﻿Living The Pure Life﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

Pura Vida Village has four core, interrelated social ventures:​An eco-adventure resort, an expatriate community, annual transformational festivals,​and our community development foundation.Each share common staff, supporters, space and culture. We believe interweaving these four sectors together properly will have a synergistic effect, creating a scalable, ​regenerative eco-village experience.

​Our vision is simple, yet adventuresome - building an eco-adventure resort and expat community around a mission-driven benefit corporation, and allied community foundation, devoted to providing social and environmental benefits, as well as, economic development - a sustainable triple bottom line of healthy people, healthy planet, and healthy profit.

Our logo is composed of a central, vibrant blue lotus, set in a golden 'seed of life'.

The lotus has long been regarded as sacred by many of the world’s religions, especially in India and Egypt, where it is held to be a symbol of the Universe itself. Rooted in the mud, the lotus rises to blossom clean and bright, symbolizing purity, creation and resurrection.

In Buddhism, the lotus is considered to be one of the eight auspicious symbols, and is associated with the purification of the mind and body, and the ability to blossom and become liberated.

The Seed of Life blooms into the Flower of Life, and embodies the infinite nature of creation. It is our blueprint in which mathematics, numbers, geometry, light, harmonics, and frequency are brought to life. It connects us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to the higher teachings of creation.These symbols represent our commitment to living the pure life - pura vida.

﻿So Why Costa Rica?​The most commonly used phrase in Costa Rica literally means "Pure life”, but the saying goes beyond its simple translation: it’s a way of life. Pura vida means choosing the path of happiness regardless of your circumstances. You can say 'pura vida' on a clear, sunny day as appropriately as you can in a raging storm. You can choose to see the pura vida in every single situation that life delivers you. I can’t imagine anything more beautiful or worthwhile than that. This is the spirit of Pura Vida Village. This is our home.

Costa Rica is often named one of the world's happiest countries. Credit the beauty and the climate or the laid-back nature of the people who call the tropical nation home. Unlike other Spanish colonies, Costa Rica had no social classes or castes, no despotic functionaries who looked down on others.

Unlike other countries in the region, and in the world, Costa Rica has seen little civil strife over the years and has had no standing army since 1948. Such political stability has attracted many U.S. tourists and senior citizens, who see Costa Rica as the "Switzerland of Central America" and a happy, healthy, attractive vacation and retirement destination.​​​

The Global Tourism Monitor Survey asked 23,000 globetrotters from 26 countries where they had traveled during the previous 12 months and which destination they would more recommend based on their experience there. Costa Rica placed atop the list as the most recommended destination - no other Latin American country made the top 10. Within this happy, healthy, adventuresome nation, we are attracted to the forgotten Caribbean coast - the Caribe Sur - not one golf course in sight.

With 95%+ adult literacy, a life expectancy equivalent to that of the United States, a constitution that eliminated the military, over 25% of the land in national parks and preserves, national healthcare, incredible biodiversity, natural beauty, clean hydroelectric power, environmentally sound business friendly policies and a favorable climate, Costa Rica is a rare and precious corner of our world.

The area attracts a steady stream of intrepid international tourists, surfers and backpackers who are drawn to the hip beach towns. With no set dry season, like the rest of Costa Rica, you’ll find lush green tropical forests and tumbling rivers year-round.​

There are many differences between Costa Rica’s Caribbean and Pacific Coasts. The Caribbean coast stretches for some 125 miles between Panama and Nicaragua. The region is sparsely populated but has splendid beaches, excellent fishing, great water sports and it offers endless opportunities for an honest exchange with mother nature.​

Some of Costa Rica’s finest beaches, like Playa Chiquita and Cahuita, and Punta Uva are on the Caribbean Coast and they’re seldom if ever crowded. The population of the province is slowly growing as it attracts the attention of more expats and tourists, with over 40 nationalities represented. There are no large-scale developments or resorts along this charming coastline.

​This is a nature lover’s paradise. Surfing, yoga, sport fishing, dolphin-watching, snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking, beach horseback riding, and whitewater rafting will be available through our staff, or hand-picked local guides. You can enjoy a quiet nature hike, a visit to an indigenous village - the Bribri - or enjoy a nearly private beach in a pristine national park all along our Caribbean Coast.

​And here you will find Pura Vida Village.

Our core target market for the adventure club and our transformational festivals will be the ever replenishing 28 million American college young alumni, and their friends. The best and the brightest, brought together to make magic. ​For example, this past spring, as my alma mater Columbia University's 261st academic year closed, close to eight thousand students packed up their books and polished their résumés. Almost all will enter a volatile and competitive job market alongside 2.8 million other ambitious graduates. They and the glorious institutions they have become a part of need and want to stay involved.

The Columbia Alumni Association, like those of numerous major universities, is a global network connecting Columbians of all schools to one another and to the intellectual and social fabric of the University, even (and especially) after graduation. It links over 320,000 alumni through 100 regional clubs and shared interest groups, and online resources. This enables simple, direct marketing to alumni.

They feel immense respect for the ideas and the work of their fellow alumni and staying connected to these people is a deeply compelling motivation. Fellow alumni feel enormous pride, a sense of belonging and a desire to share authentic experiences - and maybe a new career, and a chance to see that friend you always hoped you knew a little better. We are designed to fill that need.​We are, in fact, designed to work with any affinity group to plan a memorable week.

​​​Of the many ways in which the human race seems to exist out of phase with its natural environment, the buildings in which it lives, learns and works is one of the most telling examples. Buildings use up to 50 percent of the energy used in the world in their construction and operation, and also consume a great deal of the world’s human, economic and natural resources.

Young naturalists and architects began to rediscover the possibilities of Latin American bamboos, and to begin to open eyes and change minds with new techniques, designs and applications, often borrowing from Asian traditions. We look to work with a local architect, such as Benjamin Garcia Saxe (see below), an advocate of this new found sensibility. (Best Single Family Home in the World - World Architecture Festival -2010)

Bamboo is one of the strongest plant-based building materials, and there are bamboo structures that have been in existence for hundreds of years. The hollow tube shape gives a strength factor of almost 2 times more than a solid wood beam. Some species of bamboo have twice the compression strength of concrete and roughly the same strength-to-weight ratio of steel. Certain bamboo withstands up to 52,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. Due to its flexibility, bamboo structures have withstood hurricane winds in excess of 170 mph.​

If that is not enough, one of the best features of bamboo is that the giants of this fast-growing grass sequester more carbon dioxide than just about any other plant. According to the Zero Emissions Research Institute, a bamboo forest can sequester 17 times as much carbon as a typical tree forest.

We believe that bamboo’s time has come, and that this natural material has the potential to help revolutionize housing in Costa Rica and a large part of the world, at all social and income levels.

We will work with the vanguard of the local bamboo movement to source our materials, determine our signature style, and train workers. Our construction company - The Village Builders - will be spun off to continue to build the homes and structures we require, as well as other work in the region.

Above, a day trip to visit and learn from our neighbors, the indigenous Bri Bri.

As a community we promote sustainable living and social and environmental justice. We advocate organic gardening and regional farming; healthy, local economies; permaculture; holistic health; natural, vernacular building techniques; alternative, local energy systems; and other educational activities to help facilitate a regenerative global community - this is life in Pura Vida Village - this is living the pure life.

This awareness and intention will be brought to all aspects of our community life.

Living Water​Our village will have a living swimming pool.

A living, or natural swimming pool is a system consisting of a constructed body of water, where the water is contained by an isolating membrane, in which no chemicals or devices that disinfect or sterilize water are used, and all clarifying and purifying of the water is achieved through biological filters and plants rooted hydroponically in the system.

Natural swimming pools rely on a constructed wetland of plants and gravel to filter the water in an area called the regeneration zone. This zone is a water garden; a variety of plants create an ecosystem that naturally cleans the pool water.

Think of the pleasure of swimming in a living pool, as opposed to coming out of a drying, wasteful chlorinated pool .