Melissa’s Soapbox

Mirador Lodge Views

Most readers will realize from the previous entries that we did not have a very good experience at the Mirador Lodge. We like remote places, but the Mirador was remote in a bad, actually in an almost hostile, way. Andy’s screenplay seems funny and implausible, but it is all unexaggerated fact. Not only were we provided with no directions on how to get there, we were never told that a) finding the place would be so difficult, or b) the front desk closes at 10:00 p.m. As such, after a long drive from the airport, the doors were locked and no arrangements made to accommodate a later arrival. The town of Monteverde/Santa Elena is the middle of nowhere, and the Mirador is literally an hour long drive from the town on the worst dirt road on Earth! The next day, the front desk clerk (one of the many Rafaels we met in Costa Rica) had the audacity to tell us that NOBODY has ever arrived later than 10:00 p.m. before which I found nearly impossible to believe (we were even paid in full).

The absolute worst part was that an employee resides on the grounds, woke up and heard us yelling, and assumed we were thieves robbing the place as we screamed “hello hello” with the headlights of the car shining into the lobby. All things considered, we were lucky that the lobby front door opened with some muscle or else we would have really been in a bind … it was really late, absolutely nothing was open in the town, it was freezing cold, we had precious few options. I complained to the clerk that we were in danger given the weather and other things. He said, “Oh no, it’s very safe here” to which I obviously replied, “yes, so safe that the lodge’s night time caretaker thought you were being robbed by crack criminals screaming hello and help.”

After the abysmal night spent on the lobby couch, we just wanted to get some real sleep. We arrived at an ice-cold room with no heater and no wood, no kindling, no matches, and no starter for a tiny pot belly stove. As I watched the front desk clerk nervously fumble to start a fire with some candles and wet nail-riddled 2X4’s, I seriously considered leaving but we were so tired and so remote, we just stayed to try the make the best of it. While breakfast was fine, dinner was atrocious (recall the Secret Sauce incident).

The only good part of the Mirador Lodge was the amazing views.

But, we got ‘em back! We flushed our toilet paper into their eco-schmeecko system, AND we took super long hot showers sucking up more than our share of wind generated power! So put that in your pipe and smoke it!!!