Costa Rica: Day 5

We woke up just a bit before 6am on our last day. Since we arrived to our hotel after dark the night prior, we weren't able to get a good look at the property. We were staying at a coffee plantation in Costa Rica and we couldn't leave without taking a look at it's inner workings! We made some coffee in the room and took our cups with us on our self guided tour. Our walk was quiet and peaceful.

We soon found out that the plantation was locked first thing in the morning. We decided to return to it after we got a bite to eat. Breakfast was pretty special that day. We watched the clouds settle in the mountains and listened to the classical music that was playing while we chatted about our trip. We started with this frothy fresh squeezed pineapple star fruit juice on ice. Wow, wow, wow. Yes please!
We moved on to this delightful fruit plate! Oh and the coffee...let's not forget that we were enjoying breakfast on a coffee plantation in Costa Rica!! I still get a little excited thinking about that dining experience. Steve and I kept on laughing at how absurdly perfect it all was.
After breakfast we continued our walk. We spotted hotel sheets, hanging to dry! This hotel has made some impressive strides when it comes to sustainability. A statement from their site:

Finca Rosa Blanca Coffee Plantation and Inn, the first certified sustainable hotel in Costa Rica, has evolved over the last 20 years to become the highest ranking member of the prestigious Sustainable Tourism Certification program (CST) and the only hotel that has achieved a perfect score of 100%. The CST, regarded as the strictest and most demanding program in the world for verifying the sustainability of hotels and tour operators, awards from one to five “green leaves” to those entities which participate in the program. As of 2009, there are approximately 130 hotels and 10 tour operators which are certified by the CST. The Inn seeks to demonstrate that sustainability can be incorporated into an upscale hotel setting by combining elements of environmental conservation, education, training, luxury, community development and innovative building techniques.

...and then the coffee plantation!

I could have stayed there for a long time. I was relaxed, the temperature was perfect and it smelled amazing.

Here's Steve enjoying the last few moments on our balcony.

Finally, it was time to pack up. We gave ourselves, (what we thought was) plenty of time to get to the airport. We had gotten lost the evening before so, we didn't have the most accurate sense of how long it would take to get back to San Jose. The hotel provided directions from the airport to Finca Rosa but, not in the opposite direction. We took them and felt confident despite the directions being a squiggly line down the page with a few businesses identified to help us know when we were headed in the right direction. We started driving and within minutes we were lost! There were lots of one way roads that made the directions hard to follow. We didn't have the time to try and figure it out on our own so after 5 minutes or so we stopped at a gas station. We filled the tank and I decided to ask the police officers in the parking lot for direction. The first officer I spoke to didn't speak English. The second officer couldn't have been any friendlier. He took my hotel map and went to discuss the best route with the other officers. Eventually, he came back over and said, "We think the best way is for you to follow us. If you don't, you will take a wrong turn." We were about to get a police escort to the airport. We followed them down the road for a few blocks until they stopped at an intersection. The officer I had been chatting with got out and asked another person in the neighborhood for directions. The police officers didn't even know how to get to the airport. Amazing. The officer eventually came over to our car and drew a new map...again with the simple squiggly line down the page. Sigh. He stopped traffic for us, we turned around and headed down the hill on what we hoped would be the route to the airport. It was! Moments later, we passed the gas station we were supposed to see and then, Europcar! We returned our car and picked up the shuttle to the airport. Success.

Costa Rica, you are beautiful! Glad to know you.