Travis Barton
Chapter 4.1: Pura Vida
Through all of my travels, I had yet to go anywhere out of country with my brother, Marcus, and that was something I felt absolutely needed to happen. Life is short and the bond between us has always been unbreakably strong. We were born to have adventures together, but prior to then, it was challenging to find the time to make it work. We had talked about traveling to Costa Rica together for a number of years, but never really found the means to make it happen. We’d plan to go one year and then finances would get in the way. We’d plan again the following year and then the timing just wasn’t right. This went on and on until we finally made the commitment, brother to brother, “No matter what, hell or high water, we’re going to Costa Rica this year!”
So we went to Costa Rica that year.
Our first adventure together was to a little town on the Caribbean side of the Costa Rican coast called Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. Like traveling to Nicaragua, what started off as a surf trip to catch the most powerful wave in the Caribbean, Salsa Brava, soon turned out to become something much more. Together, we both learned the spirit that has stuck with us through the years, the spirit of “Pura Vida.” Ticos (native Costa Ricans) have been using this phrase for the better part of 50 years and it’s pretty much the law of the land out there, but it was something we wanted to know more about after hearing it constantly during our first day wandering the town. We heard it as greetings, as goodbyes, and even as a substitute for “awesome!” The translation of Pura Vida is simple, but has a much deeper meaning to the people of Costa Rica. In English, the phrase translates to "Pure Life," but as I learned standing on a giant rock in the middle of the Caribbean ocean, the words are not enough to describe the true spirit of Pura Vida.
Marcus and I decided that rather than getting a hotel on our travels, we were both going to be sleeping in hammocks in the middle of the rainforest. The first night was spent fruitlessly trying to get some sleep in the middle of a rainstorm. Of course, there’s nothing quite like Caribbean rain, so it was difficult to get more than a few minutes of sleep without the loud thunder waking us up. Sleep just wasn’t in the cards on our first night, I realized, and then, even through all that rain and thunder in the forest, we heard the distant sound of drums being played. Rhythmic bongos, djembes, and congas all seemed to be playing in rhythm with the storm off into the forest. Lying in that hammock, not knowing where these jungle beats were coming from, I imagined tribespeople were having an ancient ceremony; it certainly sounded like it. It was a bit spooky, but the interest got the best of us. We got out of our makeshift beds and started walking, very timidly, towards the sound. Eventually, we came to discover an authentic Costa Rican party going on in the middle of the night, in the middle of forest, in the middle of the storm, right by the beach. We were astounded. What seemed to be the host of the gathering danced over to us and offered us some homemade guaro. Now, when traveling to Costa Rica, my word of warning is to be wary of drinking too much guaro, as it is the infamous local drink that has a soft bark, but a nasty bite. One guaro turned into two and two into three. And a phrase we learned in Costa Rica is that one guaro is not enough, and two is too many.
The jungle party had pulsing drums throughout the night, keeping the dancing going and seemingly the rain gods in playful spirits. I got the group to slide around head first on our bellies through the mud, kind of like a natural slip ‘n’ slide, for those who remember that toy. Closer to sunrise, dozens of us found our guaro-influenced selves running into the ocean, swimming around in a reef shelf in a storm I had never seen anything like. You could say that the guaro had something to do with that; I say the magic of Costa Rica and the spirit of Pura Vida was already creeping into my being. We spent the rest of the night being pummeled with rain, telling stories with locals and fellow travelers in a reef shelf in the middle of the ocean. Life was a party.
On our second day, we woke up a bit late into the morning. My hangover and fuzzy of memory from the previous night suggested we had a hell of a welcoming to the country. Of course, too much guaro the led to us waking up with the feel-good effects of the drink long gone only to be replaced by the price of a pulsing skull and not being able to recollect much of the previous night. Having such an otherworldly hangover, we chose to take a walk to a place down the dirt road for some tacos to rejuvenate a bit. Upon arriving to Tasty Waves, we met an American expat named Bryton who owned the place. We got to talking about his business, why he moved to Costa Rica, and what he loved about the Costa Rican lifestyle. It didn’t take long for Bryton to learn that we were both new to the country and vague to the Pura Vida lifestyle. On being enlightened to this, he asked us to come back in an hour. “Bring something to swim in,” he said. We didn’t know what he was up to, but we both agreed without hesitation. How could we not?
We met back up with Bryton an hour later, right outside his Tasty Waves cantina, which now looked to be closed. A sloth up in the trees looked to have just arrived. Bryton walked out and let us know that he shut his doors so he could take us on a bit of an adventure. Something like this, I thought, would never happen back home, ever! Closing a restaurant to take a couple of gringos you’ve never met before on an adventure? Of course, this seemed like a very welcoming thing to do, “but never back home,” I laughed.
We spent close to twenty minutes making our way through the dense rainforest of Puerto Viejo until we arrived on the beach. The sun was beating down blazingly; the sounds of woodpeckers tapping on trees, and the soft waves crashing on the shore was our soundtrack. Our new guide pointed his finger out to the ocean. My eyes followed it to a giant rock sitting alone in the Caribbean Sea, which looked to be about a half hour swim. With nothing else, Bryton said, “Just follow me,” jumped into the sea, and began to swim for it. Of course, with little to no hesitation as we were in the market for a decent-sized adventure, with no coaxing, we both decided to follow. I won’t lie, I like to think of myself as man enough to admit that the thought of bull sharks looking for a quick bite out of a couple gringos entered my mind more than once during our swim. In fact, it was on my mind the entire time, but I’m happy to say, we made it safely, in one piece, if not very tired, to the lonely rock. The size of it was much larger than it looked from the shore, which seemed to be about 40 feet tall.
Bryton, an American by birth, but clearly a local, skillfully and effortlessly climbed to the top barefoot in no more than a handful of swift movements. The two of us followed with significantly less fluent style. As we summited, Bryton began to tell us about Costa Rican life and the spirit of the Ticos. He explained to us why he left America to start his own quaint cantina in the Costa Rican rainforest and the importance of living life like you mean it. As we sat on the rock, looking out into the ocean, we talked about what it takes to be truly happy in this life and even shared a couple adventure and drinking stories. We were fast friends. I marveled at surrounding untapped beauty all around me; man’s conquest of nature had yet to take hold.
Curiously, through our many stories and unrelenting laughter, I asked what exactly Pura Vida meant. I had heard the phrase over and over in my day and half in town and wanted to know the meaning. Bryton took a brief pause, looking out into the ocean and back to the tropical rainforest on land. With his eyes turned towards the mainland, he said, “Life is good, man. You gotta go and enjoy it. You gotta play.” And as if to express the spirit more than the words, he jumped off the 40 foot cliff face and into the Caribbean Ocean. I think I understood. I shouted “Pura Vida!” a bit like an uninhibited and wildly free child as I made the leap after him.
Pura Vida—we got to talking about it on our way back to Tasty Waves. It means a lot of things to a lot of people. But the way I embraced it, and how I kept the spirit of it alive in me following that day, was that life really is rich and good, it’s just up to us to explore that. As the spirit of play seemed to follow with the words “Pura Vida,” during the rest of that afternoon, leaping from that cliff in the middle of the ocean, and for the rest of our time in Costa Rica, it is in that spirit that I see the meaning of those words.