Saturday Drive

Saturday Drive

We woke early and as it was such a clear morning decided to take a drive up to look at the property. The views were stunning. We’re anxiously waiting the completion of the deal so the property will be officially OURS. Soon, possibly in the next couple of weeks.

We were in the mood for a drive after looking around for awhile. Actually, Bill is always in the mood to try different roads to places we haven’t been. Jim, our friend gave us directions for the route he takes to the beach from the property and Bill was ready to go. We headed towards the town of Berlin on a paved road then made a left onto a dirt road at Llano Brenas. We followed the dirt road until we reached the autopista near the town of San Mateo then on to Orotina. We didn’t go all the way to the beach as we were not prepared for the beach that day, (no swimsuits).

Along the way we stopped to take pictures of turkeys someone was raising and some of the many, many mango trees we passed. We also snapped a picture of an iguana on the side of the road as we sat with our binoculars searching the trees for Sloth’s. No sloth sightings this trip, darn! One day, we’ll finally see them.

It was a beautiful drive. We ate lunch at El Cafetal Mirador restaurant in Grecia along the autopista. It had a fabulous view but tourist prices to go with it. Lunch was tasty but expensive by our standards, over $20 for the three of us with two cokes and a water to drink. The service was slow. I never did get my water refilled. It is not someplace we will be heading back to anytime soon.

After lunch we headed into Palmares in search of Bill’s phantom fish market. I say phantom as Callista and I were sure after spending three hours looking for it previously that it didn’t exist. Alas, we found the pescadaria. Apparently the sign for it had fallen down so it was extremely difficult to find. On our previous trip in search of it we passed the entrance no less than 20 times. I took a picture of the entrance this time so we can find it again!

Bill was feeling vindicated after finding the fish market and decided we should celebrate with an ice cream in the park. What a surprise we got at the park this trip. Mind you we’ve sat in this park at several other times. We’ve posted pictures on other blogs about it. This time everything changed! After we ate our ice creams Callista ran off screaming about an iguana. We jumped up and followed her and to our great surprise discovered not one but at least EIGHT huge iguanas! Our disappointment in not seeing more wildlife on our Saturday adventure was quickly forgotten. As we were preparing to leave another GIANT iguana walked right in front of us. The locals had great fun laughing at us crazy gringos snapping pictures and pointing at them.

We’ve told friends about our iguana’s in the park and have been told there are also two sloths living in the park. Next time we’re in Palmares I’m going to sit in the park until I find one!

Pura Vida,
Jennifer, Bill and Callista

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