It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... a hotel?

If you love aircraft so much that you'd prefer to stay in one even when you reach your destination, then Costa Rica's Hotel Costa Verde (www.costaverde. com) has the lodgings for you. Its recently unveiled newest offering is a suite installed in the fuselage of a Boeing 727. Built in 1965, the passenger jet served with South Africa Air and Avianca Airlines before its retirement in 1990. After acquiring the airplane, the hotel's owners disassembled it, hauled it by truck through the jungle, rebuilt its interior and installed it atop a 50-foot pedestal.

The all-native-wood, paneled suite features two bedrooms, each with private bath; covered wing-top terraces that provide spectacular treetop views of the ocean and surrounding rainforest; and a kitchenette and dining area. Don't want to eat in? Stroll over to the hotel's restaurant and bar-a converted Fairchild C-123 cargo airplane that gained fame in the Iran Contra scandal during the Reagan era, when Nicaraguan guerrilla fighters purchased it with CIA help.