Sprightly octogenarian Berta Dalia appears from her modest, dimly lit kitchen, faded apron tied around her waist and yellow fluffy slippers providing a pop of colour to her hard-working feet.
At 86, the mother of four and grandmother of nine looks considerably younger than her years as she sits down on a simple wooden chair to join her husband, José, a toyboy at 72, and reflect on her secrets to longevity.
They live in the Nicoya Peninsula in the north west of Costa Rica, an 80-mile stretch just south of the Nicaraguan border, popular with tourists for its abundance of wildlife, landscapes, surfing and culture.
Read more: How I traded my west London flat for a beachfront paradise in Costa Rica
It’s also one of the world’s six ‘Blue Zones’, areas where people are reportedly living longer, healthier lives compared to the global average. The country’s national saying ‘pura vida’, associated with a sense of wellbeing, positivity and gratitude, is no coincidence.
In 2023, the Netflix documentary Live To 100: Secrets Of The Blue Zones, co-produced and presented by American author, National Geographic explorer and longevity researcher Dan Buettner, brought the Blue Zones phenomena to a wider audience. It charted basic threads that connect the longest-lived: a plant-based diet; regular, low-intensity activity; an investment in family; a sense of faith; and sense of purpose, known as ‘plan de vida’.
Other Blue Zones are Okinawa in Japan, Ikaria in Greece, Sardinia, Loma Linda in California and most recently Singapore. I’ve chosen to explore Nicoya, home to one of the highest concentrations of centenarians in the world, to find out how holidaymakers might experience a little of what this life affirming – and lengthening – country has to offer.

The couple, who own Atardecer Dorado, a well-known restaurant serving traditional Costa Rican fare in Manzanillo overlooking the Pacific Ocean, used to take a modest fishing boat out to catch what the diners – and the family – would eat, supplementing their diet with the mangos, papaya and watermelon grown on their patch of land.
So, what’s their secret to a long life?
“The salt air from the ocean, the fresh food we eat – rice and beans, eggs, plantain,” says…
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