wasn’t about to get it tattooed on my neck, I was curious about what
would happen if I were to travel to Costa Rica in search of the pure
life. When I ran the idea by Michelle, her response was simple: “If
there are sloths, I’m in.” If pura vida was my quarry, it was the
three-toed perezoso—that cutest, weirdest and most lethargic of all
furry Central American creatures—that lured Michelle.
Aside from a lack of sloth sightings, our first day in Costa Rica
h a d pret t y much h a d it a l l. We’d obser ved a n i g u a n a t he si ze of a
grown man crawling huffily from the pavement, where it had been
sunning itself, into the foliage. We’d seen emerald hummingbirds
levitate before us in midair, before returning to their frenetic
pursuit of the nectar contained by flowers the size of bodily organs.
And we’d become accustomed to the fact that most trees would, at
the slightest disturbance, reveal a group of clamorous howler
monkeys or a pandemonium of rainbow-feathered parrots.
C
osta Rica is home to a full 5 percent of the world’s
biodiversity, yet it occupies just 0.03 percent of its
landmass. It is about the size of Sri Lanka, or Ireland, and
that compact scale makes it possible to take in a lot in a
relatively short time. Still, Michelle and I had decided
against getting too ambitious with our itinerary; that
seemed contrary to the spirit of the trip. Instead, we
planned to drive around the coastal reaches of Guanacaste
province in the northwest, then make our way toward the
Arenal Volcano region in the country’s Technicolor
interior, hitting as many hot springs, cloud forests and waterfalls as
possible along the way. But first we needed to get across this river.
At first our car moved through the current gamely, even as the
water grew deeper. We’ve got this, we told ourselves. But then, for one
blood-thickening instant, we stopped. The chassis got wedged on a
rock and the wheels struggled to find purchase. Was our engine
cutting out? Just as I started getting legitimately freaked out, the
Nissan gave a wrenching lurch forward, and in seconds we found
ourselves on the far side of the river, essentially unscathed.
It was our first lesson in pura vida: the more challenging an
obstacle, the greater the sense of exhilaration from overcoming it.
Flush with accomplishment, we waved goodbye to the songbirds and
zoomed off to the coast. The rest of the drive was spent in a state of
giddy wonderment. Each bend opened up a new ecosystem, from the
w ide pla i n s t h at g ive Gua n aca ste prov i nce its n ick n a me, L a Pa mpa ,
to tropical rain forests with fluorescent-hued plants growing into
and over and on top of one another. Cowboys still ply their ranching
trade here, and every so often we’d pass a cattle-herding sabanero on
horseback, wearing a typical Costa Rican cowboy hat called a
chonete and clasping a lasso or a machete. You could almost see the
testosterone hanging over them like some kind of pheremonal mist.
It wasn’t all manly-man vibes though. The region’s famed corteza
amarilla trees were in bloom, lighting up the landscape with their
acid-yellow flowers. When we finally hit the Pacific Ocean, an hour
later, little butterflies that looked a lot like corteza amarilla petals
were fluttering in the breeze over the turquoise waves. The air
smelled like honey and coconut lotion and boutiquey botanical herbs.
We were spending the next few nights in a beach community
called Las Catalinas, a forward-thinking, car-free utopia being
hewn from the hills between the Papagayo Peninsula and the well-
trodden beaches of Potrero Bay. Las Catalinas is a small town
(population 325, in high season) with a grand philosophy. Its guiding
principle is that humans take pleasure from being immersed in
A sloth clings to trees
with its long, distinctive
claws, near the Nayara
Springs resort.
