When Pura Vida Meets the Great Beyond
Costa Rica's profound death traditions.
In a region famous for lavish altars, elaborate face paint, and all-night cemetery parties, Costa Rica approaches death with a dignified restraint that feels almost countercultural. I am spending some time there and feel like everyone should have an opportunity to visit this tropical paradise.
A few years ago, when I was in Mexico, they dazzled me with Día de los Muertos and food-laden vigils. Costa Rica carves out something different: a death culture that is deeply communal yet hushed. It’s where grief and love move just under the surface, as opposed to out loud and in the open.
In other words, death isn’t a spectacle here.
To understand it, I had to first understand Pura Vida. That national philosophy — literally “pure life” — is what they say instead of “thank you.” It’s a nod toward a certain kind of existence, a belief that each moment carries its own gratitude or awareness. And remarkably, this same spirit extends past the threshold of death. For Ticos, saying goodbye to a loved one is part of a pure life. A thank you. An act of collective devotion.
Death Comes Home
When someone dies in Costa Rica, the body comes home quickly. The velorio, or wake, is traditionally held in the family’s own house instead of a funeral parlor. I had to tell myself, “See? This isn’t just an Irish thing.”
Neighbors, friends, and extended family arrive throughout the night, and the living room is transformed into a place of prayer, coffee, and storytelling. Mourners serve horchata or other soft, non-acidic drinks alongside rice and chicken — because even in grief, hospitality is expected and part of the process.
For rural communities, this intimacy is taken a step further. In areas like the Osa Peninsula, before funeral homes were accessible, family members packed ice beneath the body to preserve it through the tropical heat. This is something we still do with home funerals, especially in the American South. It’s a raw, hands-on act of love that speaks to just how personally we take care of our dead.
In Costa Rica, it’s the norm.
In the town of Liberia in Guanacaste, a particularly striking local custom endures: when a neighbor dies, the street in front of their home is physically blocked off with barrels and ropes, keeping cars at bay. Tents and benches go up in the roadway. The community takes over public space, quite literally stopping traffic for the dead.
Walking the Coffin
Across much of Latin America, the dead are transported by hearse. In Costa Rica’s smaller towns and campos, the procession still moves on foot. Mourners walk the coffin on their shoulders to the cemetery, accompanied in some regions by a cimarrona — a traditional brass and percussion band — whose music serves as an escort.
It’s grief with rhythm.
This isn’t the festive cacophony I’ve heard in a New Orleans jazz funeral or the theatrical pageantry I’ve attended in a Mexican ofrenda. It’s more solemn, a community accompanying one of its own on a final walk through familiar streets.
Nine Days of Letting Go
After the burial, the rituals deepen and continue. Costa Rican families observe the novena, nine consecutive days of communal prayer held at the home of the deceased. Each evening, neighbors and relatives gather to pray the rosary, share memories, and keep the spirit of the departed close for just a little while longer.
Another moment of seeing similarities to other cultures, especially my own. This time, it brings to mind the Jewish Shiva. We are all so much more alike than different.
The novena is common across Catholic Latin America, but in Costa Rica, it carries a specific texture. In the Los Santos region south of the Central Valley, the death of a community member is still announced by the tolling of church bells — a practice called el doble — drawing the village together right away. During the novena that follows, the street outside the home is closed again, benches returned, prayers resuming. The community attends and reconvenes.
A Different Kind of Day of the Dead
On November 2nd, Día de los Difuntos (All Souls’ Day), Costa Ricans visit cemeteries to clean graves, lay flowers, and light candles as the sun sets. It is a more muted observance than Mexico’s famous Día de los Muertos. There aren’t any sugar skulls or elaborate face paint. No all-night revelry. The tone is reflective and focused on personal memory rather than public celebration.
And perhaps that’s the point. Costa Rica has never needed death to be performative. Where other cultures use ceremony to conquer grief, Ticos tend to sit with it: in the neighbor’s living room, on a blocked-off street, in nine evenings of shared prayer, or in the walk to the cemetery.
Death here is a relationship to be honored. In a country where life itself is called pure, it turns out, so is the way they say goodbye.
Loved the description of the traditions in Costa Rica. The practices surely must bring comfort