TRAVEL | EARTHQUAKE| COSTA RICA

Experiencing A 6.8 Earthquake In Costa Rica

It felt otherworldly!

Much of this text was initially published the day after the event happened on my blog Just Some Wandering.

It was November 2017 and we had been housesitting in Costa Rica for about 2 weeks when we felt our first earthquake. We were staying right on the beach on the pacific side of the country, managing a house and taking care of Omber, the dog.

After having lived on the west coast of Canada for 15 years, and having been told that ‘THE BIG ONE’ was coming any day now, I pretty much didn’t think that I would ever experience a big earthquake. They seemed so few and far between.

There was, however, one in Canada that I did feel. I was standing at a counter in a gift shop that I owned when all of a sudden I felt dizzy. It was in a period of my life where dizzy spells happened occasionally, so I just attributed it to that and didn’t think much of it. The one strange thing that did happen, though, was that a small glass window ornament was also banging off the window and making a sound that caught my attention. I figured that maybe a breeze had blown it.

It’s amazing what your mind can come up with to explain the unexplainable.

It wasn’t until my friend came in a few moments later to tell me that we had just had an earthquake, that I put it all together. That one was just 4.1, so nothing too big.

However, this earthquake in Costa Rica was certainly not something that I could explain, other than to realize that it was, in fact, an earthquake.

I was going to bed early that night and had plans to do some reading before going to sleep. I was literally just laying down on my back when the craziest feeling overtook me. I felt like I was floating on the ocean, bobbing around like you would in a boat.

I heard Chris in the kitchen, “What the fuck?”

I got out of bed, book in hand, and swayed my way to the doorway. I’m pretty sure I was muttering something like “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit”. Chris was looking around equally as in awe as I was, and said “Holy shit, is this an earthquake?”

I stood wide-eyed in the door frame, holding onto it like it was my life preserver or something, my book still in the other hand. By then, the gentle ocean bouncing had turned into more of a feeling of walking in jello, or maybe like that of being on a bouncy castle. I just stood there absolutely incredulous, not knowing how long it would last, or how bad it was going to get.

I have to say it was other-worldly, like nothing you could ever prepare for, or understand what it would feel like until you have been in it. I kept thinking that the walls were going to start cracking, or that the roof would flap or SOMETHING! In fact, this completely concrete house, just rolled along as we did, barely noticing that anything was happening under it.

We had dishes from supper stacked high in our dish drainer, not one of them budged. The hanging light was swaying, the hanging wine glasses were tinkling together, and the shutter on the window was swaying, but from the perspective of the house, those were the only indications that anything was amiss.

I think this made it all the more incredulous. How in the heck is a concrete house not doing something, when we felt like we are bouncing around in a bouncy castle?? Like, somehow it was tricking our minds into thinking that we were imagining it. The laws of physics were being played with. Concrete and brick don’t bend? What the heck was going on??

Standing in the doorframe of the bedroom, still staring wide-eyed, I started saying “What do we do? I don’t know what to do?” “Do we go outside?” “We should go outside.”

A thousand and one thoughts were flooding through my brain, it’s impossible at this point to even really remember what I was thinking. We were acting on total instinct. This whole scene only lasted a minute to a minute and a half I would say, but it felt stretched out somehow.

By now Omber, the dog, was either reacting to our apparent panic, or he felt it too as he was now pacing around the room and looking up at us. We realized that we should really get outside.

Chris grabbed the house keys, set his electronics away from the window (we were always in an anti-theft mode in that location), and we all went outside. No sooner did we get outside, then it seemingly stopped. We were standing in the front yard (not the beach side), I still had my book in my hand, open to the page I was reading, and was in my t-shirt and underwear. I made some mention of needing to put my book back inside and complaining about being in my underwear. Chris assured me that being in my underwear was fine, as I spent most days out in my bathing suit anyways! Plus it was dark out!

As everything had calmed down by then, I did deem it necessary, for some god-forsaken reason, to go back into the house to put my book safely inside!

Our hearts were beating a mile a minute and we just kept saying “Wow, that’s what an earthquake feels like.” “Wow!” “Wow, that was so crazy!” “Do you think there will be aftershocks?”

This went on for a couple of minutes, while I think we just thought we would wait there until other neighbors came outside. However, none did. We later learned that this was business as usual in Costa Rica.

At some point, while outside, I thought I felt like the ground was swaying again, but I couldn’t be sure. We had no reference of anything else moving, like the light swaying in the house, but I did read that there was an aftershock of 5.1 about 4 minutes after the initial shock, so maybe that was it. It also could have been my rubbery, scared-to-death, legs that were deceiving me.

Hard to say.

We started talking about a Tsunami and decided that we should go and take a look at the ocean to see if it was being pulled back as you hear about. I literally have no idea what we would have done if it was……climb a palm tree perhaps?? I’m pretty sure if it had been pulled back, we would still have had time to start running somewhere. I’m not even sure where we would run to as the whole area was very low for about 2 km inland.

Maybe we could climb on the roof of the house?

After standing on the beach, in the dark, with only Chris’ cell phone to illuminate anything, we could see that the waves appeared to be acting normal so we decided that we could go back to the house.

We were surprised that nobody else was outside when we were in such a fit of panic. It was all very strange.

Immediately, once inside I grabbed my phone and started googling Costa Rica Earthquake. Sure enough, it was a 6.8, and the epicenter was only about 100km away from us. Of course, I also scoured the internet for Tsunami warnings, of which there were none. Phew!

We were WIDE awake at this point! No sleep for us!

Chris went back to his drawing, I posted a bunch of stuff on Facebook and social media to let everyone know that we were fine, we both had a stiff drink, and after I had decided that it was safe to go back to bed, not to mention after my adrenals toned it down a bit, and my heart stopped pounding, I finally did so, and slept soundly.

I scoured the internet the next morning for news about the earthquake. No casualties were reported but a mall in San Jose had reported cracks in its walls and floor 5 stories up. It amazed me that with all that rocking and rolling buildings could withstand it without more damage.

The next day we went over to one of our neighbor's houses to ask if he had felt it. “Oh yeah, that was a good one.” He simply said. We realized then that earthquakes are no big deal in Costa Rica.

At the time, I had a blog that I was writing. This is what I had to say about the experience:

In the end, and after all is said and done, and as a lover of experiences, I have to say that I am glad to have experienced this one! I have never been afraid of anything like this, I figure nature will do what nature will do, we really have no control anyways, but it’s nice to actually know what really goes on, and honestly, it wasn’t that bad. I’m better off for having experienced it, because at least now we know what to expect. Obviously, things can get a lot worse, but we will hope that we never have to endure an 8+. For now, a 6.8 is just fine in my books!

We did end up feeling a couple more while we were in the country, but nothing compared to that first one. We would learn that Costa Rica is a land of extremes. The very next night a massive storm raged in from the ocean and we are pretty sure that our house got struck by lightning. I don’t even think we had come off the high of the earthquake yet when the loudest crack of thunder we ever heard happened and a blue light fizzled through the high ceiling of the house.

We both saw it and Omber started shaking like a leaf.

I will admit, in those moments, we wondered what the heck we were getting ourselves into by being in Costa Rica. Thankfully, though, things calmed down again, and it was back to a blissful life on the beach for the next few months.

Thanks for reading my story of our first major earthquake. I can certainly see how deadly they could be and hope that we don’t have to experience another one any time soon.

Happy travels!

xo Jill

Hi there, we are 2 Canadians, Jill and Chris from Artistic Voyages. We have been nomadic since 2017 living in numerous different countries, and experiencing the life and diversity of our planet on the ground and firsthand. We have now been on the African continent for over 2 years!

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