Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Best Pizza
EL WAGON
ALLAN TEMPLETON
Others have seen what is and asked why.
I have seen what could be and asked why not.
Pablo Picasso
“We have to create attractions here,” says Allan Templeton of El Wagon Restaurant.
“We can't just sit back and say we're great. We have to actually do things that people want,
not just pretend we're from Vermont. I think Vermont can get by on old barns and stone
walls but I don't think we can. We don't want to be totally tacky but we have to do things
that are interesting and a little off-beat.” If anyone should know that it's Allan, who, besides
El Wagon, also owns three other restaurants and two hotels.
Allan originally came to Costa Rica with the Peace Corps as a young man and not in the
best of health. He had been stationed in the Pacific prior to his arrival and had fallen ill.
“In Micronesia I lost weight,” he says with a chuckle. “I basically got here very skinny.
I was down to about 150 lbs. It turned out I had eleven different parasites.” He found that
in Costa Rica he could enjoy the same beauty he appreciated in Micronesia but without the
health risks. “I found the beauty that I loved so much in the South Pacific, right here in
Manuel Antonio,” he says. “Lush rainforests, nice beaches, hills going down to the water
and then going up to steep, almost mountain tops. And that's what attracted me first when I
landed here.”
Upon arrival his entrepreneurial instincts kicked in. “Before the internet or cell phones,
this place was hard to navigate, to really know what was going on,” he says. He was warned
by some that Manuel Antonio needed a new business about as much as a whale needs a tutu,
but as he looked around and saw so few doing it, he felt the opportunities were wide open.
