Two keys to survive in Costa Rica without speaking Spanish

First cultural tidbits of the day as we are en route to the ziplining!

To survive in Costa Rica you have to know about service.  Victor told us that our saying of “The customer is always right” is considered rude in Costa Rica. We are not above the sever, they are above us. They take service very seriously here. When you are in need, if I’m going to help you, that makes me a better person, Victor said.  Costa Ricans are always looking for an opportunity to help someone else. 

So our kids learned our role is to let the person who is rendering the service to help us so that person gets better. No rugged individualism here!

When you want something here, you don’t say Can I have or Give me. In Costa Rica they say “regaleme” which literally means “gives me a gift.” When people hear that they will treat you like kings and queens!

Victor taught us how to pronounce it (complete with rolling Rs) and even if we don’t know the word in Spanish we can just leave the English and then mine the word. Then of course follow it up with “Por favor”. 

The formula is “regaleme” + object + por favor

So I will be for sure remembering to say “Regaleme una Diet Coke!”

We also learned about pura vida. You don’t need to say good morning or thank you but you just say pura vida, which means hi, hello, thank you, bye, see you later, good afternoon. You could have an entire conversation just using that word! It means pure life literally but it’s not a word that translates literally - it’s a lifestyle!