There are pockets of CR that from a tourist's perspective can feel as expensive as the Bay Area. There's a whole industry that caters specifically to that.

My wife, son and I live a US middle-class lifestyle here and our total expenses are ~30% cheaper than living in an expensive part of Colorado. It's certainly not cheap, but we could definitely pare down expenses pretty quickly if we needed to.

I love the Bali themed hotels in the mountains here. And yes, we've paid ~$100/night for this.