Before I went to Costa Rica, I heard the phrase "pura vida". You know how when you look at anything online anymore you get more of that type of content on Facebook and other platforms, mostly in form of ads? You start looking at Costa Rica, and it won't be long before you see pura vida.
What is pura vida and what does it have to do with Costa Rica? Is it just a marketing thing that the department of tourism cooked up? Do people actually say it or is it just on t-shirts and bumper stickers and a bracelet company?
Literally translated, pura vida means "pure life". I suppose you could say it's like the national motto. Similar to the multiple uses of the word "aloha" in Hawaii, when someone says "pura vida" to you in Costa Rica, it can mean "hello" or "good-bye" or "cheers" or "this is f-ing awesome!" or "that's how it goes". These two little words encompass pretty much everything.
People really do say it, too! When we first arrived, our driver greeted us with the words. Lizzie and I kind of laughed, because we had been talking about the phrase and whether we would hear it. I didn't know how to respond. Repeat the words? Say thank you? Just smile and move on?
The right answer is to say it back. I remember that we were kind of tentative with it, but the driver heartily exclaimed, "Eso!" (kinda like "that's it! there you go!") when we said it back to him. It didn't take us long to get in the spirit, and pretty soon we were saying "pura vida" to everyone and smiling our faces off the whole time we were doing it.
I haven't used the phrase for awhile, but while I was thinking about writing this post, and even now as I am writing, I am smiling. It's just so, well, pure!
Pura vida, friends!
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