COSTA RICA’S ‘PURA VIDA’

THE country, which has the Caribbean Sea to the east and the Pacific to the west, has a population of about five million.

Nicoya, on its west coast, is a Blue Zone, which means its inhabitants commonly live past the age of 100.

Christopher Columbus discovered Costa Rica in 1502 and gave it its name, meaning ‘rich coast’. It contains 6 per cent of the world’s biodiversity, with 50 species of hummingbird and 18 per cent of the world’s butterflies. And it generates more than 99 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources.

There hasn’t been an army here since 1948 — it was abolished following a civil war.

And it’s one of the happiest countries in the world. Perhaps that’s down to the reassuringly optimistic motto, pura vida, ‘the pure life’.