Costa Rica and the meaning of life

As recently as 2023, the term pura vida finally entered the dictionary of the Real Academia Española, which defines the words and phrases used across the Spanish-speaking world. This particular expression was listed as specific to Costa Rica, where it has taken on many meanings over the last 70 years or so. The literal translation is “pure life,” of course, but to Ticos, as locals call themselves, pura vida is a way of saying “good,” “nice,” or “pleasant,” as well as “hello” and “goodbye,” and “yes, I agree,” and, sometimes, “whatever,” delivered with a carefree shrug. 

Adopted from the title of a popular movie in 1956, pura vida has long since become a neat means of describing the Costa Rican national character and worldview. If it seems to suggest a certain healthiness and happiness, recent studies have confirmed that Ticos tend to live longer, and report a higher state of well-being, than almost any other population on Earth.

A foreign traveler will see and hear pura vida repeated all across the country, from casual conversations to souvenirs and advertising slogans. But they will also experience the older, deeper feeling at the root of the culture, which seems to spring like a fruit, or a flower, from fertile volcanic valleys and misty highland forests. Long before the Spanish language made its way to these shores, Indigenous peoples enshrined the spirit of abundance in their creation stories.

The Bribri, for example, believe that their creator god Sibú (or Sibö), turned a kindly woman of the clan into a cacao tree—a gift from the heavens to nourish and sustain humanity. Even today, explains Bribri tribal guide and spokesperson Tirza Morales Sánchez, the ceremonial use of liquid cacao refreshes their connection to the divine. Only certain clanswomen are selected to protect this sacred substance as “guardians of the cacao, chosen from birth.”

A shaman, or awa, in turn prepares the drink to mark three main events in the circle of life: “When a baby is born, when a girl becomes a woman, and when a funeral takes place in the usure,” says Tirza. The usure, a double-cone shaped structure, is also known as the “casa cosmica,” or cosmic house, and represents the center of the universe in the spiritual beliefs of the Bribri. Funerals, adds Tirza, are not an occasion for mourning, but of singing the soul on its journey beyond the sun and moon “where Sibú first obtained the seed to give us life.”

Such traditions haven’t changed much in many centuries, though the Bribri have adapted somewhat to let outsiders witness certain visitor-friendly variations of their village rituals. That seed, meanwhile, also helped give rise to modern Costa Rica. Plantations called “cacaolates” shaped the agricultural landscape, cacao beans became a major export, and the chocolate produced here spread this nation’s reputation as a source of the world’s favorite food. 

For all the ups and downs of this trade since the colonial era, recent demand for premium organic chocolate has seen Costa Rica advance a new generation of farms that combine traditional growing knowledge with ultramodern methods, creating unique hybrids and flavor profiles for the 21st century market. Tours and tastings are folded into the visitor experience these days, as chocolate lovers come to see the fields, the beans, and the practices behind the whole process, before learning how to make their own chocolate by hand at workshops in San José. 

The capital city owes its existence no less to the country’s other signature commodity, coffee. The surrounding Central Valley saw the first coffee beans grown in this rich volcanic soil, circa 1779, and the long ensuing boom of the coffee business brought in the riches that built the railroads, and, indeed, the capital itself, with its beautiful cultural institutions from San José University to the neoclassical grandeur of the National Theatre. 

Costa Rica has other coffee growing regions, its topography ranging across varied zones and weather systems, which in turn produce their own distinct coffees. The Central Valley receives a lot of rain from the east, rolling in to soak the flanks of mountains at the sweet spot between 2,300 and 5,000 feet (700 to 1,500 meters) above sea level, where arabica plants tend to do best. 

A farm called Aquiares has flourished on the mid-slopes of the Turrialba volcano since 1890, producing coffee defined by high altitude and steady moisture levels. “These conditions create certain characteristics,” says Manuel Ramírez, a fourth-generation farmer on the land. “Our coffee is mild and well-balanced, with low acidity and quite intense caramel notes and cacao flavors.” As with cacao, there has been a recent turn toward innovation in Costa Rica.

Besides the classic house product, Aquiares now makes use of other local flora to blend coffee with essential oils, such as eucalyptus, and plays host to the latest field experiments in genetics and sustainability. “Costa Rica has this tradition of growing high-quality beans, so World Coffee Research has plots on a lot of farms here, developing hybrids and crossing different varieties to create something more resistant to disease, or resilient against climate change.”

And while his father and grandfather spent more time tending to the crop, Manuel himself has taken on the 21st century role of hospitality manager. The plantation community where he grew up has lately evolved—like many similar farms—into a prime destination for eco-tourism, offering guest rooms and activities, such as coffee tastings, horseback trails, and bird-watching excursions to admire the hummingbirds and flycatchers of the region.

He took for granted as a kid, he says, that he would encounter such natural wonders every day on the short walk to cool off in the nearest waterfall. “But then you get older, you travel to other parts of the world, and you realize what a special place this is.” That awareness also speaks to a general recognition of the preciousness, and precariousness, of Costa Rican flora and fauna.

Pioneering biologist Alvaro Ugalde lobbied for the country’s first national park at Poas Volcano in 1970, and the park was officially created the following year. Since then, almost 30 more have been established from the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve to the creeks and lagoons of Tortuguero National Park. Building on this strong history of environmental protection, and successful efforts to increase the native tree cover by 150 percent in the last 40 years, the Osa Conservation group is now repairing and reconnecting habitats across the southwest peninsula.

Along the AmistOsa Biological Corridor, a network of 350 local farmers is helping to replant forests and monitor wildlife in a chain linking highland to lowland to the iridescent seascape of the Cocos-Galapagos Swimway. In the canopy overhead, a new infrastructure of treetop bridges has lately allowed the endangered Geoffroy's spider monkey to make its way safely back across a domain from which it had almost disappeared, spreading fruits and seeds as it returns to its essential role as “rainforest architect.” Many other mammals use the bridges, too, while the present goal of reintroducing species like the harpy eagle, giant anteater, and white-lipped peccary to their former places within this biosphere is a signal of how seriously Costa Rica takes its ecological past and future. 

There is a balance to strike in the process between tourism and sustainability, made explicit by Costa Rica’s Tourism Sustainability Certification (CST), a voluntary program that recognizes tourism businesses for sustainable practices. Adventure travel in particular is now very much a part of wildlife management. Every visitor who walks a hiking route, books an eco lodge or rides a forest zipline also funds the projects that help provide for the rare creatures that travelers may hope to encounter, such as the three-toed sloth, or the leatherback sea turtles of the Pacific coast.

On the other side of the country, at the edge of the Caribbean, the many strands of Costa Rican culture converge at Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. Here, there are the Indigenous clans of the mountains above, and a colonial Spanish flourish to the architecture, while neighboring islands have brought their own ingredients to a local cuisine rich in bean soups, pork stews, fried plantains, and fishes cooked in coconut milk.

Surfing has its own culture, too, of course, and members of its tribe will travel the world to ride Costa Rica’s famous wave, the “Salsa Brava,” that breaks against this shoreline. Up and down the gorgeous beaches you might see locals and tourists alike wearing T-shirts that say Pura Vida. But you should know by now that it’s more a spirit than a slogan—no less manifest in the shrieks of the howler monkeys from surrounding coastal forests, or the glow in the eyes of the elusive jaguar.