Adventure Travel with Rolando Campos - Chayote Lodge – Costa Rica

Guest Bio

Rolando Campos is the founder of Chayote Lodge, a boutique retreat nestled in the mountain village of Llano Bonito de Naranjo, Costa Rica. With over 30 years of experience in the travel industry and a career that took him to more than 60 countries, Rolando combines a global perspective with deep local roots. He believes Costa Rica’s true strength lies in its people, which is reflected in the authentic experiences offered at Chayote Lodge. Since opening in 2015, the lodge has become known for its intimate setting, scenic views of four volcanoes, and a focus on genuine connection with both nature and community.

Show Summary

In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Rolando Campos about his journey from working in the global travel business to founding Chayote Lodge in a remote Costa Rican mountain village. Rolando shares insights into the lodge’s unique location, far from the typical tourist routes but still close to major attractions like Arenal Volcano and San Jose airport.

Rolando discusses the inspiration behind the lodge’s coffee-themed design and how his childhood experiences shaped his vision. He explains how Chayote Lodge emphasizes a home-like atmosphere, treating guests as lifelong friends, and highlights the importance of connecting visitors with local culture through activities such as coffee tours, cooking experiences, and nature walks. The conversation also touches on the challenges and rewards of building a tourism business in a rural area and the meaningful role travel plays in supporting local communities.

Throughout the discussion, Rolando stresses the value of appreciating Costa Rica’s beauty through fresh eyes, a perspective he gained after spending a year as an exchange student in Missouri. He encourages travelers to explore beyond popular destinations and embrace the pura vida lifestyle that defines Costa Rican culture.

Big World Made Small guest features are invitation-only and selected based on story, experience, and fit with the show. Some guests support the show through paid production features, cross-promotion, referrals, or other partnerships. This helps keep the show free of third-party ads and interruptions while keeping the focus on real, story-driven conversations.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small Podcast for the Adventure Traveler. So happy to have each and every one of you back today, and also very excited to have our guest. Today we've got Rolando Campos. He's the founder of Chaiote Lodge in Costa Rica. Rolando, welcome to the show. Thank you, Jason. Happy for to be here and thank you for having me. Well, it's it's true pleasure. We spoke a couple weeks ago, and I was just kind of impressed by what you're doing. You know, there's a lot of lodges around the world, but they don't all do things the same way. And I spent some time chatting with you and looking at some photos of the beautiful place you've gotten. I thought, yeah, this sounds like a great fit for the adventurous type of traveler. So perfect opportunity. We're gonna dig so deep into your background, figure out how you got from where you were to where you are now. But before we do that, let's give our listeners kind of an idea. What is Chaote Lodge? First of all, am I saying it right? Yes, you are. It sounds so much better when you say it, the accent. Anyway, let's give our listeners kind of an idea of what you're doing there. Not necessarily how you started the business. We're gonna get into that. But what do you guys offer your guests there at Chayote Lodge?

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Well, Chayote Lodge is a small project, it's only 12 rooms. I tried to build a boutique property, uh, an alternative to the very well-known Costa Rican destinations. As you may imagine, Costa Rica is. I wanna say that popular destination for an inspirational type of traveler. People want to see Costa Rica, and that has taken the country to grow importantly into different segments. I've been in the travel business for over 30 years, so I said, well, I think I want to do something that is more out of the ordinary, more off-the-bidden path, while keeping the highlights that make people choose in Costa Rica. And that's how everything was planted, and that's what I have now. I have a 12-room boutique property overlooking four volcanoes, surrounded by cloud forests and coffee plantations, with a with the greatest locations, just one hour from the international airport, from the main international airport, and on the way to the Arenal Volcano, which is like the most popular destination in the country, but totally off the beaten path. We are the only lodge or the only hotel in the region in this area of the country, and everything else is still very rural. So, all kinds of agricultural produce going on. You have the coffee, you have cabbage, potatoes, dairy farms, and so on. So it's still a very authentic site of Costa Rica where now clients or visitors can enjoy that pura vida feeling and always being close to the main attractions they want to travel.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

And uh before I ask anything else, pura vida, I think I know exactly what that means, but let's share with our listeners because I've heard that a bit about Costa Rica, so tell us a little bit more about that phrase and what it means.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Yeah, well, pura vida is it's pura vida, you know. We we say pura vida for everything. We can have a you can have a full conversation with just the words pura vida. I can start asking pura vida, and you will go, pura vida, okay, pura vida, pura vida. That was hi, how are you finding you? Okay, I'm ready to go bye, have a good day. And it was four, four different pura vidas with different kinds of accent or pronunciation that will let you understand that that was a full conversation. So at the end of the or at the bottom of the sense, it's a way of life. I think we Costa Rican has been we have been blessed by the nature we're surrounded by, by the history of our country, by the kind of social development that has allowed people to grow a more pura vida lifestyle. And you truly see it. It's not a slogan, it's not a a tourist motto, but it's a true way of life. So translate is part of our ADN, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

I I get that. And traveling, having spent a fair amount of time traveling around Latin America, there are you know different places have their different phrases, but that one's special and it's translated, it's Pura is P-U-R-A, right? Yes. So, like the pure life, is that kind of the literal translation? Pure life.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Literally, it would translate as pure life.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Okay, all right, very, very cool. Thank you for sharing that. I just I learned something, so thank you. And you mentioned some one thing interesting. You said there aren't any other lodges or hotels around, but you've got all this great nature, scenery, culture right around the lodge. I guess honestly, the question that popped into my head is why are there not more lodges around? I'm sure you've given that that some thought. Are there are there challenges to operating in that area that keep the other operators out? Or what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Well, that that's a very a very good question, Jason. And I think it has to do with the opportunities. You know, investing in a completely new area of the Bidden Path, it always takes time, it takes longer than it would have taken in other parts of the country or a already developed destination like Costa Rica. And if you have the resources to invest, probably you will go and look for areas that are already on demand. But for me, it was a personal thing. I, as I mentioned before, I come from a larger background in the travel business, and I'm from here. So my mother was the school teacher of this very small town with about 300 people in this community only. And my father's family is also from this small village. So and I thought it was beautiful. And the more I traveled the world, I said I'm such a lucky guy to live where I do. And somehow it's you know that feeling inside where you want to share what you have with everyone. And it was on my wish list of all times. Someday I wanna build a little lodge, I think it's beautiful, I think as it's in the middle of the country, it's a good connecting point with the rest of the country, and so on. So it was more of a personal thing than an investing planning, you know. Probably if if I had planned it from the investor's point of view, I would probably have gone to a more popular part of the country. It's it's here, it's been hard, of course, and I'm sure this applies to anywhere in the world where you want to go and change things and do things differently, and it takes time. And but I think it's very rewarding because when people come and and they see the place and and the feeling around, the peacefulness around. There is this sense of silence where I'm sitting right here in the in the outside the restaurant, and it's just the birds singing around and the volcanoes in front of me. And you have this beautiful peacefulness, you know, atmosphere. And and I think it's worth it. I think it pays off, even though it's slow, the efforts of doing something new. And I hope also that it will be an inspiration to other entrepreneurs to also start their own business in the travel uh community with more lodges or restaurants or you know, and different kinds of attractions that can be around. But definitely it's a place to grow, and I'm sure it will happen.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

I I love that because I've been around a few days and I've had a lot of conversations. And I agree, there's definitely, you know, if you get a group of investors together and say, okay, we want to open a lodge, a restaurant, some sort of operation, and they're just looking at it from the financial standpoint. It's like, oh, well, there's 10 lodges over in this area, so they've got a good infrastructure. It's there's a lot of people already going there, there's cooperative marketing for the area, whatever. So we should just put it there. But then you get someone like yourself that has a a different vision that's connected with an area that they know is beautiful and they know is a good place to go, and they'll and they'll take that risk and put it out there. And that's always inspiring. And I think that's the one that like when the people find it and they go to your place, they're like, oh wow, I had no idea this existed. Right. You know, because because maybe they've been to Costa Rica before, maybe they went and stayed in one of those or other places, and then they come to your place, they're like, Oh, wow, this is totally different. All right, do you experience that with your guests? I'm sure you do.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Yes, I experienced, I experience exactly what you're saying, and and even with the local market. I I get um few Costa Ricans on the weekends, and especially on the weekends, and they're like, Wow, I didn't know this existed, or but this is so close from my house, it's only 10-15 minutes away, and I have no idea this was here the way it is. And it's very sad there is a big satisfaction. Oh yeah. Last year I I I I I have a client in in the UK, and she came with a tour operator at the beginning of the year last year, and then she came back around October, November, and she has ready book for this year again. And I'm like, wow, that's three times a guest from the UK coming to Costa Rica, that's first big right there. Uh huh. People don't travel so often to the same destination, especially long haul. And the three times they've stayed at my place. The first time they stayed only one night, which was the night before they flew back home, and the second time they stayed three nights at the beginning or two nights at the beginning, and one night at the end of the trip. And this next visit will be three times straight at the lodge. And I'm like, yeah, I think I think the when I see that that kind of of cases, I feel like, yeah. You're doing something right. Yeah, I'm doing something right. My mission, my the vision of of my company is to provide a place where you will feel at peace and enjoy the surroundings and and be a better person. And when you walk out of the lodge, you will be a happier human being than when you walked in. And I have to say that over 90% of the cases we achieve that. I have a wonderful team, I have really truly the best team I could dream of. And again, everyone is from the community, everyone lives close by with an area that I like to remark this is totally new, it's off the beating path. And so this team feels like wow, this is a different kind of job that we all get in this town. And there, and we're not used to working in tourism here. And the I think it has to do also with the attitude. The attitude that you can see from the staff is different than that attitude you see in other parts in Costa Rica or outside of Costa Rica that are already popular in tourism. You know, it's like yeah, here, and I say, you know what? We we are good in service, and the kind of service that I want to provide is the home service, the homing service. It's like when you have a house with your family and you have visitors coming to stay with you, and you know they will stay two or three nights with you, and they are your friends, your lifetime friends. And what do you do? How do you treat them? Where do you take them out? What do you show them in your town? Well, that's the way I structure the service at Chayote Lodge. I tell my team they're coming to see us because they love us and we love them, and we're gonna treat them like personal friends. So the type of service that we provide is on that level. You know, it's not the structured, beautiful, five-star, well-written scripts of how to greet a client, how to answer the phone, how to serve, how you know, how to say goodbye, and that's fine, it works for that for that kind of places. But here I said this has to be a pura vida experience that whoever comes here, they will feel they're just happened to arrive to a friend's house and be treated as a friend. And so far, I think it's worked.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

I I agree completely. And I also recognize it's not for everybody. There's other business models that that kind of work for the people that are doing them, but I I see your passion for, you know, a lot of our listeners are just listening to this, you know, it's an audio podcast, and they can't see the look on your face. I wish they could, because it it's pura vida, right? It just the look, everything. But I also, you know, I think of maybe a community where you've got, I kind of mentioned earlier, like a community where you've got 10 lodges, guest houses, hotels, or whatever, maybe a more built-up area. It typically doesn't feel that way. Not that a lodge in those areas can't really make an effort to try and treat people like friends and family or uh, you know, welcome visitors, but it just feels different. As someone that's done an awful lot of traveling around, when you go to a place, well, honestly, when I travel, I kind of like to be away from the beaten path. I don't necessarily want to be where all the other, I don't know, tourists or travelers are. I really appreciate the opportunity to connect with locals. Maybe, maybe this sounds weird, but so if I go to a small town where very few people visit, I'm just welcome differently. It's just like, you know, like, wow, what are you doing here? You know, because I look different, I definitely sound different. And what are you doing here? And they're just so much more gracious and just so much more likely to want to show me around because they're not, I guess the term is not tired of the um visitors. Except you know, it's it's like a new exciting thing, even though the law just been around a while and we're gonna get into that. I can appreciate that the local community might be a little bit more welcoming and want to want to share stuff. I I'm not sure I'm going anywhere with this, Rolando, but I also I want to ask, I suspect that for you as a business, and this is not a business podcast, but for you as a business operator, you can find really welcoming, lovely people to come join your team. And I suspect they stick around longer. They're probably have a better experience than maybe some of the staff members that are staying in a larger or more touristy area, where you know, they work one year at this lodge and then they move over to the other lodge, and then, you know, there's always, you know, new exciting opportunities to go to different lodges where I suspect your team feels more like a family, and it's just like you said, it's a great place to work, probably, for most of them.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Yeah, totally, especially because of the size of the community and the job opportunities around, but it's not the way how I want to present it to them. But I said, you know, we all have to be happy. We work with people. We're not we're not building cars, we're not, you know, making clothing in a factory. No, we're working with people, and every person who comes here, every person who travels, they have a dream. They are first, we have to understand that they are hard-working people, they work to save, to travel. They have the most limited thing they could afford, which is time. They have only X numbers of days per year to travel and discover whatever they want. So they are trusting us with the most viable asset they have, which is time. They don't have a second time. It's only one day at a time when May 27 is gone, it's gone. It's gone forever. There will never be a second May 27, 26. It's only one day with that date. And they decided to spend it at my lodge. So we have to make sure that we give them what they deserve, what they expect, and go above that because there will not be a second opportunity. And we in the way how we appreciate their confidence, their trust, is by delivering a good quality service, a good value for their money, a good experience, and that's where we work every single day.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

You know, I hear what you're saying loud and clear, and I agree with you a hundred percent. It's for most of the guests that are gonna visit you, or for a lot of the travelers, it is that it's that time thing. And I'm curious, I'm just gonna ask you, do you sometimes do you think it's difficult to convey that to staff or people that are working in your community that maybe perceive travelers as oh, they've got a lot of money, they can go wherever they want. So it it I can see where it'd be like, oh, they've got money, they can go anywhere, they can go on vacation all the time because they've got all this money. So I guess the question is, is it challenging for you? Do you feel like you really have to remind them about the time thing? Because it might not be something that's obvious.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yeah, it's you have to remind it. And I think this this this is good for everyone. And you have you have to remind it and you have to create new ways to remind it. Because otherwise it it grows old. So I I tell them, you know, we're all customers. At some point of the day, we're customers. How do you like to be treated when you go to the supermarket? On your day off when you go to eat at a restaurant, or on your vacation time when you go to the beach. We have X numbers of vacation days a year. How do you want to spend them? How do you want to be treated? And trying to grow the empathy on them, I think is the best way, and that's a repeating speech. You know, we're here to serve on the nice human way. We're here to share what we have. And we have to be conscious about it, what we're doing, and I we as as as the business, let's say, we have to keep reminding our staff of that. And I think it works, and I I think people are empathic. People have to understand that the team has to understand that our visitors come here and they had a choice. First, they could have gone to another country, but they choose to come to Costa Rica. That's number one that we have to be grateful for. Second, in Costa Rica, I don't know. There are 50,000 hotel rooms in this country. They could have stayed at any other one, but they choose to stay at ours. So we have to deliver. And the best way to deliver is do things with passion, with love. Transmit that to the client. You know, make them feel welcome, make them feel special. And this is not a motto, it's that they are special, and they are truly special. I mean, how can I feel about someone who had the option of going to stay at any other of the thousands of hotels in Costa Rica if they choose to stay at Chayote Lodge? How can I feel about it? Yeah, I have to feel very good first, then I have to be very reciprocal on what we're doing for them. And that goes from the kitchen to the mate to the gardener to the front desk. Everybody has to be on the same mood.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

I I see so I see and hear so much pride in your voice and commitment to this. I'm curious, do are your staff generally able to appreciate that as much as you are? Because you can say, wow, isn't it great they chose our place? That says, you know, number one, I picked the right place, I developed the right place, but also you hired the right team. And then does your team, is your team able to look at that and say, Well, isn't this friggin' cool? Look at this, this is part something I'm part of, and these people are coming back, you know, three times. Or are they able to see that? Do you feel that from them as well?

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Yes. Yes, I I truly do, and and I see their authenticity when they're working and their love for for the job and and for the lodge, and they are constantly bringing up ideas, or why don't we do this? Uh, we should change this, or I don't like how that's looking, or you know, so having the team involved in in the mission of the of the business is crucial. It's crucial because they are part of the lodge. Yeah, you know, yeah. They that's and if you if you go deeper and if you have to define what's what's the lodge, what's the hotel, what is it? Is it the rooms, is it the view, is it the stuff, is it the food? What is it? It's the union of all those very different things. And you have to get the suppliers, the and the staff, and the clients, and everybody has to go, even the clients have to go. I I keep telling my my my team, you know, let's picture this way we're movie directors. That's what we are, but we're not the actors, we're only the directors. So, what's our job? Our job is to make sure that the stage is ready, that costumes are ready, that makeup is ready, that lights are ready, that everything is ready. So when the actor comes, they have to play. They have to do their job. We will not do their job.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Right. Yeah. I cannot and how do you find the job of the actor?

SPEAKER_02 22:45

I I I find it great because everything is already set up for them to come and do their job. And what is their job? Enjoy. Yeah, that's what I was gonna uh We admire nature. I see them looking at the hummingbirds and they go for hours looking at the hummingbirds, and well, that's their job.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

They're performing. That's what they are supposed to do. That's their time. We have to make sure that we have the right plant with the right flower for the hummingbird to come.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Love it. Hey, let's let's do this because we've talked a bit about kind of the environment, the culture, the people, and all that stuff. I do want to touch on before we get into the history, I do want to touch on a little bit around the activities, because my understanding is not just a lodge. You can help them leave the lodge and do things. So what other kinds of activities are in the area? How do you how do you run those? What should people know about? Other than wow, it sounds like a great lodge, great staff, great place, but what am I gonna do? Exactly. You know, comes up, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:49

And that's very important because I always say, regardless of how beautiful a hotel can be, no one travels for a hotel. People have people have a people travel to have an experience. So again, when it comes to building the experiences, it was the same philosophy. Said, okay, I have friends coming to see me when I have not seen them in 10, 15 years, and they're coming from abroad. What am and they're gonna stay one week with me? What am I gonna do every day? Right? And there's when we start the planning of the different activities. So right now I have over 10 different activities that people go from here. They have we have the cloud forest hiking, we have bird watching, we have uh waterfalls, we have the blue falls where people can go swimming actually in a torque torquish blue river, very, very beautiful. We have the volcanoes, we have the Poaz Volcanoes, we have the Hot Springs about one hour from the lodge. We have coffee tours because we're in the middle of the coffee country. Now we have a coffee cupping tour, we even have a painting workshop for people to learn how to paint oxcards, which is something very famous in Costa Rica. So there is a lot of activities, and we have actually divided them in two different kinds. We have the the cultural side that we want to offer, and we want the nature side because there's something also I've learned throughout my throughout my career. People come to Costa Rica because they are motivated by nature. They want to see the volcanoes, the rainforest, the cloud forests, the wildlife, the wetlands, the beautiful beaches. But when they get here, they discover something that it was not in the radar, which is the people. And when they fly back home, you ask them what was the best part of Costa Rica, and I tell you, 90% of them will say the people. So I said, okay, let's build a product where we bring people closer. So we have activities where we go and eat street food in a local soda, where we have a cooking experience in a local home. And actually, I have a guest only two days ago, and and we took her to the cooking experience in in this beautiful town, uh at this beautiful house from from the from the village, and the lady still cooks with wooden stove, and that's the only stuff that she has. And it was Sunday afternoon, so all her siblings come around and she has 11 siblings, and the house was full of people. And my guest was cooking three different kinds of local, very authentic dishes, and then they all had dinner together. I'm like, that's what this is about. This connecting people is what it's about. And and this guest, she comes from a tour operator in the US, she was on assigned inspection, and they specialize on cooking tours. It's called the International Kitchen, and they run tours throughout the world just for cooking experiences. And she was mentioned, I love it. She said, This was so authentic, it's so authentic. You know, it's not the cooking class you do at other beautiful destinations, and they are the best ones, too. But this one is so real, so authentic. So, again, all the activities are designed with that vision. It has to be something that locals would enjoy, that is beautiful, and you as a visitor will feel uh safe in a controlled environment, you know, and and enjoying yourself. So, again, we have the bird watching, the cloud forest, the rainforest, the volcanoes, deep lining, hanging bridges in the cloud forest. So there is really plenty of things to do.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Curious when you started you, okay, we want to do some sort of cooking class, and you find somebody in the community, maybe this woman that you were describing that's still cooking with uh wood fire or wood stove. How does that go when you first approach them? Are they excited, excited, skeptical? I'm just curious what what that looks like, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

And then what happens because they their first reaction is like, No, I'm embarrassed. I do not speak English. Who are the people? And then they don't feel their house is beautiful enough. I said, Your house is so beautiful, it's just a regular house of the community, and it's a beautiful house, and you know, you just talk to them, but but there is an advantage here, they are nice people by nature, and they wanna help. They truly want to help, and you can see that so at the end it becomes something natural, and for that that that first experience, it's huge for them because they've never done it before. Like anything that it's your first time, it's gonna be always big.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yeah, scary, intimidating.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Yeah, and and I think it's uh win-win, everybody's happy. And it's and and also and also taking this to a more social um analysis when it breaks their routine. They have a uh quite steady way of life, you know, that you can predict every day is gonna be similar to the previous day in a very small rural town where things don't happen too often, and then suddenly you have strangers walking into your home and eating in your kitchen. So for them, also it becomes an activity. It's not only for the visitor, but for them it's also an activity. They're breaking their routine, they're experiencing something new, new, they are meeting new people, they are exchanging their Facebook accounts, now they're following each other, now they share photos, and suddenly you see that both lives are touch. Both lives gain something for their future days, and that's something that is also beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

I love it because what I'm because I've spent enough time in you know different communities, especially Latin communities, and I'm just sure that this woman had probably never had do you guys do you use the term gringos there to describe? Yeah, I I suspect so. So that I'm just gonna make it easy and say they've never had a gringo in their house in ever. Like, you know, however long they've been alive, you know, and then you've got the the tourists, maybe I shouldn't use the term gringo, but you've got a tourist from you know North America or Europe that's never been in a real house in Latin America. You know, they've maybe stayed at a lodge, they've maybe toured a a house museum or something like that. But those are huge things, those are really cool for bringing people together. Yeah, it's um yeah, it it's great to be out with a guide looking at birds, doing bird watching, and I think that's a great activity as well. But just go into somebody's house, like you know, and uh for both sides. That's that's very cool. I'm happy to do that. You actually said something, it's it's not super important, but I do want to ask because I've kind of come across it and I I just am curious. You mentioned coffee cupping. I'm guessing a lot of our listeners don't know what that is, or maybe they all do, and I'm the only one that doesn't. But just real quick, what is coffee cupping?

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Yeah, coffee cupping is the ability to qualify coffee through different techniques. So we have this professional, this man that is whose profession is exactly to qualify coffee. So they will he will bring seven different types of coffees. You just first have to see the the dry bean, the different kinds of beans, the smell, and then when the coffee is roasted and grounded, and then they pour hot water at different size at different cups with different types of coffee. Then he will teach you how to flavor it. And because he had seven different ones, you will learn how to differentiate them. Some are more fruity than others, some are more sour than others, and it's like wine tasting.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Okay, that's what I was that's what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

It's like wine tasting, and at the end you will be able to see what coffee is of better quality, and it will also help. If you like coffee, it will also help you picking the right coffee for your taste and for your body. Because you I'm sure you've heard people that said, ah, that coffee it really gave me a stomachache or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

But you don't know why.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

And you don't know why, and there is always a reason for that why. So, understanding that from the scientific point of view is what they learn in this workshop, which is really, really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Okay, that's very cool because I I think a lot of people that haven't had the opportunity to do something like that or visit coffee farms, you know, uh in the States, you walk into the coffee aisle and there's everything from Maxwell House to Starbucks to whatever you can imagine. And if you're like me, you're just like, which one do I choose? You know, right. And that's that's pretty cool. Um, because there's an awful lot of people that drink coffee but don't really know why they drink what they drink, and they just kind of drink whatever's put in. So anyway, that that's that's uh that's pretty cool. All right, let's uh let's dig into where you were because you mentioned a couple times. You've got 30 years in the tourism business, and I know it's not out all at the lodge, um, but we're gonna go back even further because you mentioned that you grew up in that area. How far back do we need to go, Rolando, to uh kind of get a feel for how you ended up doing this?

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Well, yeah, I I don't know. I I finished uh university in the we're going further than that. Yeah, because it's it's it's very easy. When I finished school in 1992, I went for hotel management. Then I got a first job in in a hotel in up in Guanacaste, in Tamarindo. Uh I didn't really like it. So only six months later I quit and I went and applied at a DMC in San Jose. And I got a job there. I worked for it, it was called in those days Swiss Travel. And I worked for Swiss Travel for 30 plus years, and I started in the in a hotel selling tours in a tour desk. All right. And then I grew up within the company. I was then in charge of Open Guanacaste, which is the northern region of Costa Rica. And then I was in product, I was in sales, I was in marketing, and I was this director of sales for the last 15 years. Then about in 2010, I got the opportunity to buy this piece of land of about four acres. Stop there.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Rolando, stop there because this is your life and you're moving through it really, really fast.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

I want to dig a little deeper. I want to go back to you mentioned that when you I don't know the the school system there, but you mentioned you went to school for hospitality management, right? But let's go back to when you were a little younger. I want to see what was little Rolando's Rolando's life like at home. What were you, you know, siblings, stuff like that? What were you, you know, what were you doing when you were, let's say, I don't know, let's pick a number, 10, 12 years old.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Well, it I have to say it was a very beautiful life. I don't know if it's Yeah, that's weird. Why do you want to skip over it so quick? Every every pastime is is better than that's my marking dirt. Yeah. I grew up in this small town and we went to school like any other kid, but in the summertime, which was your wintertime, December, January, February, is coffee picking season. So we have to go and pick coffee. And that's what I did when I was in elementary school when I had it while I was in high school. And it's a job that you don't like, you're forced to do because that's that's the only job you can do at that age, and especially in a small town. But you know, you have to be at the coffee plantation at 6 in the morning. Plants are cold and wet. You miss your vacation time working in a coffee plantation while you cannot go and play with your friends. You have this basket around your waist, picking all the red beans one by one. In that process, you run into any kind of accident from worms that will eat you in your skin to dropping your coffee and then collecting by hand all thousands of things.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

You gotta pick the same beans too.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

You know, so it's a job that you don't want it, but at the end you you get used to that, and then it becomes beautiful, and then it becomes when you're done with it, it's beautiful, and then it becomes philosophical, and then when the years pass by, you think about those times and you're like, wow, I do miss that. Okay, the conversations and the jokes you made in the coffee plantations, the people that you met, lunchtime was the best, and I can guarantee you you talk to anyone who has picked coffee, and their answer is gonna be the same. You eat cold food, cold rice and beans with a lemonade, and that's the best tasting food you can dream of.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

So because you're because you're tired and hungry, you've been working your ass off. Let me ask you this though.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Well, I never thought, well, and we'll get to this later. The lodge is designed after coffee. So the design of every room is after coffee, a picking after coffee receiving station, all the decoration, the architecture, everything is around coffee. I had never thought in those days that I would ever have a hotel inspired in coffee.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Did you that is super super super cool? I'm happy we went back a little further. Thank you. Was so you mentioned your friends and your colleagues were like, was it one of those things where it was pretty much all the kids were doing this? And was it only kids or were there adults picking coffee as well? I just want to kind of imagine what that looked like.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

It's a family thing, at least in those days was a family thing. So you yeah, you would have the parents and the kids picking coffee, and not everybody in the community, of course. Now we're talking of larger communities. Usually people poor, more poor families to let's say meet families, that would be their occupancy in that time of the year in in towns like where we live, where we produced a lot of coffee. Correct me if I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

I I thought I did a coffee tour somewhere in probably here in Colombia, and maybe that's the difference. And I thought that I'd learned that coffee beans, there is a period of year where they produce more coffee, but that it's something that actually is harvest mostly year round, and maybe there's a difference between coastary.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

There is there is only a season because it takes one year for the coffee for the coffee beans to be ready. So after the third year, the plants start giving coffee, and then it's uh it's a one one time a year production.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Okay, and it's kind of that. And it lasts a few weeks only. A few weeks, okay, which is why they need everybody that's available to come out.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

And that's why, for example, in Costa Rica we have the the school breaks in the same time of coffee season. So children could go from school to pick coffee.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Wow, isn't that nice? And did you do you remember? Did you like openly say to your parents, I don't want to do this, I this sucks.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Well, you have to I'm sick, I don't feel good. I mean because my mother, she was a school teacher, and uh so she was off as well. Exactly. So she would go.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

She would go and she didn't she didn't have the need to go. But I remember her saying that when she was a small child, or when she was a child, she had to go.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

And and for her, it was like remembering those days.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

So I So the maybe the first time she did it, she didn't enjoy it as a kid.

SPEAKER_02 39:54

Like everybody.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

But when she was going back in with her kids to do it, it was like, oh, but this is something I did when I was a kid, and I want to share it with you. So she's probably she's probably walking around smiling, isn't this great? And you guys are like, Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Yeah, yeah, you describe it perfectly.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

I I've I've had some experience like that with my family. How many siblings did you have in your family? I have one.

unknown 40:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

A brother or sister? One brother. He's a piano player. Would he would he describe the coffee picking pretty much the same way you just did?

SPEAKER_02 40:23

Yes, I would say so.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Yeah, all right. And is he younger or older?

SPEAKER_02 40:27

He's older, and he went for music. So he's a a good piano player and a music teacher in high school, and he made me go into buying a piano for the lodge. So we have a beautiful acoustic piano in the restaurant, and he comes to play every Sunday, and he's there for also guests to play. So suddenly you have guests just standing up and going to play the piano and enjoying their life.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

That's very cool. Does he, as far as you can recall, I mean, obviously he's engaging with your guests now when he comes to the lodge and plays. Do you recall him ever have expressing an interest in tourism or hospitality, or did he just went straight into music?

SPEAKER_02 41:08

He knew his straight into music.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

That's uh that's that's very cool. Why did you choose hospitality management?

SPEAKER_02 41:16

That's a good question. When I was 17 years old, and probably that was a life-changing decision, I went to the US for a year as an exchange student. But when I came back in 89, I uh spoke English, which was not like the norm in those days in Costa Rica. So then I have to pick what to do after that. So I said, okay, of course I'm gonna go to university. And I said, Well, I had already been abroad for a year. In that year, I learned to admire the beauty of Costa Rica, and I said, Costa Rica is so beautiful that it will only take time for people to discover it and people will line up to come to Costa Rica. So I think the future of Costa Rica is gonna be tourism. So I'm gonna go for that. So I went to school thinking that that was gonna be the future, and and I remembered the day I came to the local little to the central park in my town. It was a bigger town than were the lotches, and you know, we all gathered together, all the high school friends, and I I remember I came back and we all had to go to register for university the same day. So that was the conversation that night. And what what did you register for? Or what are you gonna do? And there you had lawyers, people going for law, for medicine, for architect, for engineering. And I'm like, I'm gonna go for tourism. And I remember a friend said, What? Why are you gonna pick that? You better do a cooking class. How can you think of that? Like, well, you will see, it will work. Now he's a lawyer, he's been a lawyer for 30 years, and I've been in the travel business for 30 years, and now we meet every, you know, whenever we meet every year or whatever, and like, okay, let's see how we have both enjoy our lives.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

So I think it was a good decision.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

I and I think so. But you know, it's your experience is not that different from a lot of people, especially a lot of people that have been on this podcast, is you know, when they decided to go be a guide or be a you know to work in tourism. I think a lot of them, their families, their friends, said the same thing. You know, mothers and fathers that imagine their kid being a lawyer or a scientist, and and then he sh, you know, he or she shows up and says, I'm gonna be a tour guide, or I'm gonna open up, you know, do bicycle tours or food tours or whatever. And I remember the first time I mentioned to my family that I wanted to be a fly fishing guide and go into tourism. I got no support. I shouldn't, maybe they're listening. My mom might say, I I was encouraging, but I don't know. It was, how are you gonna make money doing that? And don't you think you should be responsible and do something else? And here today, you and I are sitting here having this conversation, hopefully living our best lives. So I get it. And there was there was something else that I want to Yeah, I think we need to dig into the whole exchange student thing. I'm happy again, I'm happy we went back far enough to touch on that. I guess the first question is how did that come about? How were you able to do that? What type of organization allowed you to do that? And then I want to hear more about your actual time overseas.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

Yeah. Well, every year we had exchange students in high school in my community, and there was there is an organization called AFS, American Field Service, and they provide a scholarship. So you would apply for to be part of their program, and it would take one year. The process to be approved. So during that year, you have to go through several tests and screening to finally be approved or not. And I was approved.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

What kind of before we go on? What I'm just curious, what does that mean when you say we had to go through tests and well they have I remember this is so many years ago.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

We would that we would have like monthly meetings where they would go through different subjects and talk about social issues or political issues, and you have to learn and you have to study and then you have to share and you have to do team building activities. Probably they will measure your capability of team building and and working together and and your personality for exploring, you know, and and how to adapt to new uh ecosystems and how how would you go away at 17 and move one year from your house? Uh are you how mature are you for that? You know, probably they have different kinds of of um um statistics or or way how to measure that and and do that because I do remember at the beginning we in those days maybe we were 500 people applying for that, and maybe 100 could travel. So let's say 400 were not qualified during the year. And at the end, they'd send me, or they I was lucky, very, very lucky, to be sent to Missouri. I was in where I was that was lucky. Yeah, very, I tell you.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Let me before we get into discussing Missouri and the differences between Missouri and Costa Rica. I know it was a long time ago, but if you were to guess, what do you think it was that the organization was you kind of mentioned what the testing and the qualifications I'm curious, what were they trying to avoid? Like when they're like we want to pick uh we've got a hundred spots and we've got five hundred kids. We want to pick the 100 that are most likely to actually stay the whole year and not want to go home, or is it something else?

SPEAKER_02 47:05

I I my guess now that you you mentioned it, I think about it, I never did before. Probably they use different kinds of criteria. Probably they try to do selecting people from different parts of the country because you have these programs, put it this way they provide you in a scholarship to go abroad for a year to come back with a foreign language, with a vision totally different than the community you left a year before, and thus become leaders in that community. So probably I would imagine they try to randomly pick people from larger towns, from small communities, from bigger cities, from different paths of life. Because here in this organization is huge. I mean, they have been, I think, I think it started in the Second World War, and you have AFSers all over the world, and you have big leaders. Big leaders, people have been presidents of countries or big businessmen and whatever that started, or they they who did the year abroad with AFS. So I would imagine it takes different profile of people, people on economic slow or higher social incomes and very low social incomes, uh that economic incomes that could balance, you know, when they came back to their own countries to to do something for their communities. And you see them in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

So it is what I hear you saying is they legitimately were trying to make the biggest impact. We want to take the kids, number one, who will actually see it through. Because if they send, if they just pick 100 kids at random and you know, 50 of them get homesick after two months and come home, then they wasted all that money and it didn't make an impact. So pick kids that'll see it through, but then will also come back and make an impact in their communities. And this is on both sides. I I'm envisioning it's not just what can we do to make the Colombian or Columbia, the Costa Rican economy better. How can we make an impact there? It's take kids from the US or other countries and have them go experience uh Costa Rica, Latin culture, and then bring that back to their communities as well. Uh so it's it's a two-way street. Yeah, it sounds like. Yeah. It is. That's that's pretty cool. All right, Missouri. So uh you said you were very lucky to go to Missouri. I love Missouri. Anybody that's listening that loves Missouri, it's it's an amazing, wonderful place. And um, what was do you remember what your first thoughts were when you landed in Kansas City? Where did you fly into?

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Well, we flew from Costa Rica to New York. We stayed one week at a campus at I at a university in New York, all the kids from all over the world. We met how cool. And then after that week there, where they gave us, I guess, basic information of the country and whatever. We were sent to the different states. And I flew to Kansas City.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Did you know when did you know from the very beginning you were going to Missouri or did you go to New York and then find out where your assignment was?

SPEAKER_02 50:20

They gave us the information, or we were going, I think maybe like a month or two months before flying.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Okay, sorry. But by the time you got to New York, yes, so you're you knew exactly where you were going. You and all the other students, I'm sure one of the first questions was, I'm going to Missouri. Where are you going? Right, I imagine, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

And what kind of res Do you remember? Here you are in New York, which is a little different than Missouri. Do you remember having conversations with the other students and having them like, Missouri, where where is that? Or were you still excited to go to Missouri by the end of that week?

SPEAKER_02 50:55

We we were we were 17 years old. So I guess we were all very excited where we were going. I guess some states would be more appealing at that age. People going to California were like, oh, you're so lucky you're going to California.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

You know, that's what I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

That kind of thing. And and but I was fine. I mean, I was happy, I didn't know anything about Missouri. And I remember you we had exchanged a letter with the host family before. Before I flew to the US, they had sent me a letter with a photo of their family and what and a nice letter from the mother.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Back before video, back before video calls. Of course.

SPEAKER_02 51:32

Before we had internet. And I remember the letter had their home address with their zip code. And when I was at the university at this campus in New York, they had my name with the address I was going to, and the zip code was different. It was the same town name, but the zip code was different. Like for one number. And I was concerned. I'm like, oh my god, is this a mistake? My family in Costa Rica has a different address than the one is showing here. So I remember I was very concerned, and I went to talk to one of the leaders, and I remember she laughing and say, You don't worry. The letter will never get lost in Missouri.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Well, that's one upside of small communities. So you so it sounds like it was a smaller community. You flew into Kansas City.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

I flew into Kansas City and I took a bus. They put me on a bus from Kansas City to Jefferson City. And my host family would collect, would come to Jefferson City to collect me. And we drove to Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. Which was like, I think two hours' drive, maybe, I don't remember. And it was beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

Yeah, it is beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

I had the best family you could think of. They became my real family up to today. Actually, my father he passed away only last week, and it's been like a hard time. I could not make it there. But we talk like very, very often. They come to Costa Rica every two, three years. I go to see them every two, three years. So it's been a beautiful, a beautiful, beautiful relationship. And I remember my mother, I called, I called her mom. We drove from Jefferson City to the lake, and she had a job before she moved to the lake. They were originally from Chicago. She had a job selling water mattresses.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

Like the water beds back in the day? Yes. Okay. Alright.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

So yeah, the water beds. So she would tell me the whole journey, the two-hour drive, that I would have a water bed. And I did not understand a word of what she was saying. So I only said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Finally, when I get to the house, she takes me to the room and she puts my hand on the waterbed. And I jump and said, Waterbed.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

I I guess this is a good time to ask you. How much how would you rate your English at the beginning of this trip when you arrived in Kansas City?

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Did they speak Spanish?

SPEAKER_02 54:12

None.

SPEAKER_00 54:12

Oh, yeah, that's that's good. All right.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

I will have my dictionary with me. There was there was no no phones and no Google Translator. I would have the dictionary and I would have to go word by word. And I went to a small school, school of the Osage High School, and they people were so nice. I remember one of my she would take every day one hour of her school time to teach me English.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

That's so cool. Yeah. Did did you feel frustrated at f I'm sure at times you felt frustrated? But I guess the question is when you got to Kansas City and got on a bus at 17, didn't speak any English. Did you think this is crazy? They they should have told me. They should have made sure that I spoke English before, or were you just happy to be there?

SPEAKER_02 55:20

You're just happy to be there. I mean you that's cool. Your goal of living that experience makes everything work. Yeah. You don't stop to complain. You don't stop to ask questions. You just keep going and enjoying.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

Yeah. Just figure it out along the way. My experience was a bit different, but when I first started traveling full-time four and a half years ago, I had been to South America, I'd been to Latin America before, but I didn't at that time I didn't have any need to speak Spanish because I was always visiting people that took care of me. But when I started traveling full-time and I bought a one-way ticket to Colombia, I didn't speak any Spanish. And but I was in my 40s and I had a phone in my pocket that had Google Translator on it. So it wasn't that big of a deal. So I can't even imagine uh the experience you had. That's that's that's uh that's very cool. What other one thing you mentioned was you realized on this trip how beautiful Costa Rica was, and how and came to the conclusion that people are gonna want to go there and visit Costa Rica. So tell me more about that if you can. Like, do you remember how that idea came up that Costa Rica was so beautiful, or it just popped in? I mean, it was just obvious.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

I mean, I guess after seeing Missouri for a year. I discovered that Costa Rica was beautiful. No, I I I was very lucky. My family, they had a marina, so they had a house on the lake and Lake of the Ozarks, and it was wow, amazing.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

And you didn't have to pick coffee beans, like I have to watch boats.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

That's better.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

But it was beautiful. I mean, when I see Costa Rica, when I let me how can I word this? I have been all my life in Costa Rica, which was not beautiful because it was what I had, right? It was nothing new or nothing spectacular or nothing that will take my breath away. But then when I'm gone for a year and I start seeing Costa Rica with new eyes, I said, Wow, this town is beautiful. Wow, look at that volcano. I mean, I don't know how many school trips I did to the Poad volcano. Before I said, wow, this is the most beautiful crater in the world. So when you have the the vision to appreciate what you have right next to you, is when I truly believe Costa Rica is a beautiful country that people will want to come and explore. And then you grow, you grow older and you understand, or you start things, start think seeing things differently and putting the puzzle together, and then you get in the business and say, Wow, what a fantastic way to help people is travel business. And when I think about how travel has changed thousands of life, probably millions of life around the world. It's amazing. Travel for your vacation, and you're really making a life difference into someone's life. They will finish school because you visit them, because you bought food from them, because you stayed in their lodging. And that's something beautiful. Then then you want to get a star. You want to get a start involved, involving in other projects, and then you go to the local community chambers, and you go to the tourism chamber, and you get involved in in trying to do other things from different perspectives. And it's beautiful. I think travel is the best way to spread wealth around.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

I well, there's wealth, and then there's so many other things that are less tangible.

SPEAKER_02 59:05

I can think of any other I I cannot think of a better way to spread the wealth around the world than travel. You will hire people from the most sophisticated computer engineer to a person that only knows how to clean or do the gardens. And that person will have a great quality of life and will guarantee the education of their children, and only I think only travel provides that in such a spread way.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

I agree, because you know, you look at the alternatives for how does international uh you know, international trade, and you look at things like I don't know, oil production, textile manufacturing, uh, you know, farming imports, exports, and stuff like that. And it's yeah, it's it's just a little bit different than going and visiting a place like yours where you've got a variety of people from a variety of different backgrounds working at the lodge, maybe even your marketing team that helped with the website all the way up. So yeah, I I get that. Very cool. I did want to ask you real quick because I think what you described has been a bit of my experience in the conversations I've had with people here in Latin America. Oftentimes when I meet them, a lot of people are like, Oh, you're from the US, and I want to live in the US or I want to go to the US. They haven't been, and they it's just something aspirational. And then I meet so many others that yeah, I lived in the US for a year and I was really happy to come home, you know. And the people that, you know, whether it's you know, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, or whatever, like those people that came back oftentimes are like, Yep, I really love Costa Rica now, or I really I I think that my country is the most beautiful in the world, and they don't realize it until they've had an opportunity to go somewhere else sometimes. Yeah, so I suspect you've you've you've spoken with more Latinos than I have about the subject, I'm sure. But is that kind of what you you've seen as well?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:07

Yes, yes. I think I think uh sometimes you have to see things from the outside to love or to appreciate what you have in the inside.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

Yeah, and I um because I imagine like especially like your staff that haven't had the opportunity maybe to leave Costa Rica to visit Missouri is you know they get the the tourists from the US are like, oh my god, this place is amazing, this is so beautiful, and da-da-da-da-da. And sometimes your staff are like, Well, what why are they so excited? I don't under maybe the new staff, the older staff maybe get it, but the new staff is like, why is everybody so excited? And that probably that's probably the second best way to appreciate your country. The first might be to leave it, and then the second best way is maybe to engage with visitors because you hear them talking about how great it is, you're like, oh yeah, actually it is kind of nicer, you know. I don't know, what do you think? Do you think that somebody can appreciate your area just by hearing guests talk about it?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:09

I think more than that. I think people will appreciate the area when they have a happy life.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:16

Yeah, yeah, good thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

As long as they as we all realize that we have the life that we want to have then we can appreciate what is what is around us. And you will take also that's another good part, you will take better care of what is around you if you appreciate what you have right there. And I think in Costa Rica not only in my lodge or my community, but in general, we are proud of our country. We love living here. If you see the statistics, I think we rank it. Some people say we're the hype happiest country in the world. Other put us in number three after Finland and Switzerland or something like that. But in general, we appreciate what we have. And we're proud of what we have. And there I think the country also has been there has been some marketing behind us in the echo thing. When we said, okay, we're proud to protect uh 50% of the country, and 33% in national parks and biological reserves, and you know, all these things that you keep hearing and hearing, and somehow you grow them inside you and and appreciate them. But but first you have to be happy. First, you have to cover your basics, you have to have housing, food, education, health.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:40

Because if you need one of those Yeah, it's hard to enjoy the volcanoes and the waterfalls and the hummingbirds if you are trying to figure out how to put food on your family's table or don't even have a table. Yeah, I love that I love that you mentioned that because I do remember a an acquaintance or friend that I made here in Colombia, and she's like, because I was like, Oh, my you know, Colombia is my favorite place on the planet, and she's like, Yeah, my country is can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something along the lines of my country is beautiful and wonderful. And then she said, if you have money. And I kind of felt like an ass. I was like, I don't, I don't have money, I'm a podcaster. But it was like, but she made a good point. It's like she was able to see that, yeah, there's a lot of cool things here, but you know, if you can't go out and enjoy them because you're you're worried about money, it's yeah. So you bring up a that's a good point. Yeah, yeah, I get that. All right, let's now I want to kind of get back in a little bit to the progression. Uh however, you uh, you know, we can point out the things that you think were the most important, but you you dropped out of oh, actually, we should talk about that. You told your friends, I'm going to hospitality school. I signed up for hospitality school, and they're like, You're crazy. Why would you do that? And then you mentioned that you dropped out of hospitality school. So what happened in those six months?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

Well, I graduated from hospitality school. You did? Uh okay, I I missed that. Okay. I graduated in '92 and then I started working in a hotel. And six months later, I quit my job and then I got a job in a DMC.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:16

And I worked for that DMC for 30 years, 31 years actually. And it was in that course when I said, I always said, okay, someday I want to have a little hotel. Then the opportunity came. This piece of land was for sale, which was very close to my house, and the view is amazing. It's only one minute to the main road, it has all services, electricity, water, internet. So I said, that's it. So I could finally contact the owner and we negotiated, and I could buy the land. And I have no money for anything else. Of course, I have to pay that first loan. Then I have had an experience with a hotel in Arenal Volcano. There is a beautiful property there called Nayara, and I was part of that foundation too, and they had hired very good architects. And I said, I want the same architects for my property. So I talked to the guys, I said, you know what? I bought this land, I want to build a lodge, and I want you to design it, but I don't have money to pay you. So I made them an offer. I said, I have no idea when I will build. What about if I pay you $100 a month starting now? And someday I'll ask you to do the plans. Okay. So for four years, every month I pay $100. And then when the time came, I said, okay, now I'm ready. Start designing and drawing the plans. So then they start with the first proposals, but of course I had already paid a good amount of money. But the time I could actually start working in the final or In the beginning, steps of building the lodge. So they came with some um plans. I didn't like them. I mean, I said, you know what, guys, I want a very beautiful room. I know it will not be the best hotel in the world, it will not even be close to the best hotel in Costa Rica. But I want it to be the most beautiful room. I want a I want a room that when you walk in, you said, Yeah. I think that's smart. That's what I want. Because I will have to balance the things that I know I will never have. Because a small 12-room property will not always get the service and amenities that a large resort has. So whatever we have, it has to be wow. So they made a first room, okay, and then to make things worse, I had traveled by then, I don't know, 50-60 countries because of my job. And I had stayed in probably thousands of hotels. And in every hotel, I would say, I like this for my room someday. I will take this for my room. I remember the Le Meridian Hotel in Vienna. They have a beautiful draining in their shower.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

And I said, if I ever make a hotel, I want to have the drainer of the Meridian Hotel of Vienna. You know? And I will go thinking of thinking. So for the for the guys to come up with a room idea was hard. And I turned back three different proposals.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:40

Because I mean, let me get this straight before we go any further. Because what I hear you saying is I gave them a hundred dollars a month for four years with the idea that when I was ready, they would do the work, like all the work, or did you or were you just like it was like, okay, I'm paid in full, so now you do the work, or were you still paying?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:03

Oh no, no, I will have because what the architect will charge according to the value of the investment.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:09

There is a percentage in in their charging system.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:12

So you were just making down payments. Exactly. I was making down payments. Okay. Because he wasn't I was imagining them like he only gave us whatever the math is, you know, four thousand dollars, and now he wants more payments. All right, because I was thinking you sound like a really difficult customer. No, no, no, no. Well, I want the drain from this hotel in Vienna, and I want the the lights from this place in Vietnam, and yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:40

Exactly. So I said, okay, I turned back three different proposals for the room design, and I didn't like them. And one day I was walking out of my house, and right in front of my house, there is a coffee receiving station. And for those who don't know what a coffee receiving station is, it's a wood box along the road where farmers bring the coffee at the end of the day, the coffee beans at the end of the day, and a big truck comes and picks everybody's coffee to go to the coffee mill.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:16

Okay, so these are dried, these are the dried coffee beans ready to go get roasted.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:21

No, they are the fresh. The fresh coffee. So every day during the coffee season, the farmers, in Costa Rica we have mostly small coffee farmers. So they gather together around a cooperative and they bring the coffee to the same coffee meal. So the coffee meal would install these coffee receiving stations in the towns nearby where the farmers bring their coffee produce of the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:48

In a bag, presumably, that's so they can the people that pick it up know it where it came from.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:52

And then a big truck comes and picks everybody's coffee.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:55

Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:56

Yeah. So this wood box is just, you know, a square thing made out of wood with no windows, and that's it. So one day I walk out of my house and I look at the coffee receiving station in front of my house, and I'm saying, My god, that's the room.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:12

I mean a square, a square box with no windows.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:14

That doesn't sound that sexy, but a square box with no windows, and it has a story to tell. So I called the guys and I said, You know what, guys? I found the perfect room. It's gonna be like a coffee receiving station, and they're like, You're crazy, that thing is ugly to hell. I'm like, It sounds crazy, it's gonna be beautiful because where the big truck comes and picks everybody's coffee, it's gonna be the balcony to the valley.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:40

And where the small farmers come to bring the coffee at the end of the day, it's gonna be the main door. And we just have to do two steps inside to keep the shape because the shape is like inclining, like an inclining architecture. And they came out with with a first draft and it was beautiful. Very cool. And it's I tell you, people go in the room from the inside and the outside, and they're like, wow. So I invite everybody to go to the websites and look at the rooms because Asia are very different, and they have a story to tell. And then after picking the room design, he said, okay, now everything is gonna go around coffee. So the whole architecture, the design, the decoration of the restaurant, of the public areas, everything is around the world of coffee. So it has a story to tell. Everything has a story to tell. All the decoration inside the rooms is made out of coffee of coffee wood, everything is done by a local artisan. So everything is very, very thought after.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:46

Okay. I I don't know why this popped in my head right now, but as you're discussing that, I was imagining a family coming to visit you in what you kind of described as summer, but basically it was kind of I think December through February is coffee harvesting in in that time. Yes. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm imagining after this conversation, somebody bringing their kids there and wanting to go spend a day picking coffee. Can you has that happened? Can you see that? Is that something you would have to do?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:15

Yeah, that's something we do. Well, we have different experiences. We have the coffee picking day where people go and pick coffee, but it's not very very common for guests to request that one. But we do the coffee tour where we go to a local micro mill with a local family again, and they show us around their whole production from the plant to the cup, how they pick the coffee, how the coffee is sun-dried, then roasted, then grounded.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:41

Do you do you find that your guests, maybe when they arrive at first, they don't appreciate everything in the building? Because you said it's all coffee themed decorations and all this stuff. Do you find that after they go do a coffee tour, coffee experience, that then they come back to the lodge and you're like, oh, I recognize that. I saw that over there because inside the room clicks with that room.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:03

Inside the room, there is a number of elements of things that they already have seen in the in the coffee mill.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:09

So you should do that like at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

And then if if you go to if you go to my website and you go to the room tab, there is a description of the room told by the room.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:23

So the room is the one speaking that said, Welcome to me. What you're seeing here is this, this, this, and this. And it's it's very inspiring too.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:33

That's a that's a that's a really cool take on it. I do you mentioned four years of paying the architect as you were saving up money to go to the next step. Um but I'm also curious, like from the time you actually bought the property until you opened the lodge, what kind of time frame are we talking about? About four and a half years more or less. Okay. Okay, so and during that four and a half years, were you still maintaining your employment with the DMC to keep this going?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:07

I assume I kept my employment with the DMC only until last year. I opened I opened in January of 2015, and I only stopped working for the DMC last year.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:19

Okay, so yeah, so you were you had your hands in a lot of different things, or a couple different things for sure. Talk to me about your family or other people in your life, either in the last 15, you know, 15 years or or currently, you know, I I don't know your family situation. We haven't discussed that, but I'm just curious like other people in your life and how supportive of this are they?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:43

Well, I have a um a small family, was my my I'm still single, so my my brother, my nephews, and my dad's side are from the town where the lodge is.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:56

So I have a couple of cousins who work with me at the lodge. So it's like yeah, like a family business in many senses.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:05

And then your brother comes out and plays piano with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:08

He comes to play piano every Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:11

Alright, that's uh that's that's very cool. So it sounds like they're overall pretty enthusiastic about what what you're doing. So very cool. What's uh what's big and exciting on the horizon for you, other than just continuing to welcome guests and change people's lives?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:27

I would like to grow, not in number of rooms, but in services. I would like to do a spa, I would like to do a little pool or big jacuzzi. I would like to do more tours with the community. Now that I'm full-time at the lodge, I also give more time to the community. So there is there are different kinds of associations in the local community, one for the water, let's say. So I'm already getting involved with the water committee of the community. Uh there is one that is called I don't know how you call that, Junta de Sarroyo Comunal. It's uh the official or formal way how the town uh organizes. So I'm already part of their board. I'm also a member of the board of of the of the Costa Rica Chamber of Tourism. So I like to participate in different kinds of uh social and political uh institutions where I can give back somehow. And I and I like keeping busy, I have to say, because there is a big truth here. I was very busy at the DMC. Yeah, it was one of the biggest DMCs in Costa Rica. I would travel six months out of the year, had all different markets to take care of from Europe to North America to South America, and then all the segments. I have the luxury market with Virtuoso, I had uh cruise chips, I had uh groups, I had mice, you know, I had all the world going on, and suddenly I'm in this con peaceful 12-room lodge. And I'm like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:04

I'm happy you brought that up because as you were, you know, you mentioned I just left the DMC not too long ago. Somebody that's listening to this and maybe isn't able to see your face like I am might interpret it as okay, this lodge sounds like where Rolando went to retire. But if but if you see, if you're fortunate like I am to see your face, you know, you're you're about my age, it sounds like probably early 50s based on some of the timeline you discussed. And you just look like you have a ton of energy, ton of like this isn't I this is not like a little place to go sit in retirement at this point, is it? No, you've got other things going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:43

When I decided to to leave the DMC and last year, I said, okay, now I'm going on an early retirement. I can, I mean, there is so much things going on that that I can always get involved besides the lodge. So of course, lodge is number is taking most of my time now, and I want to be there, but I like to get involved in community activities, and so you don't seem like the retired type.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:08

No, that's that's for sure. Yeah, yep. So that's uh it's it's very cool. Rolanda, we've discussed a bunch of different things. I know we probably missed a I'm gonna say I know we probably missed some things, but I'm really happy we went back to before hospitality school because there were some real nuggets in there that kind of help explain a lot of the things that we then went on to discuss. So thank you for your willingness to go back that far. And I'm curious, what did I forget to ask you, or what do you wish that I would have asked you that you might want to share with with our listeners about Costa Rica, yourself, philosophy, anything like that before we wrap it.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:51

I think we've covered pretty much all aspects around the lodge. Just would like to remark that the lunch is a beautiful place for people to start their journey in Costa Rica or to end it because our proximity to one hour to the airport that feels like longer than that, because it's a very rural town, very rural part of Costa Rica. And no, I I think my message is travel. Get out of your house and travel, go wherever. Go wherever. I mean travel traveling is the only activity where you will spend money and will make you richer. Everybody should travel more and more and more. I always uh have a comment to say of those people that spend their Sunday afternoons in a shopping mall looking at windows. I'm like, why don't they travel? You know, even go to the local volcano, go to the local park, go to the river that is only 20 minutes from your house.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:50

Enjoy nature, talk to people, and travel is the bridge, I think, to to grow, to do things better.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:59

I I hope a lot of people, there's a lot of people that need to hear that. I hope they hear that. I also recognize that most of the people that are listening to this conversation right now, you're probably probably already agree with you. So hopefully we'll take a clip of this and put it in front of people that need to hear that message. But I wanna I do want to ask you one. So if I go to Costa Rica, I fly into San Jose, I get off and I meet my transfer driver, or I show up at the lodge, and the first thing out of my like and I show up at your lodge and someone comes out to meet me out front, and I just say, Por a vida, is that a greeting? Is that like I want to give our listeners one thing that when they go to Costa Rica, because if if they're going to Colombia, you might say, you know, it's como estás, because everybody says that, whether they want to hear your response or not, como estás? Like uh, and they usually say it three or four times in a row in three or four different ways.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:51

Like, I think I already answered that question, but but if I'm going to Costa Rica, I can get off the plane and I can say pora vida, and that's just a greeting. It's kind of like in Hawaii might be Aloha. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Am I interpreting that right? Yeah, but right. So so now everybody has knows what to say. The first thing to say when they get to Costa Rica. So that hopefully res re reduces some of the you know, whatever, makes it a little easier to go. So very cool. This was a lot of fun, Rolando. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:18

Thank you. No, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:21

Yeah, yeah. Let's uh continue to have conversations. I'm excited to to see what you continue to do. And obviously, you know, I had one night. I guess we didn't mention this conversation. I had one night in San Jose because of you know flight delays and stuff like that. And I was supposed to spend three or four days in the country. I got one night, and I've been wanting to come back ever since. And when I do, I'll definitely come up and visit you. Rolando, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:45

Anytime. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:47

All right, ciao. Hasta luego, chao, buenos días. C that's better. Talk to you soon. Bye.