Secrets to a Long Life of the Oldest People in Nicoya, Costa Rica

Nicoya, Costa Rica (Source)

Nicoya, Costa Rica is the fourth Blue Zone featured in "The Blue Zones, Second Edition: 9 Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest" by Dan Buettner.

What are Blue Zones? These are "regions of the world where people people enjoy up to 3 times better chance of reaching 100 years old than we do" Buettner explains.  Where are the Blue Zones in the world? Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy), Nicoya (Costa Rica), Icaria (Greece) and Loma Linda, California.


Here are some of the oldest people whom Buettner met in Nicoya:

• 102-year old Ofelia who could still recite from memory a six-minute poem by Pablo Neruda.  (I can't even memorize a mobile number other than my own! 🙈😂)

• 101-year-old Don Faustino whom Buettner tagged along with on market day.  Faustino routinely woke up at 4am every Saturday, took the bus going to the market (accompanied by his grandson and great grandson who lives with him) and bought the exact same items on a grocery list every week.  He bought vegetables and meat from the same vendors, not minding to walk even if his favorite vendors are half a mile apart!   

Don Faustino also bought corn bread as pasalubong for his son.  How sweet that a 101-year old dad still brings pasalubong for his 79-year old son! 😊

Buettner asked Don Faustino about his life. Faustino told him he loved to work, mostly because the fruits of his labor have provided for his family. For most of his career, he worked as a mule driver, hauling logs out of the forested hills and acting as a courier across the largely roadless Nicoya Peninsula. He also grew corn, beans, and vegetables to feed his wife and six children. “I also had two kids with a village girl,” he said matter-of-factly, out of nowhere. “Didn’t your wife care?” Buettner asked. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “We didn’t talk about it.” He went on to tell Buettner, unapologetically, that he never gave the children his name nor did he ever support them. “How do I know if they’re going to turn out okay?” he exclaimed as if explaining his actions.  (According to a local demographer, the majority of the men, and a small percentage of the women in Nicoya, admitted to having lovers besides their spouses.) 

From the market, Don Faustino passed by his son's house to deliver the corn bread and where the rest of the family is gathered - from Don Faustino up to his great-great grandsons - all 5 generations in one roof!😱   Upon seeing Don Faustino, his 78-year old daughter lit up and hugged his father and exclaimed "Oh Papa, thank you!  You know I wait all week for this!".

Apparently, Don Faustino buys the same ingredients every week to cook the family's Sunday soup.  After church, the family will all gather for dinner. He has been cooking this Sunday soup in the last 40 years 😮 and it is the highlight of his week.  Wow.

Dr. Fernández, a local nutritionist shared, “We notice that the most highly functioning people over 90 in Nicoya have a few common traits.”One of them is that they feel a strong sense of service to others or care for their family. We see that as soon as they lose this, the switch goes off. They die very quickly if they don’t feel needed.” 

• 91-year old Aureliano but who looks like only 60!  Buettner saw Aureliano with a machete whacking weeds, pruning trees, and chasing away vermin.  How can a 91-year old possibly do all that????😱   All the nonagenarians I know need assistance when walking or are in wheelchairs or are bedridden.

Aureliano is still living the traditional Nicoyan lifestyle planting and harvesting his own vegetables and fruits, grinding corn to make home-made tortillas, etc. Though Aureliano has lived all his life in relative poverty, he is robust and looks young because of his fresh, organic and nutrient-rich diet.

• 100-year old Panchita (partially deaf and blind) whom Buettner cites as the most extraordinary among all the centenarians he has met.   Here's how Panchita described her young life -

“In those days, there were no roads in Nicoya. My father owned a guesthouse, and occasionally mule trains would come by. I woke up at three each morning to make coffee and tortillas for the men who stayed overnight. I took care of my parents,” she said. Then, turning to me, she scolded congenially, “It’s like this, Papi. Those who honor their parents are rewarded by God.”

Panchita eluded questions about her husband and the father of her children.  From her answers, we were able to ascertain that she did raise her children mostly by herself. They all lived with Panchita’s parents until they died, then Panchita inherited their farm.   There, the family grew most of their own food. When they needed salt or sugar, Panchita would walk the 18 miles to town and back to get it. “Life was hard those days..."

Then Panchita shared a tragedy which happened 50 years ago -
“They killed my son,”  she shared.  “When he was a beautiful 20-year-old man, he got into a stupid fight with a friend, and he killed my son.”

“God does everything for a reason, though,” Panchita resumed brightly. “I am a blessed woman today.”  Buettner noted that Panchita’s faith was amazing—her unwavering belief that no matter how bad things got, God would take care of everything.   He also noticed that when you ask the most highly functioning seniors how they are, they always say, ‘I feel good … thanks to God.’ Yet they may be blind, deaf, and their bones hurt.

Late in the morning, the neighbor boy, 10-year-old Luis, arrived, as he does each day, to help Panchita catch her free-range chickens and put them in the coop. Later, her 31-year-old neighbor, Carmen Gómez, stopped by to help Panchita sweep her floors. “I don’t come here because I have to,” she told me when I asked. “Panchita has a way of making my day happier. Everyone in Hojancha loves her.”  Awww.... 😍

Panchita's 80-year-old son, Tommy, also biked to see her each day.  Awww.... 😍

Panchita had no packaged or processed foods. All her food required preparation except the fresh fruit.  And she still cooked on a wood-burning fogón.  Yes, she's still the one cooking! 😲  She still grinds corn kernels using a hand crank to make tortilla dough and roast them over the open fire. 😲   And when she slices cheese, Buettner said she could still cut paper-thin slices considering she could barely see the cheese coz she's partially blind. Wow.  😱

In about 30 minutes, Panchita finished preparing their lunch—small portions of beans, corn tortillas, and one egg on a small plate.  Whoa... 😱  In 30 minutes, the only way I can produce that lunch is to heat beans (in a can!), toast ready-made tortilla and fry an egg OR get take-out food. 🙈😂

• 90-year old Juvenil but who also looks like he's only 60!  When Buettner saw him in the jungle, he was shirtless and was fiercely chopping wood.  How can a 90-year old be chopping wood??? 😱😱

When Buettner asked him some questions, here are his answers:

What do you eat? “Beans, tortillas, fruit, and once a year, beef when I butcher a cow.”
When do you go to bed? “When the sun sets.”
When do you wake up? “When the sun rises.”

• A middle-aged woman named Aida who was visiting their nonagerian Nicoyan friends in a place called Juan Diaz. You know how far she and her husband walked to visit their elderly friends? 5 miles and walked for 2 hours. Whoa... 😲

When Buettner asked Aida how their typical day is, here's how she describes it -

“We wake up when the sun rises. I make breakfast for the family and then Ananias (her husband) takes our boys into the fields. Meanwhile the girls and I stay home and clean up. At noon or so, the men come back. We eat our ‘strong’ meal and then relax. We maybe visit someone like today or someone visits us. We have a light dinner. Usually we’re in bed by 8:30,” she concluded. “Since we don’t have TV, there’s not much for us to do after sunset.”

“And for food, what does one eat in Juan Díaz?” Buettner asked.
“Beans and rice,” replied Aida, and after a well-timed pause added: “Or rice and beans. It depends how we feel.” Everyone laughed. “We eat what God provides,” Ananias said, now serious. “Eggs, rice, beans. Sometimes we kill a chicken.”

“We don’t need much,” Aida interjected, heading off an implication of poverty. “We’re satisfied..." she trailed off.

“You have to keep busy,” she resumed, now answering a question I did not pose. “When people have too much time they get involved with vices. Here we have enough to do. We stay busy enough to keep the Devil away, but not so much that we get stressed. It’s a clean, pure life.”

“But don’t you ever get bored?” Buettner asked coz when he looked around, there was no TV, no radio, or electronic entertainment of any sort.  “What do you do to entertain yourself?” he asked.

“I find a patch of shade and eat an orange,” Aida answered, not skipping a beat.

Wow. Such meaningful and wisdom-packed answers. We should learn a lot from the Nicoyans. 

In summary, here are the secrets to a long life of the oldest people in Nicoya, Costa Rica as revealed in the book:

- Have a plan de vida. Successful centenarians have a strong sense of purpose. They feel needed and want to contribute to a greater good.

- Drink hard water. Nicoyan water has the country’s highest calcium content, perhaps explaining the lower rates of heart disease, as well as stronger bones and fewer hip fractures.

- Keep a focus on family. Nicoyan centenarians tend to live with their families, and children or grandchildren provide support and sense of purpose and belonging.

- Eat a light dinner. Eating fewer calories appears to be one of the surest ways to add years to your life.

- Maintain social networks. Nicoyan centenarians get frequent visits from neighbors. They know how to listen, laugh, and appreciate what they have.

- Keep hard at work. Centenarians seem to have enjoyed physical work all of their lives. They find joy in everyday physical chores.

- Get some sensible sun. Nicoyans regularly take in the sunshine, which helps their bodies produce vitamin D for strong bones and healthy body function.  Regular, “smart” sun exposure is about 15 minutes on the legs and arms.

- Modern Nicoyans’ roots to the indigenous Chorotega and their traditions have enabled them to remain relatively free of stress. Their traditional diet of fortified maize and beans may be the best nutritional combination for longevity the world has ever known.

P.S. This second edition of the book was published in 2012 which means the interviews of some centenarians were conducted years before that. Some of them may have passed away already, but some could still alive and are now supercentenarians (a term which refers to people who surpass 110 years old). 💪💪💪

*Italicized text are excerpts from the book.