Perched in the jungle on the Pacific border of Costa Rica , a 1954Fairchild C-123 Provider aircraftoriginally build for the U.S. Air Force sits wait like it might have crashed into a hill . It ’s a payload plane , the kind often used for covert operations . But it ’s not just a historic token from one of the biggest dirt in U.S. story — it ’s also a bar .
A quick summing up of the Iran - Contra Affair for those not familiar : If you ’re an American , you may remember the nameOliver North . He ’s the human being who lick for the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan in the mid-’80s and was responsible forartificially inflatingthe prices of arms that the U.S. sold to Iran , adeal they struck with the Iraniansin society to win back American hostages in Lebanon . North then scooped up the profits and , with the help of the CIA , used ( some of ) them to buy a clustering of military planes , spare component , and munitions , then construct a secret airstrip on a cattle ranch in Costa Rica . North funneled the good to the anti - communist guerrilla Contra rebels in Nicaragua , who were defend the Cuba - allied Sandinistas .
Two of the shady woodworking plane that North buy for the Contras were Fairchild C-123s . One of them famously got shot down over Nicaragua on October 5 , 1986,as it was shuttle Soviet - made AK-47s , ammo , rocket grenade , and more to be dropped off in the waiting weapon system of the Contras . The pilot , who parachuted out , was nail by the Sandinistas . His testimonial ultimately caused a huge Abronia elliptica of cover - ups on the part of the Reagan giving medication to come to Light Within — and the end of the cargo - smuggling operation .
Stephen Allen
Meanwhile , the other 123 - C , our heroine , sat moldering away at Costa Rica ’s international airdrome in San José for the next decade and variety .
In 2000 , some enterprising local manage to buy the orphaned plane for just$3000 USD , with the idea of schlepping it out to the rain forest on the Pacific coast as a tourer attracter . They ply into a problem , though , when it turned out thatthe narrow roadstead and bridges transversing the region , built over a century in the beginning in purchase order to transport banana tree , were too thin to accommodate a clunky 1950s military plane . They ended up disassemble the aircraft and shipping it to the coast on an ocean ferryboat , hauling seven while up the steep route through the Manuel Antonio hill .
Razvan Orendovicivia Flickr //CC BY 2.0
That ’s where it sit today , on the edge of a drop-off , reincarnated asEl Avión(“The Airplane ” ) . While the body of the C-123 itself houses a sweet little Browning automatic rifle , adorned by decalcomania and graffito from visitors , a paries - less wooden cap on stilt has been built around the plane , with board and chairs beneath it , so that a straggle opened - aura restaurant multitude the prevention - planer . Guests are pretty much given the run of the aircraft and are leave to wax into the never - used cockpit .
The fare at El Avión — seafood dishes and tropic cocktail — is not excellent , nor is it cheap , and the aesthetic is resort hotel - flavored . But with sloths , red macaws , and gilt scallywag frolicking in the hobo camp about 20 feet from your board and a striking view of the Pacific from a few hundred feet up , there are certainly less pleasant place to have yourself a soursop slushie and nerd out on a little morsel of Cold War chronicle .
