About five percent of the world suffer from anosmia– having no sense of smell. Everyone has likely experienced this at least once on a temporary basis when hit with a severe cold or sinus infection. One of the main side effects of covid as well, is loss of the sense of smell. This malady can greatly affect your health and general quality of life and it is always a relief when the olfactory system returns to normal.
We live in a country with an abundant variety of scents, both natural and unnatural. Natural: The aromatic tropical flowers like the ilang-ilang, the gardenia, the bouganvillea, the reina de la noche; the tangy smokiness of food cooked over a lena fire; the salty, lightly pungent smell of the ocean at high tide; the delicious scent of fresh brewed coffee.
Then there is the unnatural: The toxic smell of overheated brakes on the downside of a mountain; the choking trash fire with its assortment of paper, metal and plastic; the artificial floral scent of the disinfectant used in sodas and supermarkets; the septic system that becomes overloaded during rainy season. In a crowded public area you can smell it all— the clean and the dirty, the perfumed and the unwashed.
Perfumes and colognes are very popular here, for the same reason they have been popular for a few thousand years. Dating from the time when bathing was something of a luxury, they are applied today to either accentuate or mask the natural odors of a person. Here in Ticolandia, bottled fragrances are big business. Google Costa Rica perfumes, and you will find pages of stores and catalogs and online merchants hawking every fragrance that can be extracted, blended or distilled and bottled.
The wearing of cologne is a point of discussion in my house. My wife wishes I would be more ‘perfumado’ when I go out in public. Perfumado being the word used for men or women who have sprayed themselves. Maybe it’s the word ‘perfumado’ that bothers me. Makes me think of Louis the Fifteenth with his poncey powdered wig, soaking himself down daily with the latest scents to hit Paris. There is a guy at the gym I go to who douses himself for his workouts. When he walks across the room I know it’s him without even looking. He would have been very happy in 18th century Paris.
Right now I have 2 bottles of cologne– one that I got for my birthday– in 2017– is still half full. The other is a recent gift from my wife. It’s called Nitro. The cologne for guys who like to fool around with engines? Nitro as in nitroglycerin, ready to explode when exposed to heat? I like the scent of the one I’ve had for almost 7 years and continue to use it on occasion, which means that the Nitro should last long enough to be buried with me.
I recently took a 2 hour bus ride over the mountains and down to the beach, where I experienced a cornucopia of scents, pleasant or otherwise. In the station, the foul exhaust fumes of two idling buses fill the air. On board, there is a mix of passengers–those conscious of their natural odors have come on board recently bathed and perfumado, dressed in clean clothes. A young woman carries an aromatic bouquet of flowers that sweetens the stagnant atmosphere. In the mountains, the cool piney scent filters in through the open windows.
Once down at the coast, in the heat of the day, more people board. A backpacking couple sit across the aisle from me. They are of the species of turista who believe that going native means rarely bathing or changing clothes or doing anything to mask the obnoxious body odor that now fills the front half of the bus. I am tempted to educate them on hygiene, but for the duration of the trip I say nothing, and silently wish I could be struck with a temporary case of anosmia.
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Don Mateo
