Costa Rica Blog

San Jose is a buzz with activity.  Everyone seems to be looking forward to 2010.  I arrived into Costa Rica yesterday on a packed A300 wide body flight from Miami.  The airport was jammed, every flight was arriving packed with families on vacation from the US as well as Costa Ricans heading home for the holidays.  I'll spend the day today meeting all our tour guests at the airport as each arrives from various places across the US and Canada on various airlines. 

Coffee cultivation was first undertaken on a large scale by a small group of planters shortly after Costa Rica's independence from Spain in 1821.  Earlier, in the first half of the 18^th century Costa Rica's trials with coffee were unsuccessful.  Relatively isolated, Costa Rica was on no important trade route nor was it a regular port of call. Furthermore coffee was processed in Chile and shipped to Europe where it was sold as Chilean coffee at prices which seemed exorbitantly high to the Cost Rican planters.  However in 1845 a British ship owner gave them direct access to the English market elevating Costa Rica from the country with the worst economic conditions in Central America to far surpassing the other nations in prosperity.  The British, in fact, were the principal purchasers of Costa Rican coffee until late in World War II.

Costa Rican Beer

One of my favorite restaurants in the southern Pacific area of Costa Rica is La Fogata in Uvita.  Their specialty is rotisserie chicken on a wood fired oven but they also serve pizza, pasta dishes and salads.  The rotisserie chicken is about the best chicken I have ever had, a combination of great cooking as well as the fact that the chickens are all free range.  Unlike chickens in the US produced in some factory farm on a diet of corn, these chickens live outdoors and eat things chickens naturally eat.  You can bring your own beer and wine.  The seating area is rustic on a deck covered by a roof but no walls.  They doubled the size of the seating area last year since there was always a line to get a table.  Even with the extra seating, if you show up after 7:00 pm on a busy day, the chicken may be all gone.  Take the first right after the big bridge on the Coastal highway (heading south) and La Fogata is on your left about 200 meters down the road.  If you find yourself in Uvita at a time you are feeling hungry, it is worth searching a bit to find La Fogata.  Expect a half chicken dinner here with sides to set you back about $5 dollars.