To find a restaurant not overlooking a concrete jungle is a joy indeed. La Casita Inn maintains the rural feel of Santa Ana, a typical country town about 20 minutes southwest of San José that has been hit by nonstop development. Over a period of time, I watched the renovation of this old country cottage and a new construction go up in the abandoned garden. Where a flock of sheep used to graze, an organic garden now flourishes and supplies the restaurant with fresh herbs and veggies.

The first five nights of July are being strung together with a series of guitar performances by musicians spanning the geographic and stylistic spectrum of Latin America, in the second San José Guitar Festival at the Veritas University campus in the southeastern San José district of Zapote.

Sitting quietly at the base of a pristine valley in the mountains of north-central Costa Rica is a tiny, secluded annex of society, a place almost hidden from the world, offering the escapism of a utopian novel combined with all the modern conveniences of a Holiday Inn.