. 

To start with, I didn’t plan to be in Costa Rica

during a global pandemic. Then again, the virus
gave none of us time to plan anything. By the
time I could really grasp the severity of all this,
I was already on a plane leaving San Francisco
en route to El Salvador.

For nearly four years, my life has been rooted

in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. I feel at home
there, even if the winters are notoriously bleak
and gray. This winter felt particularly sun-
deprived, so when I was asked to travel to San
Francisco in order to present new research on
blockchain technology, I decided I would turn
the trip home into a four-month trek through
Latin America. When March came, I sub-rented
my apartment and left for California. 

Upon arrival, it quickly became apparent

that things  weren’t business as usual in
California. The supermarkets were in frenzy,
my appointments were getting canceled, and
the virus was dominating conversation. I
remember sitting in the dining cart of the
Amtrak Coastliner traveling to Santa Barbara
when I overheard two conductors chatting with
one another.
“I’m strong enough to deal with the
dysfunction in Washington. I’m strong enough
to deal with the coronavirus. But to handle
both at the same time is just too much mental
stress for me.”

This was the general tone I was hearing,

stirring an unsettled feeling within me about
the prospect of borders closing before I could
leave. 

The following day was spent in the company of

the Optimist Daily team, providing a rare
opportunity for us to all be together IRL. It was
a beautiful bit of respite from the encroaching
maelstrom, but it wouldn’t last long. Later as I
walked alone down the State Street
promenade, every television in sight displayed
the same headline: NBA SEASON SUSPENDED
DUE TO CORONAVIRUS FEARS.

That’s when I knew I had to leave. If the NBA

was shutting down, surely there was much
more to come. 

Still, a big conundrum remained. Major travel

restrictions were getting put in place between
Europe and the US—and even if I did return to
Rotterdam, I wouldn’t have my own room to
stay in. Perhaps selfishly, I also wanted to be
somewhere where I could find rest after what
has been an intense, computer-heavy year. 

My original plan was to travel mid-April to a

surf hostel called Lost Boyz in Santa Teresa, a
remote beach town on the Pacific side of Costa
Rica, but I decided to shift plans forward. If
borders did start closing, this seemed like an
ideal place to get “stuck”. Two days later, I
walked through the entrance of San Francisco
Airport (SFO) for an early morning flight. 

It was an icy shell of the airport I had walked

into just days before. It felt like at any
moment, the glass walls would shatter,
breaking the eerie silence that hung in the
air. 

Shamelessly, I did enjoy the complete lack of

lines at the airport. But as I boarded the plane
with just a handful of others and greeted
stewardesses in surgeon masks, I couldn’t help
but question myself: Was it really such a good
idea to travel now? Should I have just stayed
with friends or family in California? Should I
have gone back to a “Europe in Quarantine”?
Am I going to be safe? Am I endangering
others? 

This last bit was gnawing at me the most: The

idea that I could be a part of the problem by
silently spreading the virus in Costa Rica after
going through international airports. I felt
guilty, but since there was no going back, I
knew the only thing I could do is adhere to the
COVID-19 health advice and just avoid
touching anything. 

These mixed feelings underscored one of the

most surreal moments of my life, as I sat on
what was practically a ghost plane wearing a
makeshift mask as I headed to Central
America—for the first time. I could feel the
world changing beneath me, and I knew that it
would be a very long time before life would
resemble anything like “normal” to me again. 

Touching down in Costa Rica

The first thing I encountered when I stepped

out of the airport near San José was the heat.
After a long Dutch winter, the baked air was
melting away the angsty feelings I was having
during the flight. Brushing off my dormant
Spanish, I hailed a taxi to bring me to a modest
B&B nearby, where I would stay the night.
Early the next morning, the same taxi
collected me to start the second leg of the
journey, which required two buses and a ferry
over the course of 6 hours. 

The travel to Santa Teresa had mostly been a

quiet affair through the beautiful Costa Rican
countryside, but as we got closer to our
destination, a woman from Barcelona started
reading the news aloud for all us to hear.
Apparently, the Costa Rican government had
ordered all bars and restaurants to close; the
number of confirmed cases in the country at
that moment stood at 35. Meanwhile, Germany,
Austria, Switzerland, and France were
preparing to close their borders within three
days. Beside me, a Swiss man was biting his
nails. 

For me, the news was much easier to digest

than in previous days. I was already so far
away from my typical life, and the lush green
surroundings didn’t compute with the rather
grave tone of the headlines. I felt that if I could
just find a safe space to lay low during these
coronavirus days, then I would be fine. 

Moments later, the bus driver called out “Lost

boyz!”  in a thick accent as he pulled over the
bus. He grabbed my backpack and pointed me
up the dirt road leading to the hostel. The
moment I walked through the door, an
overwhelming sense of gratefulness poured
over me. I had arrived—and what a precious
place to arrive to.

Warm faces from all over the world greeted me

as I walked through the wooden villa. In the
backyard, a jungle garden awaited, spanning
more than three acres and featuring a canopy
of ancient-looking trees. On the highest
branches of one tree, a family of howler
monkeys sat stuffing themselves with bright
pink flowers. It was paradise found. 

It’s been over three weeks since I first arrived.

I have been bathing happily in the slow rhythm
of life here, which has only gotten slower after
shelter-in-place orders were put into effect.
Yes, Costa Rica has clamped down on the
coronavirus, putting restrictions into place that
go beyond what many countries are doing. 

The borders are closed. Hostels and hotels

stopped accepting guests two weeks ago. A
curfew restricts all travel after 8 PM, with cars
banned from 5 PM onward. Above all, the
beach is closed. I would love to say I’m
quarantining on the beach, coconut in hand,
but this is not the case. The paths to the
beaches have been closed off with police
tape. 

The sound of the waves beckons, just beyond

the trees. I feel a bit like Meursault at the end
of Camus’s novel The Stranger  when he can
taste the salt in the air from his jail cell, which
sits tantalizingly close to the beach. 

Of course, I am not in a jail cell. I have felt

quite at home in this little Eden—a feeling that
was planted within me moments after arriving.
As I sat in the garden admiring the trees that
first day, one of the hostel’s owners told me I
can stay here as long as I want and that they
had stockpiled supplies for the coming months.
Later that day when I met a local Costa Rican
—also known as a Tico—he told me that even
if Santa Teresa gets cut off from the rest of the
world, we’ll be fine.

“The jungle provides for all,” he told me.

The Great Exodus

I arrived at Lost Boyz just before the great

exodus. In that first week, I watched as
travelers from Sweden to Israel scrambled to
find a way back home. Frustrated faces could
be seen everywhere, many of them waiting
hours on the phone to get a confirmation from
airlines, some of them moaning as flights got
canceled in real-time. Though I felt thankful to
steer clear of the travel pandemonium, it was
disconcerting to watch other travelers,
especially Dutch ones, go home. 

Still, it wasn’t hard to remain convinced of

staying put. I had made a few wonderful
friends within hours of arriving, and beyond
that, the World Health Organization was calling
on people to avoid all non-essential travel. The
message around the world was “stay home.” I
was done with eerie airports. Santa Teresa
was going to be home—I just didn’t know for
how long (still don’t). 

Once most of the travelers had left, only a few

guests remained in the hostel—all of whom
were in a similar situation to me. The hostel,
however, didn’t stay too quiet. With the
announcement of the shelter-in-place
restrictions, friends and family of the hostel
moved into this jungle villa to quarantine
together. It’s become quite the family, with
twelve of us living here amongst five dogs, four
cats, and all the other wildlife crawling nearby.
It almost feels like a tropical reality TV show,
as many of us get to know each other for the
first time.

Quarantine days

It’s hot. Sometimes hotter than I ever imagined

I could stand. Sweat falls from my palms as I
write this, my brain slowly melting as the sun
reaches its zenith. 

Two weeks ago my hair was dripping with

sweat as I sat in the backyard. Across the
garden, one of the quarantine mates from
London was shaving the hair off another. I
walked over and asked if she could do the
same for me. After a decade of having roughly
the same long hair cut, I had all my hair shaved
all off like Dr. Evil—FYI, a breeze passing by
over your newly bald head is an incredible
sensation. 

Since we can no longer rely on the sea to cool

us off, all but one of the half-dozen men living
here have buzzed off their hair to deal with the
heat. We look like clones—or like a strange
cult. 

Each of my days is spent in roughly the same

fashion as the last. I awaken before the sun
rises to enjoy the scenery without the heat.
Usually, the howler monkeys come out around
5 AM, making deep growling noises that you
wouldn’t expect from such small creatures. I
haven’t grown tired of watching them climb in
the canopy above. 

If I can motivate myself, I try to exercise

before the sun rises. Otherwise, I just drink a
coffee with the security guard here, Jony, a
Nicaraguan who is the same age as me. In the
distance, you can already hear a loudspeaker
blaring through the streets, telling people to
stay home. After breakfast, I spend a few hours
working from my computer until the heat
becomes too much to bear. The late afternoon
is then spent in the company of my new family
here, talking and making music. Slowly, the
curious personal stories of everyone’s lives are
coming out, making our days all the more
interesting.

In the evenings we have a family dinner

together and choose something to do for the
night. One night we might watch a film, the
other we mix music and have a small dance
party. Whatever it might be, there’s a sincere
feeling of gratefulness I feel each night just to
be safe beneath these lush canopies. 

Thinking of Macondo

One of my closest friends here is a 34-year-old

Swedish-Ethiopian man. He had two flights
canceled when he tried to return home, so he’s
decided to stay. Each day we talk about the
absurdity of reading about the state of the
world from our phones. It’s our only portal to
the world we knew so well, a world that has
changed infinitely since we both left our
respective homes. It doesn’t feel real.

From that portal, the world feels dystopian. But

when I speak to my friends and family in
quarantine around the world, my sentiments
change. Despite it all, they are finding ways to
cope, to laugh, and to dance. I’ve seen spurts
of creativity come from friends that would have
never arisen had they not been forced to stay
home. More than one friend has told me that
the quarantine has given them a moment to
reevaluate life and focus on what really
matters. There’s always a silver lining.

As I sit here in the same humid heat that the

fictional town of Macondo supposedly felt, I
think of what the world will look like when I
leave this place. Will we finally learn that
slower is better for the environment, and for
our minds? Will we finally start viewing people
not as economic units, but rather, as humans
with a right to well-being? Will we start shifting
away from a demand economy? Will we be
ready for the next possible outbreak? 
The world is fertile for massive change when
this is all through, and it’s up to us to shape it
into a better place than it was before. As for
now, all we can do is make the most of these
half-speed days. I know I will. Pura Vida. 

_____________________________

About the Author: 

Marvin Lanes is the Editorial Manager at the

Optimist Daily. Here’s how he describes
himself:  “I am a 23-year-old Dutch-American
writer, researcher, and musician based out of
Rotterdam, The Netherlands. I consider myself
a ‘conditional optimist’, always trying to
recognize the facts of any situation and
pursuing the optimal path forward. My main
journalistic focus points are the climate, new
technology, design, and culture.”   All images
in this article were also taken by Marvin.