I’ll mostly let the amazing meal speak for itself: First Course – fire roasted prawns in a ginger-lemongrass reduction, sushi rice with a wasabi creme fraise sauce, fresh cilantro leaves and thinly shredded carrots; Second Course – roasted chicken with a seared balsamic reduction glaze, steamed and buttered broccoli, gingered carrots, and curry-baked apple; Third Course – macaroons drizzled with dark chocolate, merlot and berry consomme, and a key lime cheesecake topped with thinly sliced mango.

Santi, short for Santiago, says he burned out on being a chef at a high end restaurant in Palm Beach, and treasures surprising unsuspecting Arilapa guests with amazing cuisine they never thought they’d find at a $50 per night pension.

Downtown Alajuela can be best described as pandemonium. Narrow streets are laid out in an orderly 10×10 grid, but there’s very little else that seems orderly about this bustling city. Shops are interspersed with residences and offices, we took respite from the heat in the shade in Parque Central, where Julian climbed a banyan tree, and we located the bus station where we’ll catch our bus to La Fortuna and Arenal in the morning.

Our pension, Arilapa, for our first two nights, couldn’t be a more perfect landing spot. In the hills on the outskirts of town, rough around all the edges in all the right ways, it feels like authentic Costa Rica.

Ironically, the owners are not. Arnoldo, born in Virginia, graduate of University of Maryland, is a real character, sarcastic without being mean or tiresome, eccentric, and very friendly. He reportedly has four children, and a wife named Ileana, whom we actually corresponded with via email prior to the trip, but we have not seen them anywhere.

Arnoldo’s brother Santi, on the other hand, we met, and he’s the icing on the Arilapa cake. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, he first treated us with an incredible breakfast of eggs, sausage, fried plantains, cheese and bread, YUM!!!, and for our first dinner in Costa Rica he’s preparing a three course meal, for which all the ingredients were hand-picked by him at the Saturday Farmers Market.

Awoke to the sounds of the river, roosters, tropical birds, and I’ve read so much about the monkeys of Costa Rica that I can’t help wondering if they are part of the cacophony.