turtle time in Tortuguero.: Pura Vida.

“Everyone thinks you need millions to do good things. Really it’s not like that, you just need a little”. This was what a manager at a bird sanctuary told me while visiting the refuge during my last week in Costa Rica.


Taken at the Macaw Sanctuary at El Manantial.

I think that his sentiment and outlook on life really represents a large part of the culture of the people of Costa Rica – not for everyone in the country, but definitely for more than a few people I encountered. To him, in order to run a bird sanctuary successfully – which in his terms, meant successful reintroductions into the wild for hurt or mistreated birds – there needed to be a balance between how much tourism they allowed into the sanctuary, and between education in the community on their work. This meant they needed to limit tourism in order for the birds to have as natural a habitat as possible, therefore there was less income for them. For him, it was more important for the birds to have an undisturbed habitat during their time at the sanctuary than to make lots of money from tours entering the site. Although Costa Rica is big on eco and volun-tourism, I think that the fact that you don’t need a lot to do a lot, or to be happy, translates through many parts of the culture there. In my experience, some of the most happy people I met were the people that lived the most simply.

Compared to North America, this is obviously very different – I don’t think I need to state the differences (now that I am back home they are even more pronounced). The same idea also carries over into the “pura vida” phrase that you hear all over the country. At first I didn’t get why everyone said “pure life”, to everyone else. But from what I understand, it basically means that no matter where you are you will never be “poor”. You will always have access to food or shelter because the country is so rich with fruit and forests. Everything you need is right there, provided for you by the country. It is pure life.