PURA VIDA (costa rica update #3)

Simplicity.  I don't think anybody can doubt the utility of complexity - from sociology to technology, the more complex, the more sophisticated, the better.  Yet wouldn't you agree that there is an intrinsic beauty to simplicity?  Perhaps it awakens the part of ourselves that delights in rolling hills and babbling streams and peaceful quiet.  Usher himself says "it's the simple things in life we forget."  But take simplicity to an extreme and suddenly "simple" comes to mean "stupid" or "backwards".  So then perhaps the perfect balance is to find complexity in utility and simplicity in beauty.

My Costa Rican updates have all been titled Pura Vida, and to anyone who's been to CR, it's a no-brainer.  If ever a country has had a national motto (E pluribus unum?), this is it.  I first heard Pura Vida in the conversations of two ticos waiting to board at Miami International.  Pura vida!  haha one exclaimed as they strutted into line.  I don't know exactly what Pura Vida I was meant to experience in Costa Rica, and certainly I can only stab at it after a week there, but here's a go.

To me, Pura Vida is complexity in utility and simplicity in beauty.  Arrive in CR and you'll find all the trappings of American extravagance: flat screen TV's, mp3 players, kids with cell phones.  Escape the major city though, and nature takes over.  Even the major highways in CR are one-lane as though to minimize Man's adulteration of the nature around them.  Traffic?  No traffic, not at least as long the weather cooperates.  People travel in buses, buses that love to stop along nearly indiscriminate points along the highway.  Jam-packed with people, the bus driver is in no vicious hurry - he waits for the pregnant woman to find her seat; he waves off the fare of an emaciated man fumbling for enough change.  In one instance, the bus jolted violently as the driver swerved to avoid a motorcycle that had sped onto our lane and avoided death by inches - the jolt threw a sleeping woman from her seat in the back down the exit stairs.  The entire time, my eyes were fixed upon the driver's through the rear-view mirror - not once did his expression contort in outrage.  In the aftermath, every single person in the back half of the bus turned around to offer expressions or words of comfort for the injured woman.  Her indignation evaporated almost as quickly as it had appeared.  Pura vida.

Playas del Coco is exactly what you'd expect it to be (in retrospect).  A city whose design was to be a city has names such as London, Seoul, Chicago; a city or town designed for one singular attraction is named for that attraction.  My town was called Playas del Coco because the one and only attraction it boasted was the shoreline.  There was one road from the highway that led to the beach and the entire town was constructed like the endothelial cells along this capillary, a near single line of buildings on either side of the road beginning about 1.5 miles from the beach.  Welcome to Playas del Coco.

We woke each day without the need of an alarm clock at 8am.  I realize that if you concentrate on the time you want to awake as you drift off to sleep, it's almost like setting your biological clock - 80% of the time, you'll wake up on the dot at the time you wanted.  Try it!  We'd return from diving at noon meaning we'd have a glorious 11 hours to figure out something to do.

Pura Vida Lesson: in the States, 11 hours = death by boredom.  in Costa Rica, 11 hours is amazing.

The beach at Playas is a black-sand beach created by volcanic activity and coupled with an omnipresent stench of garbage, is not conducive to a good time.  So after a simple meal of casados for lunch and Cocomangos Fruit shakes for dessert, the rest of our day would be spent with a 6 pack of delicious Costa Rican beer.  Neither Steven nor I had a watch and our phones failed to receive their satellite time, so we'd go through the day painlessly oblivious of the time of day.  More often than not, I'd find myself tracking time's progress by the sun's position in the sky - anyone read the Hatchet?  


So if the Pura Vida way is the best way to live, why do we in the US seek complexity in everything?  Bigger, better, newer.  Your nose not the way you'd like?  Plastics baby.  Can't afford those shoes?  Use plastic.  I dread the day that I'll be so attached to the internet that I'll want it on my phone.  Emails and chats can wait until I'm bored enough at home for me to check them.

Pura Vida Lesson: My theory is that everything in life, and I mean everything, will either augment your relationships or replace your relationships.  It is why we tend to overpack when we go on vacations.  On vacation, our primary focus is our relationship with those we vacation with - suddenly all the junk we fill our lives with back home lose meaning on vacation.  Our mp3 players tune us away from the world around; our Facebooks define our sense of popularity and sociability by the activity of our walls - have you ever seen someone somewhere who is waiting for a friend?  99% of the time, that person is eating up the wait time by playing with their phone.  Nowadays it's come to the point where all of us know those certain people in our lives who live on their phones even when out with friends.

Complexity for utility; simplicity for beauty.  Pura Vida.  Thanks Costa Rica

this is what my menu said.