Costa Rica Day 1: A Long Day of Travel or Gold at the End of the Rainbow

COSTA RICA DAY 1: A LONG DAY OF TRAVEL or GOLD AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW

In Las Vegas, there is a legendary “Black List” of card counter and cheats, those never again allowed into any casino.  If such a list exists among car rental agencies, I’m sure we’ve now made that fabled status.  But I get ahead of my self…

COSTA RICA DAY 1: A LONG DAY OF TRAVEL or GOLD AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW

Fortunately, Saturday’s predicted snow never materialized.  But they certainly got the forecast right for Sunday, temperatures falling from 45F to just 3F in a matter of hours.  We have a direct flight out of EWR Monday morning so to avoid the drive, we camp out in the airport Marriott.  Not bad for an airport hotel, freshly renovated.  Besides, Since I’ve known Mandy, I’ve been promising to take her to dinner in the Ironbound section of Newark. 

The Ironbound section, so named for the city’s long-gone metalworking industry and the industrial revolution era buildings with cast iron facades, is a blue-collar melting pot with an amazing restaurant scene.  Most notable are the Portuguese restaurants and bakeries, a true foodie destination long before “foodie” was a thing.  An early Sunday dinner at The Spanish Tavern is on today’s schedule.  The restaurant is unapologetically traditional with smartly dressed and very professional waiters.  The menu is largely unchanged since the 1930s, the family deciding to perfect their dishes over the decades instead of chasing culinary trends. And perfect they did.   For Mandy’s first meal here we keep with the classics.  Paella, lamb chops and a big plastic pitcher of Sangria.  The paella is loaded with fresh seafood and succulent sausage, served in a big pot over saffron rice.  A single order would have been dinner enough for two with plenty for lunch the next day.  The lamb chops were sublime, simply done with salt over an open flame.  The Sangria, loaded with fruit but not too sweet, is the only way to go.  We sit among the large families and hipsters, feeling lucky that such a place still exists.

We wake early and shuttle to Terminal C.  Easy check-in and security despite the shut-down.  Newark airport is pretty bad by any standards but showing sign of improvement.  United has renovated the entire terminal, so food offerings vastly improved and virtually every chair has its own tablet and charging station.  The flight is an uneventful 5 hours non-stop to Libera, Costa Rica.  We land to a delightful 90F and breezy and sail through baggage and customs to rental car. 

Our little Suzuki SUV is very basic and perfectly adapted to the place.  About 45 minutes in we hit Canas, the first major town down Route 1.  We make a left onto a shopping street, basic concrete buildings joined with no particular theme and mostly homemade signs.  Hungry and in search of an authentic experience, we stop at a tiny eatery, drawn in by the fried chicken and crispy plantain strips in the front window case.  The place has exactly four mismatched tables, each with equally mismatched chairs.  Time to break out our international language skills… wait, we still have none.  We order the pollo (we do know that much) and some other dish from the delightful (and patient!) woman we assume to be the owner as she’s pretty much the only person working there.  We find our table, not hard as there are only two unoccupied.  First round is thighs, cut into chunks, breaded and fried.  Crunchy and juicy and very satisfying.  We see two men at another table drinking a brightly colored juice and pantomime to the owner.  She brings two big glasses of freshly squeezed pineapple juice.  Mmmmmmm, this country is working out just fine so far.  A man walks in with a little girl, we assume the owner’s husband and daughter based on the speed with which the girls invades the woman’s handbag to dig out the iPad.  Our last dish also features fried chicken, this time a whole breast (told you we couldn’t read Spanish), served with rice, black beans and delicious pickled tomato salad.  The bill, a whopping $12USD.  A little coaxing for a few pictures and we’re down the road.

Or should I say up the road. Or around the road.  We’re headed deep into the rainforest, which involves mountain passes and less-then-paved surfaces.  Readers of our past entries have already guessed this means nothing good for our rental car.  After an hour, we turn off the main highway.  There are chunks of the secondary roads which spontaneously turn into loose, rutted gravel, bouncing contents and passengers off the ceiling.  Just two more hours to go.  Almost to the top of the first mountain we come across the largest wind farm I have ever seen, maybe hundreds of turbines slowly turning in the hot winds, large herds of cows grazing happily unaware in the fields below.  The juxtaposition of the modern and the ancient, technology and nature, is not lost on us.  A light rain begins, bringing out the widest rainbow we have ever seen.  It stays with us for a full hour, much of the time where we can see both ends. 

Down the other side of the mountain we approach Lake Arenal, the biggest in the country.  Route 142 skirts the north side of the lake with terrifying blind curves up and down the steep inclines.  When the road is good, it’s good.  When the road is bad, we think the suspension is going to come through the floorboards.

We arrive at our resort around dusk, gold at the end of the rainbow.  Our long day of travel rewarded with kind reception, warm face towels scented with vanilla and mint and a fruity rum drink.  The lobby is beautiful, natural woods, local art and plenty of exotic tropical flowers.  Our villa is stunning, an octagon of about 1000 square feet with equally beautiful indoor and outdoor showers.  Sliding doors lead to a porch which wraps around three sides, the dense jungle preventing us from seeing any other villas and carefully cut, just a little, to present a view of Arenal Volcano.   The porch is big enough to feature a hot tub, a pair of oversized chairs, a two-person hammock and a small dining table, and still feel spacious.  Not cheap, but very reasonable considering Conde Nast rates as the top resort in Central and South America.

Light dinner is in order, so we sit at the wine bar and order some tapas.  The staff is genuinely friendly, the little dishes presented beautifully.  A lovely ending to an adventurous day.

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