Hilton Papagayo Resort - Costa Rica

Ah to be on an all-inclusive beach resort in Costa Rica. To just lie here, on a towel-lined lounge chair, a thatched umbrella above you, the waves crashing in the distance, and something cold the bartender mulled with mint leaves sweating next to you in a glass.

It's in these kinds of moments that you feel truly alive, that you start noticing everything around you is in vibrant Technicolor. Has the sky always been this blue? The trees this green? The breeze this lovely?

The only major decisions you need to make today is whether to try the Italian restaurant over by the spa or keep the reservation you have for the place next to the main pool where you previously ate a crisp pork belly entree and drank more wine than you've had all year.

Then you realize you've had a lot of pork belly this week. Yesterday for lunch at the open air hut cafe near the beach, you ordered the "local fried pork" dish with pieces of crispy pork belly, fried cassava, and shredded cabbage in a thin vinegary sauce. And that was just an appetizer.

Enough pork, you decide. Tonight, you want a big fat steak. And hey, the open air hut turns into a steakhouse in the evenings.

Later, you arrive to dinner wearing the same board shorts you've had on all day. Even though you're still digesting the mid-afternoon nachos, ceviche and beer you had at the bar, you mouth waters because the air is sweet with the aroma of beef and Argentine sausage roasting over a billowing fire.

This, you think, is going to spoil you when you get back home where the forecast is rainy and gray.

Hilton Papagayo Resort & Spa
Playa Arenilla
Golfo de Papagayo
Carrillo 50503, Costa Rica
+506 2672 0000

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Kolache Factory - Tustin