This year, I went to Costa Rica for the first time, for a month.
While my body and mind were still trying to make sense of where they had landed, on that very first evening — while the road was still clinging to us — a waiter leaned in with a smile at a small beachside restaurant and opened the door to the country with a single phrase:
“Pura vida.”
“If you learn this,” he said, “you’ll have figured out half of Spanish in Costa Rica.”
At first, it sounds like a bit of an exaggeration. However, it is not. Because pura vida is not just a phrase. It is a linguistic shortcut, a state of mind, almost a small protocol for living. It stands in for “good morning,” “thank you,” “how are you,” and “I’m good.” Sometimes it becomes the subtitle beneath a glance: sometimes the silent translation of a smile.
Its literal meaning is “pure life.” On the other hand “simple life.”
Nevertheless, there, in mornings where the scent of coffee rises slowly into the air, the phrase becomes something far greater than simplicity.
Costa Rica is always warm. There are two seasons, which settle more deeply into the human spirit: the rainy season and the dry season. One flows with the rhythm of rain, the other with the patience of the sun.
Whichever one it is, the tempo of life does not really change.
Maybe that is exactly what pura vida means:
An inner climate that does not shift with conditions.
Think of a cup of coffee.
Coffee grown high up in misty plantations, drawing into itself the minerals of the soil, the rhythm of the rain, the patience of the sun. When you drink it, you are not simply drinking coffee; you are sipping the tempo of an entire country.
Nothing missing, nothing excessive. Not burnt, not harsh, certainly not, unnecessarily sweet.
Just right.
Costa Rica is a country alive with volcanoes. Beneath the earth, there is constant movement, energy, and potential. Above it, nature seems almost ready to overflow with life: rainforests, vividly colored birds, sloths, frogs, endless green…** In the middle of such a landscape — this full, this active, this exuberant — you would expect people to live with the same kind of urgency.**
But no.
They do not rush.
They do not force.
They do not prod life along.
As if to say, Life is already full enough — it does not need your extra pushing and pulling.
Maybe that is why pura vida is born not from lack, but from acceptance. Not from the feeling that something more is needed, but from the quiet sense that this is already enough. There — at least in the places where I stayed — people seem to live quite modestly. From the outside, you might even call it “poor.”
Yet inside that, simplicity there is not a sense of deprivation, but of lightness. As if, they have learned not to take life too seriously. Alternatively, perhaps, more accurately, they have found another way of taking it seriously.
There is ease in their laughter, and in their gaze, a kind of gentle surrender to what is.
They are not trying to make things happen.
They are allowing them to happen.
Moreover, before you realize it, you begin to be affected by that. When someone says “pura vida,” an invisible door really does seem to open. In addition, without noticing, you step through it.
You slow down a little.
You complain a little less.
You feel a little less incomplete.
Maybe that is the real point: not to fix life, but to fall into rhythm with it.
Like a piece of cacao…** in its raw form, it is hard, dense, and almost bitter** But when handled the right way, it becomes deep, rich, and deeply satisfying.
Costa Rica seems to know this.
Just as it fits nearly seven percent of the world’s biodiversity into that tiny geography, it feels as if, somewhere inside its vast heart, it may also have uncovered the secret of the other ninety-three percent.
It does not erase pain.
It transforms it.
I kept extending the trip.
Then a little more.
Getting there was relatively easy…
Leaving, not so much.
Maybe pura vida is a little addictive. It is not exactly that you become lazy there — it is more as if, slowly and gently, you begin turning into a sloth. An almost unquestioning acceptance.
The ability to say, “Well, this is as much as this can be.”
A contentment without strain.
A surrender that asks for nothing.
The ability to enjoy without turning pleasure into productivity.
To be inviting without poking or pushing…
You put all of that into a blender. Add a little papaya, some maracuja, a little mango, a little pineapple. Moreover, voila there you have it:
A glass of Pura Vida.
When you drink a mixture like that, you suddenly realize how deprived you may have been without even knowing it.
Everything seems to wash off you.
As if, you are being cleansed.
You become lighter.
In addition, after a certain point, without even noticing, you too begin to consist of nothing but pura vida.
After coming all this way…
what did I learn?
Do not make such a big thing out of everything.
Pura vida.
Aysen Darcan
April 2026
Website: aysendarcan.com
Instagram: dr.aysence
