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Introduction

In recent years Costa Rica has also become the prime eco-tourism destination in Central America, if not in all the Americas, due in no small part to an efficient promotion machine that trumpets the country's complex system of national parks and wildlife refuges. Every year hundreds of thousands of visitors - mainly from the United States and Canada - come to walk trails through million-year-old rainforests, raft foaming whitewater rapids, surf on the Pacific beaches and climb the volcanoes that punctuate the country's mountainous spine. More than anything it is the enduring natural beauty that impresses. Milk-thick twilight and dawn mists gather in the clefts and ridges divided by high mountain passes; on the Pacific coast, carmine and mauve sunsets splash down into the sea like meteors; vaulting canopy trees and thick deciduous understoreys carpet large areas of undisturbed rainforest, and vestiges of high-altitude cloudforest offer glimpses into a misty, primeval universe, home to the jaguar, the lumbering Jurassic tapir and the truly resplendent quetzal.

Costa Rica has not officially designated a national motto. However, if Costa Rica were to designate a national motto, our research team believes that the choice would be the expression "Pura Vida." Costa Ricans started using the expression "Pura Vida" after watching the premier of a Mexican movie called "Pura Vida!" in 1956. During that time only a small portion of the population used it. By 1970 everyone used the expression on a daily basis because the words conveyed the state of happiness, peace, and tranquility that the political stability and freedom bring to Costa Ricans. Nowadays, the expression "Pura Vida" has become so popular that has been added to Costa Rican Spanish dictionaries as an idiom to greet, or to show appreciation.