Sunday, February 20
This morning we headed to a very new location for us – the cloud forest. It would take us about three and a half hours to drive to Monteverde. The roads were fine until we started to head up into the mountains. Here they were not well paved – there were many very large potholes to avoid. There was very little oncoming traffic but it was not fun when there was. I was also not thrilled with the lack of a shoulder as we wound around many bends in the road paired with some scary looking drop offs.
With no stops along the way, we arrived at our hotel before check-in time. We parked our car and wandered down the steep hill into town. We found a cute restaurant called Morpho’s, named after a beautiful, large blue butterfly found in Costa Rica. It was on a hill and provided a view of part of town and was nicely decorated inside. Unfortunately the service was bad. We were seated but waited for 30 minutes without even a menu. Mike went over to complain and after that everything was fine. We would have left but we were very hungry. We shared a hamburger which worked out well as the serving was rather large.
After lunch and a bit of wandering in some small shops we headed back up the big hill. I was excited to see our “room” as I had booked us the honeymoon tent at Chira Glamping. https://chiraglamping.com/.
The tent and deck were built on a steep hillside and are almost 100% private. The deck was enormous. Upon entering the platform, the tent was on the right. To the left was a kitchen complete with a sink, stove top and fridge stocked with eggs, juice, soft drinks and beer. There was a roof over the kitchen area that extended to the bathroom.
The inside of the tent was nicely set up with a double bed and dresser. There were curtains that could be closed although no one can see in. There was also a basket of food on the dresser containing snacks and pieces of fruit.
The uncovered side of the deck included a BBQ, hot tub, seating area and a unique shower with a glass wall and floor that extended out over the hill and was completely private.
After relaxing a bit and settling in, we got ready for dinner. We had reservations for a dining experience set in the tree tops. San Lucas serves a 9 course meal in private glass rooms. There are only 8 rooms and the experience lasts for two and a half hours. We chose the 5 pm seating so we could enjoy the sunset while dining. This was our most expensive dinner ever at $170 a person not including drinks. https://sanlucas.cr/
From San Lucas’s website…
“Our menu is the expanded journey of the experience that Monteverde offers, which entails the conjunction of its main natural and gastronomic attractions.
It is the conceptual union of the nearby islands, landscapes, local products, national culture and sustainability.”
Each course told a story. The “salad” course started as an empty box, and as we poured water on it, the food “grew” out of the holes in the box. There were many delicious foods to taste but my favourite was the steak as well as the cheese potatoes, which were more cheese than potato.
When it came time for dessert, our waiter brought over a large box. He then gave us a paper with test questions. In order to get our dessert we had to answer the questions correctly, which were based on the information he gave us during each course. We would then have the code to open the box. He also mentioned that there were 6 nice prisoners in “jail” that needed to be freed.
We solved the problems and enjoyed our dessert which also included some frozen treats inside a large plastic ball. We forgot about the jail part of the test, so the waiter opened up the top of the box to reveal a picture they had taken of us when we arrived for dinner.
We enjoyed the view, and after eating way too much food, we headed back to our tree top tent. We had a little surprise of some coffee and treats that were left on our bed. There was romantic music playing and some nice scents.
It was quite cool in the evenings here as we were in the mountains, so each evening we warmed up in the hot tub before heading to bed. Another first for us on vacation – the owner allowed us to use his Netflix account so we started to watch “Inventing Anna”.
Cindy Southgate's Travels: Costa Rica 