Nomadic Narrative

Most of us can’t spend weeks relaxing beach-side. Every minute counts. When we take a vacation on the coast, the ideal destination offers relaxation, opportunities for a little exercise and good food. In Costa Rica, finding a pristine beach with opportunities to relax and exercise is as easy as finding a store selling sunscreen. What’s more difficult to find, as is the case in most popular beach towns, is good food to match.

Heading to Montezuma, I expected to have to suffer through the overpriced and unimaginative cuisine typical of touristy beach communities. As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Along the two short, bohemian blocks forming Montezuma’s center, there are several gourmet and health conscious restaurants and coffee shops.

Picture this, only to describe a few. (I won’t give you the names so that you can take your own culinary adventure!):

Breakfast: a homemade bagel topped with cream cheese, locally smoked fish (delicious) and red onion. Wash it down with a huge mug of fresh coffee. Meanwhile, bask in the warm breeze blowing through the open-air café and let yourself embark on food dreams as you read appetizer favorites such as fig-and-cheese crostinis chalked on the wall. Top it off with a freshly picked, red hibiscus flower delivered to your table by the charming cook!

Lunch: after hiking to the local waterfall, a cold glass of agua de pipa, or coconut juice, lowers the body temperature. And a bowl of fresh black beans, salsa and guacamole atop a bed of dark greens decorated with homemade corn tortilla chips gives you a healthy jump-start.

Dinner: Believe it or not, you might want to order steak instead of seafood. The incredibly tender and perfectly cooked lomito al gorgonzola may draw me back sooner than later to Montezuma. My only complaint, like in many parts of Costa Rica, is that restaurants don’t serve decent house wines. I support CAFTA for the simple fact that it may encourage restaurateurs to select something other than Frontera Cabernet Sauvignon.

Dessert: When an entire refrigerator at the local supermarket is dedicated to champagne and chocolate, you know the town means decadent business. In fact, one hip hole-in-the-wall offers coffee or its homemade dessert ― buried underneath a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate ― complimentary.

Combined with an unhurried ambiance and what appears to be sustainable development, Montezuma, Costa Rica sent me home with that been-relaxing-at-the beach-all-week look…without the extra kilos!

To get to Montezuma, fly into Tambor or take the adventurous three-hour bus and boat combination from San José described here.