1: It's not a vacation, it's a research trip

Let me explain my recent love affair with a country in which I have about as much knowledge and experience as I do with life on Mars.  

In what feels like nearly a lifetime ago, a cruise I was on with my future wife (Lisa) had Puerto Limon as a day-long destination where one would get to experience the lush beauty and ecological paradise that is Costa Rica.  From a distance, the shoreline was lined with palms and the landscape was reminiscent of the Hawaiian coast.  It was mainly tropical forests, covered by hilly terrain formed by volcanic explosions and rain erosion.  But as the port came into sight, Costa Rica began to look more like the Port of Houston than a trading destination for the yellow fruit for which it was named after.  Knowing of the monstrous mark-ups charged by cruise lines for booking tours through the ship, we decided to see if there was anything to do in port.  In most cruise ports, one can book the same tours offered in the Lido Theater, for a third to a half of what you can get them for booking them directly from the tour operators in port.  An added bonus is that if you are lucky, you might even be able to escape the geriatric crowd that you've dined, gambled, sang Karaoke with and probably lost the Most Sexy Passenger Pageant to.  Our best thought out plans backfired when we disembarked to a pier that was so long that it required a tram to bring us to the gates of the maritime seaport.  Once out the gates, there were no tour guides, no shops geared to tourists and really, very few taxis.  Many of the residences were gated and lined with barbed wire.  For a moment, I pondered the possibility that we accidentally docked in Guantanamo Bay.  Well, being the brave souls that we were, we decided to walk into town.  It was probably about 11am and the short walk to civilization left us sweaty and hot.  Ideally, we would find a coffee shop with wifi.  Instead we found a tiny room with air conditioning and computer terminals you could surf the internet with, but the keyboards were in Spanish as was the language which the kid who ran the joint spoke.  On the bright side, the air conditioning was excellent and the small computers were pretty fast.  Not really understanding the currency, the price of 1,000 Colones an hour sounded awfully expensive, so the first site I Googled (or was it Alta Vista'd back then) was a currency convertor where the cost worked out to a little over $1 per hour.  Heck, Lisa and I could each rent our own terminals, for the entire day for that matter which is pretty much what we did.  The ship's internet worked out to a rate that was probably around four or five thousand times that (of which we would never pay), so we were super happy at our find.  And who cares if our memories of Costa Rica amounted to high-speed internet at a very low cost.  Until we returned home a week later and discovered all of the site passwords we visited at that internet shack were hacked by a Costa Rican at an IP address that lead to Puerto Limon.

A few years later we were on another cruise.  This time the Costa Rican port of call was very different.  The pier was much shorter, the terrain was flatter and there was even a sandy beach which stretched for quite a distance.  Though the sand was more the color of mud and quite honestly, the water did not look terribly clean or inviting.  So we decided to take a walk around the port and this time didn't make the mistake of surfing the internet for the day.  Instead a local tried to sell us on a personal tour, to which we instead offered to buy him a beer (and eventually lunch) in exchange for answering our many questions about the country where all of the residents lived in homes that more closely resembled jails than the residences we were accustomed to seeing all across Central America.  This was also the first time we were introduced to Imperial Beer.

Disregard the scary Third-Reich eagle logo!  It's extremely drinkable and won't make you goose-step.  As we compared and contrasted living in America with living in Costa Rica, we were blown away by stories of incredibly inexpensive homes with annual property taxes that amounted to what I paid to park my car for a month at my local train station.  He also talked of the wonderful healthcare that was easily a fifth of what we pay for here in the states.  When we told him we paid $15,000 a year property taxes on our .17 of an acre lot in New Jersey for a house that was approaching a century in age, he nearly fell off his chair.  Heck, his income didn't even reach half that amount.  But even after hearing about all of these amazingly cheap opportunities this country offered, I was still not enamored by it.  Mainly because much of what I had seen of the country was an industrial seaport and a gated and barbed-wire strewn ghetto.  Pura Vida?  Pura mierda from this Gringo's perspective.  I think I'll stick with Mexico for my international vacationing dollars going forward.  Now if they could only get control over their trinket solicitors...

9: Two Tickets to Paradise

What goes up, most come down.  This is both the case with the flight we booked (thankfully) as well as the price we paid for it (even more thankful).  For a little over $300 each, Paul and I were booked on a non-stop United flight from EWR (which somehow stands for Newark Liberty Airport) to SJO (San Jose's Santa Maria International Aeropuerto).  Outside of booking our rental car, lodging and figuring out how I would get my phone to work, we really didn't plan much to do while we were down there.  Remember.  This was a research trip.  Not a vacation.  Had it been a vacation, the wives and families would probably have tagged along. Needless to say, our lodging needs would probably have been a bit more extravagant.

It was late November when we landed, so I was pretty warm in my athletic pants, but not so warm that I was uncomfortable.  It was below freezing when we left NJ, so I needed to compromise between between being too cold in Jersey verses melting down by the equator.  Both of us didn't check bags for this trip and instead opted for a roll-away and a backpack each.  Did I mention that we're cheap?  Had we taken along coats and sweaters, there was no way we would have fit eight days worth of outfit changes.  My Adidas three stripe were ideal.  Well, the flight was uneventful besides Paul's non-stop chatter for five straight hours and the trip was made even more interesting by the fact that Paul hadn't flown since pre-911 days.  He was a mess in security.  But we eventually did get through.  Rookie!

Customs in CR was extremely expedient.  They asked the usual, "Where are you going/staying/what are you smuggling in, questions."  After that, all bags went through a scanner to make sure you weren't sneaking any food, bugs, animals or washed-up hip-hop artists in to the country.  The whole process took about ten minutes from landing to out the exit.  We had read that the ideal place to exchange money was at the Bank of America upstairs which was also near a Kolbi, where I planned to purchase the standard $20 sim card which would magically make my unlocked iPhone work in paradise.  Well there was only one door to exit and it was surrounded by all means of transportation providers.  At this point, it was getting kind of late (9:30pm)  and we figured we could make it on American dollars and credit cards without the telephone working for one night.

We were picked up immediately by the Alamo rental shuttle and had a quick and comfortable ride over to the rental facility.  The driver was very courteous and everything went quite smoothly.  Once at the rental car counter, we were offered some complimentary bottled water (which was sweet) and had absolutely no issue getting the exact car we wanted at the exact price that we reserved it at.  There was almost no up-sell whatsoever.  We even came prepared with our LDW waiver (as I was told to do by another wise CR blogger) and we were offered automatic transmission for free if we wanted it, to which Paul would have no such thing.  Preposterous for them to even suggest it I think he said.  Our price was phenomenal and the rental agent even recognized it as a great deal, but he had no issue putting it through.  Our Suzuki Grand Vitarra was nearly brand new and made Paul very happy.

Moments later, we were in the car and headed to our hotel and to our surprise, the Waze app worked for the most part.  It appears GPS works as long as you donwload the maps where there was wifi (which we did in customs).  Of course, if you were not in wifi when you searched an address, the likelihood of Waze finding it was pretty slim.  We were told driving at night could be pretty hairy, but we did not find this to be the case at all.  Although, we did see a lot of people run stop signs and blow through red lights.  The road signage was actually pretty good in San Jose and we were at Casa Lima B&B in minutes.  We couldn't wait to see what a dump $54/night lodging would be like (including breakfast).  And in case you were wondering, the only time I had to speak a little Spanish was in exchanging pleasantries with the shuttle driver.  Additionally, SJO airport was one of the most modern, clean and efficient airports that I've ever used.  Especially in Latin America.  Let the research continue!

2: The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

It goes without asking that you've seen those terrible retirement savings commercials where no one except perhaps, a mega lottery winner, has saved enough to retire comfortably?  You know what I'm talking about.  For example, if you divide your IQ by four and multiply this by your shoe size and add five zeros, this will tell you how much you should have sent into Fideliguard by age 30.  Well believe it or not, my wife and I have actually socked enough money away to meet their lofty expectations.  Though, I'm not so sure they are looking after our future welfare as much as they are ensuring their fund management fees are forever secure.  Anyhow, life was looking really good for us.  Our oldest son Ryan was doing great in school and simultaneously kicking soccer balls and shooting hockey pucks like a budding pro.  All seemed perfect for an early retirement about the time our offspring shuffled off to university.

+   =

Then the Mayan Apocalypse occurred.  If your memory is good, you might have recalled that the Mayan's said the world would end on 12/21/12.  Of course, one really shouldn't put much weight on the advice of a civilization that regularly sacrificed the loser of the local ball game.  Though admittedly, I've often felt such treatment would be fitting of a certain New York Jets owner. None the less, society didn't end.  But we did bring onto this world our second son whom we call, "The D."  The D was a tough baby.  He was extremely difficult to keep happy.  Not even the Mommaroo would calm this baby down.  Pretty much the only way to calm this bugger down was to hold him belly down running back style.

As The D approached the age of one, we noticed him falling a little behind in daycare and a major speech delay was adding to this delay.  Over the next two years, The D became more and more miserable and his ailments progressively worsened to the point where he was vomiting regularly and could barely walk without falling.  His speech delay was not improving as well.  To make a very long story incredibly short, Daniel was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor right around his third birthday.  Based on its size, the doctors said he probably had it for 18 to 24 months already.  Out came the tumor, in went a shunt, three rounds of tough chemo, followed by three more rounds of crazy-tough stem-cell rescue chemo, followed by 30 days of proton radiation and The D was back to normal.  Well, as normal as a brain-injured child can be.  The doctors also removed two years of our life and over two times the amount of our rainy day fund leaving our best laid life plans in complete disarray.   But through through the generosity of our neighbors, the hockey community, relatives,  friends and complete strangers on the internet who happened upon our fundraising page.  We went from certain nest-egg destruction, to a completely decent situation that only a Humpty fan could find fault with.  And even with all of this staggering generosity, we still are not whole.  Especially considering how much expensive health care Daniel will need going forward.  And not just health care, but legal costs to fight for a fair education and childcare costs due to Daniel's extraordinary needs.  Which got me thinking...

8: Accidents will happen...It's only hit and run.

Unlike in the US where it's mandatory (though many flaunt the law), most locals don't carry auto insurance.  Considering that auto collision work costs about 1/10th to 1/15th what it costs in the states and that the rates are very expensive due to the high number of accidents.  It only makes sense to take the risk, NOT!  I never said locals had common sense, did I?  The truth is, auto insurance comes in more shapes and sizes than you can imagine and is offered through the government. The truth is, it's simply not affordable to many Costa Ricans.  Which goes a long way to explaining why the buses (and now Uber, which is a whole other story) are such a popular means of transport.  The fact that gas costs between $4 and $5 a gallon is another deterrent to having your own vehicle.  On the bright side, if you do purchase gas, like in NJ (and Oregon I think), they will pump it for you.  Gas prices are the same nationwide since they are government regulated too.  Seeing a pattern here?

So how often are there accidents?  We witnessed two of them on the highway between the airport and our hotel the first night.  This was about a  fifteen minute drive.  Quite honestly, that number was probably low considering how many cars we witnessed trying to pass everyone in front them, even on the fast moving toll road.  Though, on the remainder of our trip, once we left San Jose, the roads became nearly desolate, and we didn't witness any other crashes.  We did see a few landslides, one completely blocking one lane of traffic, on a two-lane road.

We also witnessed lots of extremely slow drivers, mainly driving cars that I haven't seen on the road since my teens.  For every late model car, there is an early 90's Tercel or Civic.  Some of them are in perfect shape too.  I imagine if I drove everywhere at half speed, my car would look better too.

Road conditions varied more than dress changes at a Cher concert.  The highways, some of which are toll roads, were in excellent condition.  These were better than the roads at home even.  Tributaries to the highways were mostly in excellent shape as well.  But once you hit the dirt roads, some of which are necessary to get between some fairly sizeable towns.  All bets are off!  If you ever wondered how a 30 mile trip could take 120 minutes without traffic?  Drive some of the roads between the Nacoya Peninsula and Guanacaste.  And if we didn't have an SUV with 4-wheel drive, it would have taken significantly longer.  Many of those potholes are of the tire-flattening capacity.  This is all kind of amazing too as everywhere you look, there are road repair crews doing their thing.

Ideally, if I lived in Costa Rica.  I'd probably want both an SUV for trips to the airport and perhaps a moped or an ATV for short trips, like riding into town to get some necessities.

7: The Cars that Go Boom

So as I'm planning this trip, I keep stumbling upon prices that are too good to be true.  From what I've researched, owning a car in Costa Rica is supposedly cost prohibitive.  Especially with the incredible network of modern buses they have running everywhere.  Unlike most of Central America, the buses are air-conditioned and some even have wifi.  No converted chicken carriers here.  Nonetheless, I wanted to cover as much of the country as I could in a limited amount of time.  Plus, I was going with another person so all costs would be split.  Did I tell you I was cheap?  Well maybe not that cheap.  Especially when all of the common travel booking sites list normal cars for rent for $5 to $10/day.  Go ahead and launch any old travel site and search for rental cars in Costa Rica.

Of course, these rates are impossible.  But renting a car can still be pretty inexpensive.  Just not that inexpensive.

If there was anything that I was most concerned with about this trip.  It was the rental car.  A Google search of "renting cars in Costa Rica" results in more warnings and cautions than you find on the side of a prescription bottle.  Obviously, no one is renting a car for $29 week.  For starters, all renters must purchase third party insurance.  This ranges from $10 to $30 a day based on the scruples of the company renting you the car.  If you've ever witnessed how Ticos drive, you'll understand the need for insurance.  Go on Youtube and search for driving in Costa Rica.  That insurance is a bargain.  Next, a lot of credit cards include LDW which stands for loss damage waiver.  LDW might not be required, but you better be independently wealthy and have a friend in the Costa Rican justice system if you want to use your return plane ticket.  Just make sure that about one week before you leave, you ask your credit card company to email you an official letter stating that they'll cover your LDW when in Costa Rica.  If you do it too far ahead, the rental agency might not accept it.  If you don't have the coverage, then you'll easily spend another $15-$40 a day for it.  My advice to you is to apply for a credit card that covers LDW (mainly Citi Cards) prior to the trip.  Additionally, many of their cards don't charge any international fees (we'll cover this later) so it's a win-win!

Be careful of what you read, especially from anonymous sources in travel forums.  In multiple forums, supposed travelers claimed the smartest thing to do is to rent from particular Costa Rican rental agencies (Adobe/Vamos) claiming the international rental agencies won't honor their prices and will say they have no cars.  I'm fairly certain those posts are paid internet trolls from those rental agencies.  I too noticed that most Costa Rican traveler blogs also promote these no-name rental agencies and even offer affiliate links with discounts.  Don't fall for these traps.  The best I could do with them, even with the affiliate discounts, had prices that were more than double what I rented our car from Alamo at the airport for.  And that included the extra airport fees and the additional driver.  We even returned the car a day early and they easily and fairly prorated the rate.  We also received a welcoming bottle of spring water as we arrived at the rental facility and a comfortable ride in a clean van solo from the airport to the rental location.  For our 8 day trip, the rate was $185 for a brand new Suzuki Grand Vitara 4wd stick.  We could have chosen an automatic transmission, but Paul would have nothing of it.  Plus we both find driving stick fun and know it's more efficient and more powerful.  Although, it's also more likely that you might stall shifting gears driving in rivers.  More about that later.  The best price we could get through the locals was nearly $400 for a Diahatsu Bego (whatever that is).  When we were on a ferry, we ran into a couple that paid nearly $300 for a 4-day compact car rental from the same Alamo, so definitely shop around and try out as many coupon and discount codes as you can!

Depending on where you plan to travel, having a 4wd might become more of a necessity than a luxury.  We drove one road in between Paquera and Mal País that was more like a road they were planning to build than a road that was actually built.  We probably could have made it through in a compact.  But it would have easily taken three times longer and would have been a lot less fun.  Certainly, the Tico with the mattress attached to the roof of his thirty year-old Toyota Tercel didn't mind wrecking his suspension as he enjoyed playing cat and mouse with us for a number of miles.  It was even funnier when we ran into him at the gas station about an hour away.  So what is driving really like...

6: Do you know the way to San José?

Neither do I.  But I bet air-traffic control does.  So ever since The D got brain injured, I've had an addiction to eating and reading about Costa Rica.  The former, I'm guessing was a lot of hate eating.  The latter, perhaps I just needed something to look forward to.  I've always been pretty independent.  For example, I hiked more than half the Appalachian Trail.  Or in high school, I often took a bus and a cab to ski resorts ten hours away from the home with so little money in my pockets that I would crash banquet halls to eat.  I once survived three days on a yard of beef jerky and bad hotel room coffee.  Certainly the wilds of Costa Rica weren't going to be much of a challenge.

So I started reading a lot of first-person accounts from expats who had made the move.  The story was always quite similar.  Pura Vida is not for everyone, but it might be right for anyone.  Most accounts started with a dire need to get out of the rat race or to have major surgery (for a major discount) or because the couple didn't save enough to retire.  One just went down there to surf the rest of their lives.  Yet others were escaping the future demise of America.  Regardless of the reasons, they all offered the same similar sage advice.

• Don't just pack up and head down without first renting in different places for at least six months to a year if not longer.
• It's one thing to take a vacation and have a local running another cold Imperial to your palapa every twenty minutes.  It's another thing to live and work and have to make your bed, your own meals and to clean your own house every day.
  
  
• Decide if you want to live among expats, among ticos, or even completely off the grid.
• They all have their pros and cons.
• Do you know how to speak real Spanish?  Not just tourist Spanish (like me).
• Are you willing to learn it?
•  Can you deal with the slower pace, the Costa Rican work ethic, and the lack of care about YOUR time?
• Slowness is the cultural norm.  Many American's would frown upon being stuck for twenty minutes waiting for a cattle truck to load up steer for the butcher.  In Costa Rica, this is twenty minutes to admire the surrounding beauty or to grab a pipa fria (natural coconut water.  Just pronounce it carefully or you mind up with an order of french fries.
•  Are you familiar with the immigration laws?
• Were you aware that except in limited situations, an expat can't work in Costa Rica.
• Were you aware that Starbucks' only coffee farm in the world is in Costa Rica?
• Though, why would you drink Starbucks with so many great brews available?  Even Mexico rejected Taco Bell, twice (this wasn't part of the sage advice).

Just to make sure this alleged paradise on earth actually existed and to sort of sense check these expats who were most likely biased.  I checked the internet for the number of Costa Rican emigres.   Surprisingly, the numbers are incredibly low.  They are lowest among Central America and one of the lowest throughout all of Latin America.  Maybe they weren't lying after all...

4: Take your own route, not the route everyone is taking

There are a lot of unanswered questions besides The D's survival.  Will he grow into a manchild?  Will he catch up socially?  What is his mental capacity?  And probably most importantly, who will take care of him after we are long gone?  His brother Ryan, who has already been dragged through some tough years not knowing if his brother would even survive the treatment protocol, has some serious weight to carry on his shoulders.  We are blessed that he is mature well beyond his age and has taken this whole situation in stride.  He will always be a great brother to The D and is smart enough to realize that his life will be forever changed, as will ours.

Speaking of change, I've been thinking a lot about the family's future and more so, how to pay for it.  Though Lisa has returned to work, her commute is terrible (don't even get me started on how the hell it can take nearly four hours out of her day to commute fifteen miles each way on public transit).  My employer has been absolutely fantastic through this ordeal and I've been working remotely (from home) about three days a week which has made our quality of life much improved.  But this means we now have to pay for a nanny to help take care of The D and to drive him to his many therapy sessions which are only available during the work day.  The growing gridlock in northern New Jersey does not make it any easier.  Plus, nannies are not cheap.  To find a reliable one, we need to spend at least $18 an hour and average about twenty hours per week.  We would love to cut it back to around fifteen hours, but no one reliable wants to work that little.  We do not see this changing any time soon as The D needs a lot of therapy to catch up.  It must be done when he is young to have a fighting chance at a more normal life.

So where it looked like retirement was just around the corner based on our existing budget.  We now have unexpected costs of close to $2,000 per month, that we didn't have before.  Plus, our taxes and commuting costs are now increasing faster than our wages increase, adding to the difficulty.  Though, we are not crying poor.  Most of our savings are intact, and so far, we are still managing to sock away a little bit of money towards our retirement.  But my plans to retire when Ryan gets out of high school are pretty much an impossibility.  Especially in light of all of the tax increases the middle class continues to face.  Unless...

3: America Number One

Now I'm not blaming my country for my son's sickness and I'm extremely grateful for the incredible healthcare provided by both his brain surgeon and the incredible oncology staff at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.  But going through an ordeal like this was absolutely mind altering.  I recall the moment he was diagnosed like it occurred five minutes ago.  This will probably never change.  It absolutely alters the way one views such deeper issues as one's own mortality.  It also makes one think much less of first world issues.  Even major events that used to consume precious brainpower, now, no longer trigger even a passing thought.  So many things that I used to fret about have been reduced to nothing.  Knowing your child could pass at any fleeting moment and that you are powerless to change the situation is truly a mind-fuck.  As most of my peers were literally jumping off bridges over our national election results.  I was content knowing my child was still alive.  Even my eternal frugality has been thrown to the wind as I now forced to make monthly Porsche lease payment to pay for D's healthcare for the rest of his life.  This is after my employer's fairly decent health insurance costs are factored in.  Mind altering I tell ya.

But as I get older, now approaching my fifties, I've begun to notice what I think is the dumbing and numbing of America.  We have become so sensitive about everything.  We make stupid knee-jerk reactions without thinking them through.  We allow our political leaders to behave like criminals and not only do we not call for their heads, but we stupidly reelect them.  The fiscal crisis is a perfect example of this.  Everyone from Congress to leaders of national banks behaved deplorably.  Wall Street rating agencies, whose only purpose is to rate and review investment vehicles, joined in in the hoax.  Wall Street got the giant bail out on the back of main street and none of those responsible even received a slap on the wrist.  I mean really.  What kind of a deterrent is a million dollar fine to someone who corruptly made multiple times that amount.  Last I checked, the only person I remember serving time was Martha Stewart.  Even scarier, what did our governments do to prevent this from happening again?  They actually loosened the regulations further and made too big to fail too bigger to fail.  And the sated citizenship doesn't even realize how their wealth is continually being transferred upward.  Heck, I live in NJ.  One of the highest taxed states in the country and easily one of the most corrupt.  Our current (completely unqualified) governor literally purchased the governorship with profits derived from Wall Street greed and soon he'll try to buy the presidency.  And no one says a word (well besides me). 

 

America is number one.  Somehow the wealthiest nation on Earth is also tops in gun ownership.  In the number of residents in incarceration.  In lack of weeks of paid leave.  In the cost of health care.  In military spending and consequently, in the number of drone strikes.  All, which goes far in explaining why we are also the highest ranked in opiate dependency (ignoring Afghanistan, though I don't blame them considering what they have been forced to endure over their history).

So let's review.  My life was going great in the greatest country in this great world.  Then we had a sick kid, who completely changed my view of this great country and great world.  And to make matters worse.  The richest country in the world is considering not covering those with preexisting conditions going forward.  See where this is going?

5: Alexa. What is the best country to retire in?

Alexa: "Mexico."
Me:  "Damn it! Alexa, why Mexico over Costa Rica?"
Alexa: "Can you keep a secret?  It's really Costa Rica. But if I tell everyone it's Mexico, it's better for me.
Me: "Alexa, who says you're coming?"
Alexa: "Daisy, daisy."


From what I've read and experienced, there are three types of expats in Costa Rica.

1. Those who didn't save enough for retirement in the US (or blew most of it on a medical emergency) and need to stretch their dollar to retire.
2. Those who visited Costa Rica to vacation and simply realized how much better living the Pura Vida lifestyle is than lifestyle in the states.
3. Those who did save enough for retirement in the US, but want to live like Costa Rican royalty rather than American pawns.

I would now consider myself a bit of a combination of two and three, though I would guess most are a combination of numbers one and two.

So you must be asking yourself, how cheap is it to live in Costa Rica?  My answer would be, how cheap is it for a homeless person to live in the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City?  It really depends on lifestyle choices.  The single largest factor would be where you choose to live.  For example, one can choose to live in San Francisco or across the bay in Oakland.  Rent in Oakland is 40% less than rent in San Francisco.  Likewise, a simple 2 bedroom apartment in San Jose goes for $500 month.  In my parts, I pay triple that for property taxes alone on my less than 1/5 acre property in New Jersey.  Choose to live near in the ocean in a resort town?  Well the prices will obvious be higher.  But not nearly as high as you would expect.  Housing is the biggest bargain in Costa Rica.  Many expats live the Tico  life comfortably for $1,000 month.  Though, most expats would tell you that $1250 to $1500 is more ideal.  It really depends on how much you eat out, where you purchase your groceries and whether or not you choose to own a car. 

This is obviously the tip of the iceberg.  I plan to share with you the results of a recent trip I took down there that ultimately proved my research to be truthful.  So if you are interested in this gringo's perspective, keep on reading...

10: Big Boss Man

So we arrived at Casa Lima Bed & Breakfast.  The neighborhood was pretty sketchy looking in that there was lots of barbed wire, barred entries and fenced in driveways.  Most of the homes looked a lot like this.

Here's a photo of the hood.

So with rooms listed for as little as $27/night...we were quite relieved to find this when we pulled up.

It was getting late, 10pm CST (11pm our time) so we quickly checked in and decided to do the smart thing and rest up at the nearest watering hole.  Quite frankly, we were surprised there were still this many restaurants and bars still open in this district.  Without wifi, Yelp, nor even Google to provide dining suggestions, we let our vibrant sensibilities guide us to our first sampling of Costa Rican cuisine and libations. We drove around for about ten minutes and settled in to the authentic sounding, El Pollo Cervecero, which in tourist Spanish translates loosely to "The Chicken Bar."  How could we lose?  Better yet, there was a uniformed guard at the parking lot who was either going to watch our car while we ate, or simply steal it.

Well I ordered the chicken fingers and Paul had something a little more mature, like a chicken quesadilla. We both had a couple of Imperials, of course.  To our delight, the car was still there upon our return.  So after a quick ride back to the B&B, we were zonked and crashed pretty hard on night one.

So I have a quick question for you.  Do these two guys look alike?

I only ask because the proprietor, who was definitely an American expat, kept calling me "Big Boss Man."  Now I had no clue why he chose this nickname for me, but I did recall there was a WWF Pro wrestler who went by that name. So really, there are only two options here. Either the dude was blind, or he had a bad memory.  None the less, I was going to accept the nickname as a compliment.  I went on to receive that compliment no less than 23 times before departing his accommodation the following morning.

After a short night's rest, I was awoken by the sounds of birds chirping, and an awful lot of sunlight, plus the glare of Paul's iPad.  I guess he's an early riser.  I took a quick shower, I'm not sure if there wasn't any warm water or I didn't know how to work the cheap on-demand water heater that was attached to the shower head.  But, none-the-less, a lukewarm shower was exactly what I needed.  I quickly got dressed, checked the stock market to see that it was continuing to get pummeled and headed downstairs for our complimentary breakfast.  In the back of my mind, I envisioned the typical Holiday Inn Express spread with lousy eggs (not sure if that's really what they are), bagels that tasted more like a stale donut and make your own sugary waffles with the three-minute timer.  Instead, we sat just outside of the courtyard and had a proper sitdown breakfast.  They even had cloth napkins.

The complimentary breakfast consisted of some nice pastries, coffee, juice and some fresh fruit.  For an additional three or four dollars, you could have an omelette of your choosing.  We both sprung for the upgrade and the food was delicious.  We dined among an American family of four or five and I think the proprietors girlfriend (who might have made the omelettes).  The hotel was one of the prettiest and most interesting of the trip.  For the price we paid, it might have been the best bargain of the entire trip as well.  If I came through town again, I would not hesitate to stay there again.  Though my wife would probably not be happy without hot water in the shower.  After breakfast, the plan was to drive out to Jaco.  But not before exchanging some dollars for colones and finding a sim card for my phone.  Though so far, every place we had been, (airport, hotel, chicken bar) had very good (and free) wifi.

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