Costa Rica (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Matthew Firestone [165]
BUDGET
Sabores (2645-6174; cones ₡560-1700; 11am-8pm Wed-Mon) With longer hours than La Lechería, this place serves Monteverde’s own brand of ice cream, plus coffee and a variety of homemade desserts. It’s the perfect place for a civilized scoop after a morning hike through primitive forest.
Panadería Jiménez (2645-5035; items ₡560-3000; 5am-6:30pm Mon-Sat, 5am-10am Sun) This bakery has the best goods in town, like whole-wheat breads, pastries and coffee for folks booked on the early bus.
Dulce Marzo (2645-6568; items ₡650-4500; 11am-7pm) Yummy home-baked sweets, wraps, sandwiches, good espresso drinks and a favorite-cafe feel make this one of those places to linger over a late-morning coffee as you skim the paper or your guidebook. Foreign magazines scatter the tables and there’s also a book exchange if you need reading material for the next leg of your trip. Located next door to Atmosphera gallery.
Stella’s Bakery (2645-5560; mains ₡800-3200; 6am-10pm) Order your choice of sandwich on delicious homemade breads with a convenient order form (one side is in English), and don’t skimp on the veggies, many of which are locally grown (and organic). You can also get soups, salads, quiches and lots of tempting sweet pastries.
Maravilla (2645-6623; mains ₡1500-3500; 6am-9pm) Just about the cheapest and most authentic restaurant in Santa Elena, this charming soda serves typical Costa Rican specialties including excellent casados. The menu also features American favorites such as fajitas, pancakes, French toast and 12 kinds of milk shakes. This place gets very crowded during lunch hour, so plan accordingly.
INSPIRATION IN THE CLOUD FOREST
Born and raised in Monteverde, Marco Tulio Brenes moved to San José, where he worked with established artists, at age 18. He ran the gallery Éxtasis for a decade, lived in the USA, and exhibited his work there in group and solo shows, and found inspiration for recent work in his travels through Europe and Turkey. He’s been an artist – or at least wished to be one – since he was very small. Now he is dedicated to working mostly in sculpture and painting in his open studio, Artes Stulio, in the cloud forest.
What are your artistic influences? In my sculptures I always find that nature is my biggest influence, and when I saw the works of Henry Moore, they also influenced me for some time. In painting, my primary influence was the surrealists, especially Dalí; after some time, I discovered that the true influence of my work I found inside myself, through the investigation of the intense colors and organic shapes of the tropics.
How would you describe your style, and in what media do you work? It’s difficult for me to describe my own style. It’s imaginative, visionary art. In painting, I work in oil and acrylic on canvas. And in sculpture, I work in stone, ceramics and principally in clay. Stone and clay are my favorite media.
Describe the arts scene in Monteverde. I live in Monteverde because it’s the place that brings me the most inspiration, with its marvelous forests and its spectacular views of the Pacific. Furthermore, it’s a place where I meet good artists working in different media, and who live the artistic life very intensely, and with a dedication to diverse cultural activities. For this reason it’s a great place where I can show the public my work in my studio and at the same time demonstrate my process.
What is it like being an artist in Monteverde? Monteverde is a unique place to feel and live art. There’s a definite feeling of a dedicated artistic community, whose art manifests itself in diverse media – music, poetry, sculpture, yoga, photography, makers of musical instruments… There are quite a few arts events here, but the artists and the art-appreciating community always wish there were more events and opportunities to share artistic experiences.
Café Caburé (2645-5020; mains ₡2300-5000;