This article is one of a series on life in the campo, or country living in Costa Rica, as my wife and I* experienced it on our visits and after moving to Costa Rica. Each is a sort of time capsule, the stories evolving with us as we have lived more experiences and delved deeper into the culture.

The relationship between a man and his belt is a curious one. We can get very attached to a belt, because we generally wear the same one every day, and because we tend to keep a belt until it’s completely worn through. The reason for this is that it is possible for a man to gain 20 pounds and still keep the same belt size. Granted, you can no longer see the belt, but you know it’s there.

I’ve had a problem with my belt ever since I moved to Costa Rica. It seems to keep getting longer. Could there be something here that is making it stretch? I had to get two new holes put in to tighten it up. A friend took me to a talabarteria, a saddle and tack place, where they did it while I waited and didn’t charge me. When someone does something free like this for me in Costa Rica, being from parts of the world where this kind of service is rare, I usually am confused. I normally become befuddled and try to come up with some polite way of saying “Surely I am supposed to pay something?” and of course my Spanish isn’t up to it — so I probably just look dumb, but pleased.

The problem of the mysteriously stretching belt went on for 6 months until, finally, it was necessary to get a new one. It was getting pretty beat up anyway. A belt that is built for office life is just not suitable for the campo. My belt was made of soft pigskin, folded and glued together — very nice looking, but it started to come unglued after repeated “Wash and Dry” cycles down on the finca. My belt was in danger of disintegrating and my pants, too, have been stretching down here. (Perhaps it has something to do with the equator and the centrifugal force being greater here because the diameter of the earth is so much larger, so therefore, a person is being spun around much faster at the equator than up North. This is easily observed when watching the sunset or the moonrise; it appears to happen about twice as fast as up North.) I decided to go back to the same place where they had been so helpful before in preventing a centrifugal catastrophe.

After my usual breakfast of a heap of sautéed fresh vegetables scrambled with eggs and a bit of meat, I headed for the city center to the talabarteria to find a belt. I figured I might as well have the car washed and vacuumed while I went about my errand, so my wife and I dropped it off and walked the rest of the way uphill to the tack shop. I, of course, was not allowed to buy a piece of clothing by myself, because since I am only going to have one belt, it requires consultation. And besides, Amy considers shopping for clothes for me a rare and festive occasion.

It was easy to find a belt I liked, a simple, black one with no tooling; but Ciudad Quesada is a central city for the North Zone, a cattle area, so it’s known for leather goods for cowboys. All of the buckles were designed to make their wearers look like rodeo stars.

Now, in the campo, it’s not good to look like a rodeo star unless you really are one. The people there were riding before they could walk, so you don’t want to give the impression that you know more than you do about horses. To them, an experienced rider is one who can handle any class of riding. It’s bad enough now the things that are expected of me on horseback (see my other Life in the Campo story on Learning to Ride). I always warn visitors to the finca about this — and am usually ignored, to their own pain. If you have been on a horse three or four times, you should say you know almost nothing beyond which end goes forward — trust me on this; it will be much better for you. If you have owned your own horse before and ridden every day, say that you have ridden some. If you are a professional horseback rider, you can say you are an experienced rider — and hope you survive.

Back to the belt: My wife scored points with the frugal-minded ticos by noting how nice and new-looking the buckle is from my old belt and what a shame it would be not to reuse it. I liked that idea — it’s a simple, classic buckle, with no hint of the stunt rider about it. Being an owner of a finca is enough pressure on me that I am supposed to know how to ride.

The guy waiting on us suggested cutting some leather of the type that I liked, measured to the exact length for me instead of a standard sizea, and attaching it to my original buckle. We agreed on a price, and he headed off to the back to do it. Never said a word about us coming back later, just asked his coworker to wait on the customers. While we were waiting, I spent the time looking at all of the neat things I could buy for the horses. Thankfully the wait wasn’t too long, or who knows what I would have bought, but I was able to resist, because I don’t know what we really need, or worse yet, if I did, then everyone would think I knew something about horses, and who knows where that would lead.

So we hung around, and pretty soon the tradesman he called me into the workshop and asked me to try the belt on so he could be sure the length was right before attaching the buckle. After a little while longer, he asked me to try it again so he could punch the holes exactly where I wanted them.

A custom-made leather belt done while I waited, for under 8 dollars — not bad.

Now, the car wash guy had said he couldn’t get to the job until the afternoon, so we walked down the hill home (a little over a mile) and lunched on more fresh veggies and fruit and roasted meat, then I walked back uphill for the car. A couple of hours of up- and downhill walking had been enough for my wife. Besides, I could really hoof it if I walked up solo.

Even though Amy was sure that the car would be ready, the owner of the carwash pointed out all of the mud they were washing off. The previous day, I had gone to the finca to take a visiting college student over the property. There had been a lot of rain, and my clothes were caked with mud after 3 hours of hiking, so you can imagine how the car looked from being driven onto the property. When I showed up at the car wash, they were still trying to find it under all the mud. When I started to apologize, they said it was expected for this time of year, and laughed. He said it should be ready in another hour.

So, I walked the hills of Ciudad Quesada some more, checking back periodically to see if the car was done. It took another hour and a half, so I gave them a tip, bringing the price to just under 7 dollars for cleaning it inside and out.

I put on the belt the next morning, and it’s a good thing we allowed room for alteration, because the mysterious belt-stretching problem persists. I’ve already had to pull it in to the second from the last hole, and at this rate, I’ll soon be needing some more holes punched and a little lopped off the end of the belt. I just don’t understand it! You wouldn’t think that centrifugal force could stretch a new belt so much in one day!

*We are Fred and Amy Morgan, originally from the US. We bought a dairy farm in Costa Rica to plant trees in its pastures, then later caught a dream of turning all the land we can to permanently protected, sustainably maintained forest once the plantation trees have been harvested for profit. Along the way, we made it possible for our former partner to realize his dream of starting a business of his own in his native land. He is featured in many of the earlier stories.

To read more about Finca Leola S.A. and how you can also invest in  trees and at the same time help with reforestation, go to Own Trees with Us.

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