AtomJohnson Blog

We both woke up feeling very strange this morning.  After taking all of our vitals and looking up our symptoms on the internet, we deduced that what we were both feeling was a total lack of a hangover.  Having never experienced this feeling on July 5th, we were both taken aback and immediately thought we had come down with something.  You never think its going to happen to you, but sobriety has no favorites…it can attack anyone at anytime.

For breakfast, we decided on The Country Bounty…purely because of the name.  Not seeing that the buffet was full of delicious gluten-free options, Jess got her old standby breakfast of oatmeal.  She tried to order some bacon, but our waitress whispered that she could just get some from my buffet plate.  In the end, Jess quietly took potatoes, bacon, grilled polenta and delicious salsa from my plate.  Our waitress didn’t charge us for her oatmeal or her OJ, claiming that it was all included with my buffet order.  The total for both of our gut-busting meals was $8.07.  Our waitress found herself with a very fat tip.  If you’re ever in Salida, CO around breakfast time, stop at The Country Bounty.  They’re basically giving food away.

With bellies full and heads clear, we headed down to Crestone to see Sharon.  Sharon housesat for me 2 winters ago.  We had the good fortune of overlapping for about 3 weeks, so we were essentially roomates for almost a month.  I had heard a bit about the Crestone house during that time, but did not realize just how amazing it was.  It is a straw bale construction house that she has been building for the past 11 summers with her 5 sons.  She let Jess and I look through photo albums of the 11 years of construction.  It is such an amazing little house, but even more amazing when you see all of the work that has gone into it.  She is currently selling the almost finished house in order to move to Hawii. I highly encourage you all to buy it.  If you ever need a housesitter, please look me up.

Jess and I had hoped to head into Alamosa to see the Saturday night stock car races, but were dissapointed to find out that the tracks had recently closed.  The Dept of Transportation is making all of the roadside attractions in the valley take down any signs with writing on them.  I guess it is killing business for alot of attractions.  The lady at the Colorado Tourism Center instead pointed us towards Calvillo’s Mexican Restaurant.  I soon found myself enjoying my second buffet of the day.

As the daylight was fading, we made our way up to Sand Dunes Natioal Park.  These are the tallest dunes in North America.  You can’t even believe how enormous they are.  Anywhere else, they would be considered large by mountain standards, but with 14,000 peaks behind them, they are a bit dwarfed.  We were welcomed by the evening rush of mosquitoes and the late day howl of crying children who did not want to leave.  Once we stepped foot on the dunes, I understood their anguish.  Imagine the world’s largest sandbox bordered by a 100 yard wide creek to splash around and cool off in.  Sadie and Ruby were dying to run around off leash, but government regulations prevent such acts.

To close out the day, we went to the Sand Dunes Hot Springs pool.  This is an olympic sized pool filled with 98 degree water.  Its probably too hot to enjoy during the day, but its the perfect way to spend a cool Colorado evening.

After pouring an insane amount of money into the gas tank this morning, Jess, the dogs, and I all headed south for the holiday weekend.  Jess was a little sad to be breaking her traditional 4th of July plans with her friends, but assured me that she was OK going out of town instead.  The plan was to drive all the way down to my friend Sharon’s house in Crestone, CO and to head back up to Salida in the evening for the fireworks.  Well, after grabbing lunch in Salida on the way down, we opted to just stay there for the night and then head into Crestone on Saturday.  This was definitely the right choice as we found one of the very last available rooms in town for the night at the Mountain Motel.  Your $70 includes three beds, clean towels, wireless internet, and enough pine wood paneling to furnish a revival of the 1970s.

Salida is a very interesting town caught between its redneck roots and its newer, more progressive inhabitants.  Its currently about one half mullet and rubber-peeling Camero and the other half fauxhawk and kayak/mtn bike  hauling Subaru.  I embrace both.

With several hours to kill before the sun went down, we did the most American thing we could find…we played mini golf.  I’m sure a lot of real golfers look down on us mini golfers, but I’ll take mini golf any day.  Being 2 strokes ahead after the first hole, I was pretty confident that I was going to destroy Jess.  It appears that I peaked on the first hole…from there it was all down hill.  That was until the second 18 holes.  We somehow reversed roles and I was unstoppable.  The all came to a head when I got a hole-in-one on Hole #13.  This was a vast improvement from my hole-in-six on the same hole during the first round.  After 36 exhausting holes, I barely won with a score of 110 vs. Jess’s 114.  We celebrated by purchasing temporary lower-back tattoos.

After the sun went down, we did the second most American thing we could find.  We ate about 4 pounds of kettle corn and watched the fireworks.  While the fireworks were exciting, the two forest fires that they started stole the show.  They also cut the show short as the firemen who were in charge of setting of the fireworks were now tasked with trying to put out the fires.

We arrived in Telluride this morning about 10:30am.  Even this early hour is too late to secure a parking spot in the parking garage.  So, we claimed a bit of the roadside, loaded our gear onto our backs and decided to bike down the road and into town rather than line up for the Gondola.  The ride down was exhilarating (read…shorts-soiling scary).  The ride into town was beautiful, but challenging (read…constant vomit burps, cramping and occasional pockets of oxygen).

Somehow we found enough room for our butts and gear in just about the same spot as yesterday.  The crowd was already twice as thick as yesterday.  There were alot of very rough looking people also trying to recover from the prior dayda.  The sun seemed to have moved a bit closer to festival grounds for a better vantage point, which did not expedite the recovery time at all.

After about an hour, I decided to head into town to catch the Croatia vs. Turkey match.  Once again, there was a hard-core contingent of soccer fans willing to trade in the scorching sun for some manufactured shade and European Championship football.  Two of the guys at the bar were from Norway and had made the cover of the Telluride newspaper that day.  They are from a town of 7 people in Norway and are doing a bit of research to help them facilitate the bluegrass festival that they’ll be putting on in their hometown (population 7) later this summer.  They expressed their surprise to find any soccer fans at all in America.  They somehow missed the irony that they are Norwegian bluegrass fans.

The musical highlight of they day was Paulo Nutini.  He is a 21 year old Scottish musician that has enjoyed some success on popular American radio stations this past year.  While his radio releases are good songs, they only scratch the surface of what this kid is capable of.  He did the best version of “Worried Man” I have ever heard.  If you like Scotland, or even music, check out some Neutini.  Unfortunately, they cut his set 20 minutes short in order to give a surprise presentation to honor the 20th year that Craig Fergusen and Steve Szymanski have been running Planet Bluegrass.  While it was a good presentation, I believe that Paulo Neutini’s command of the microphone had more of a beat you could dance to.

Scott and I closed out our last day at the festival with Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby.  It is one of those weird combinations like peanut butter and pickles that you don’t think would work, but somehow strike an amazing harmony.  The bluegrass version of “That’s Just The Way It Is” seems to be the way it was meant to be played this entire time…better late than never I guess.  To take in this music along with a Colorado sunset against the surrounding peaks was almost too much to take, yet we’d gladly take it again.

I can’t say enough good things about our experience at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Thank you so much to Nikki, Jeff, Sandy, Darren, Billy and Marybeth for letting us share the lawn space that they worked so hard to secure.  You all made us feel more welcome than you could possibly know.  I wish we could have hung out for another couple days.  Thank you too to The Bergers for your generosity and amazing hospitality.  Every time I come down to Ouray, you make it feel like home.  Thank you to Scott for making the trek out from Atlanta to share my first bluegrass festival with me.  Hopefully we just started a long and growing tradition.

“Peace, Love and Get the F’ Out of My Way!”  Those are the words that Nikki, our tarp mate, used to describe the hippy sprint each morning at the opening of the bluegrass festival.  This group of fellow-man-loving people line up hours before the 10am opening of the gates with enormous tarps whose sole purpose is to lay claim to this conquered plot of festival lawn.  As the gates open, one would swear they were witnessing the running of the bulls.  In a matter of seconds, this lush green lawn transforms into a patchwork of brown and blue plastic tarps with proud, but exhausted hippies heaving for every bit of oxygen they can find at 9,000 feet above sea level.

Scott and I had every intention of arriving early enough to make this sprint, but ended up getting to the festival grounds about half an hour later.  Since it was only two of us, I found a small area at the rear of the front lawn that crept slightly onto another tarp.  Fortunately the tarp owners were very generous and were more than willing to share the back of their property with us.

The festival itself would seem to be a fairy tale if someone simply described it to you.  The approach to the festival grounds is a winding trail that passes over a raging river, through a grove of quaking aspens, beside a children’s fishing pond, and finally opens onto an enormous field surrounded by 11,000 foot snowy mountain peaks and nearly vertical, tree lined hills with about every shade of green represented.

The group that was kind enough to share their tarp with us grabbed their first beer at 10:30am.  As we joked with them about the early hour, they reminded us that you can’t drink all day unless you start early.  With that, we went and grabbed our first beer.

The rest of day was spent watching one world-class musician after another take the stage.  It is rare to be in setting where the musician facing out is in more awe of their view than the thousands of fans taking in the music.  The only break we took from the music was a bike ride into town to watch the Germany vs. Portugal quarterfinal match of the Euro 2008 tournament.  We were not the only die-hard soccer fans willing to sacrifice some of the value of their ticket in order to watch the match.

The people watching at the festival is top notch.  Folks from every walk of life have put their lives on hold, checked their egos at the door, liberally applied sunscreen and congrated on these festival grounds to further validate the stereotype that white people can’t dance.  Somewhere in the mid-afternoon, I alerted Scott to check the guy in the Black Sabbath t-shirt, skinny jeans, high tops, ratty red bed head and Buddy Holly spectacle frames.  With a slight snicker, we forgot completely about this guy…until we later saw him singing into the microphone during the Ryan Adams set to close out the first night of the show.

After a surprsingly smooth day of festivities, we found that the most painful part of a day at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival is trying to get back to your vehicle.  Funneling an entire festival of folks at the same time through a single Gondola leads to a bottlenecked line of immense proportions.  “Exhausted” doesn’t do proper justice to how we were feeling on the drive back to Ouray.  The king-sized bed at The Bergerhoff is exactly what I needed to recharge the batteries for Day 2 of the festival.

Well, its been an amazing vacation.  This morning we had to rise well before the sun once again to catch a taxi to the airport for our return back to Colorado.  In pure Costa Rican fashion, our taxi did not stop at a single light and came inches from hitting a dog on the highway.  I’ll never again complain about drivers in the States.

After paying our departure taxes, we boarded the plane and headed home.  Neither of us is looking forward to opening our email and seeing the hundreds of tasks that piled up while we were drinking beer and eating quesadillas by the pool.

After several very relaxing days at the beach, it was time to head back to the city. We grabbed our final free poolside breakfast at the Treehouse Inn before throwing our backpacks on and hiking through town to the bus stop. Jess taught me how to ask for two tickets to San Jose. After rehearsing my lines, I walked up to the ticket counter, delivered my Spanish flawlessly, only to be told….well, I don’t really know what I was told, but she seemed to indicate that I could only buy tickets on the bus itself.

Once on the bus, the driver seemed to indicate that we couldn’t buy tickets on the bus either. We soon learned that we could no longer buy reserved seats, but could sit in the seats until someone with a reservation came by to claim it. I was incredibly nervous about the prospect of standing for this 5 hour trip back to San Jose, but at each stop, passengers would be displaced from their seats and we’d keep ours. This trend continued for the next five hours until we finally stood up to depart the bus in San Jose.

We checked back into Kap’s Place and then decided to walk down to the Central Market. Other than the Delray Farmer’s Market in Alexandria, VA, I had never been to one of these markets. This one was nothing like Delray. The building took up an entire city block and was a huge, seemingly disorganized array of lunch counters, meat vendors, fish sellers, and a really disturbing pet store that sold puppies, guinea pigs, and adult and juvenile chickens. The meat counters sold every part of the animal. I know that I saw cow tongue and kidneys for sale, and I’m about 90% sure that they were also selling the heart. Somehow after seeing all this, we managed to work up an appetite for tamales…which are served in banana leaves here, rather than corn husks. They weren’t as good as the ones in Denver, but I was hungry enough to eat the heart out of a cow.

After laying on the beach for a hour or two this morning, I walked over to the Super Samara to grab a cerveza. While there, I walked across the street to inquire about the cost of lodging at the Samara Treehouse Inn. They were gorgeous villas on huge tree stilts that sat directly on the beach and shared a private, blue-tiled pool. Each had its own grill, outdoor dining area, and private hammocks. I found that the ground level villa next to the pool could be had for $95 a night and was available for the next two nights. As this was only $30 for our very ordinary room at Casa Del Mar, I jumped on it and quickly moved our bags across the street to our new accomodations in Playa Samara.

The move to the treehouse was easily the best decision of the entire trip. Instead of having to tote our belongings out to the beach and keep a keen eye on them if we wondered into the water, we had an amazing basecamp with huge french doors that opened out onto a private deck with ocean views, a fully-stocked kitchen, cable television, and a few meager steps to the sweetest pool you’ve ever seen (other than those infinity pools…they’re pretty sweet too).

With a fully-equipped kitchen and a grocery mart across the street, we picked up some items and made lunch at home. Jess makes quesadillas with the skill of a master chef. They were the perfect precursor to our afternoon of relaxing in the pool, napping in the hammock, followed by more relaxing in the pool.

Feeling plenty rested, we headed down the beach that afternoon to try our hand at surfing. Our host at Casa Del Mar helped arrange surf lessons for us from Jessie’s Surf School, which is advertised as being “worth the walk” since it is about half a mile down the beach. All I can say is that I have a whole new respect for surfing. They should just called it “getting your a$$ kicked by waves”. I was able to get up a few times during the lesson itself, but mainly because my instructor held my board steady, pushed me into the wave, and then told me exactly when to stand up. After the lesson, all bets were off. The majority of my time was spent falling off my board and then being flipped over with my board while paddling out as the wave broke on top of me. I got off alot easier than Jess though. Her board had something personal against her as it came crashing down on her head from several feet in the air. Fortunately it was just the board that hit her instead of the fins, as a hit from the fins generally leads to stitches that number in the double digits.

It only takes about an hour of this before you’re ready to head home, drink a beer and eat some dinner…..which is exactly what we did.

This morning we were treated to another amazing home cooked meal from Reina. This morning she made us cheese empanadas made with the cheese that is produced locally here in Monte Verde. After this wonderful meal, we said our goodbyes and boarded a shuttle that would take us to the small beach town of Samara, where we plan to spend the next three days.

Over the next several hours, we plunged from the high, cool mountains back down into land of heat and humidity. However, this time we had a large body of cool Pacific water to cool off in. We shared a shuttle van with a German couple and a shuttle driver who would quickly ask us to buckle up whenever he saw the police. He sneered as if we were getting away with something. When he later asked his German passenger what he did for a living, the gentleman replied, “Police”.

For lodging we settled on Casa Del Mar for the night. It was right across from the beach, looked nice but affordable and best of all, had air conditioning. As the room would not be available for a few more hours, we changed into our suits put our bags in a storage closet and headed out to the beach. Samara beach turned out to be exactly that we were looking for. The dogs, cows and horses on the beach outnumber the people.

After a few hours of laying in the sun and reading in the shade, the skies turned grey and soon began to dump horrendous amounts of rain. We rain over to a beachside restaurant that sat under an enormous palm-thatched roof. The guy told us they didn’t open for a few more hours, but would be happy to serve us some drinks. The woman who poured our drinks did not have much experience behind the bar and poured Jess roughly an entire bottle of wine into a giant fishbowl-shaped wine glass. For the next few hours, we sipped our drinks, played yahtzee and watched the grey skies turn into a gorgeous sunset that invited all of the surfers out to play. Through a hazy buzz, we watched other people amble in for dinner as we enjoyed our own meal from the giant BBQ pit outside. Thanks to copious amounts of wine and beer, we did not stay up too long after the sun set on Samara Beach.

As amazing as our cabin is, its only downfall is the thinness of the bathroom door combined with its proximity to the bed. This morning was the fourth morning of our trip and four days since I had managed to go to the bathroom (you know….#2). I’m not one to talk too much about bowel movements, but after three days of packing food into my body without any escaping out the other side; I was growing a bit concerned. As David Sedaris says, its akin to “packing a musket”. Having never done so much as “pass wind” in front of Jessica, this was a very bright introduction to my digestive system. If you’ve seen Dumb and Dumber, you may refer to the laxative scene with Jeff Daniels. To make matters worse, the water in our cabin ceased to function for the next several hours…preventing me from flushing away any memory of my uncooperative digestive system.

Reina’s breakfast was as amazing as we had hoped. The homemade corn tortillas were the best I have ever experienced. All I can say for the coffee is that Jessica, who NEVER drinks coffee, loved it. And I, who always drinks coffee, think it is about the best I’ve ever had. Reina and her husband, Leo, grow it right here on their property without any chemicals. Reina mentioned that they make it really light as to not upset the stomach. After my episode this morning, as upset stomach was the last thing I needed.

With an hour to kill before our tour departure, we chose to take a walk around Reina’s farm. Most everything is out of season right now but we were able to see some bananas growing on the trees. If nothing else it was a great way to start the digestive process from our filling breakfast.

For our tour, we had chosen a zip line tour of the cloud forest biological reserve. For this tour they harness you up to giant metal cables that fly you over and through the canopy of the forest. Upon arrival in the higher mountain areas, we realized that the temperature was quite a bit colder than it had been in town. Being the gentleman that I am, I walked into the gift shop and picked up a jacket for Jess. It was blue, it was waterproof…and I later found out that it was also a little boy’s size 12. Jess thanked me profusely before having to inform me that it was the ugliest jacket she’d ever seen. We immediately walked back in and tried to exchange it. The girl was not going to let us until Jess explained.

The zip lining is incredible! Once you get over the initial fear, it’s really quite exhilarating. The tour we went on had 11 different zip lines and a “Tarzan” swing. The Tarzan swing is a giant metal tower that you jump off of while connected to a rope that attaches you just before hitting the ground and swings you into the trees. It is “poop your pants” scary. The attendees at the bottom slow you down by slapping at your ankles until they’ve taken away enough momentum to grab your ankles and that finally grab you with two inner tubes tied together.

The tour price also includes a walk along the 1.5 mile path of swing bridges that extend over and through the forest canopy. Somehow Jess found the swinging of these bridges to be much more frightening then flying full speed over the jungle connected to a cable as thick as your thumbs.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing on our porch and planning our activities for the next few days and the beach. Corn nuts, chilled red wine and Pilson beer made the planning much more tolerable.

For dinner we chose a restaurant called “La Conica de Lona de Dona Flory.” I think this roughly translates to Flory’s kitchen. From the description our Lonely Planet guidebook, it sounded almost like a roadside food stand, but its promise of the best tamales in Monte Verde had us sold. Our taxi driver had no clue where the restaurant was, but my instruction that it was on the road to La Colina Lodge near the cheese factory seemed enough to put us in the right direction. If nothing else, this place was certainly off the beaten path and way out of town. As we arrived at the general area where we understood the place to be, there was no sign of it. We stopped at La Colina lodge to inquire as to its whereabouts. The old man inside sent us about 50 meters down from where we came to a very well hidden left turnoff. Well, this road, (which was the worst we had driven) dead ended into an abandoned house. So, we tried the next one, which had a sign to “The Residence of Marvin Rockwell.” Halfway down the road, I was resigned to the fact that we were going to have to head back into town when suddenly we saw the word Restaurante painted on the side of a building through the woods. The taxi pulled around to reveal a large open air garage with a make shift open air kitchen and two tables 4 plastic table clothes. There was a woman at one sipping from a glass of white wine, so I guessed they were still serving dinner. We paid our taxi and proceeded to the small unoccupied table.

The meal turned out to be on of those fortunate accidents in life. The restaurant is no longer “officially” open. Flory, who ended up sitting and chatting with us the entire meal, ran a very successful restaurant out of this garage for 5 years. Then the government began demanding taxes and other fees that would have amounted to over $1,000 per month. There is no way she could afford that, so she took down the road signs and now only cooks for people who know about the place and call ahead. Fortunately, the other group there was a party of three families, one of which was local. Once we informed Flory that we were not part of that group, she apologized and walked over to give us some options on what she could cook for us. Since tamales were no longer offered (too time consuming) Jess chose the enchiladas and I opted for the burrito. After cooking for everyone, Flory commenced to tell us how her husband, Marvin Rockwell, was the first Quaker settler to Costa Rica in the early 1950s. Her stories, demeanor, and hospitality reminded me of being at Nanny’s house. For dessert she brought out homemade glazed donuts that were the best I have ever eaten. She insisted that we come back the next day to see her flower gardens, but regretfully we had to leave first thing in the morning. If you’re ever traveling to Monte Verde, please call her and arrange a meal. If you want beer or wine though, be sure to bring it with you as she does not serve it there.

We each gave her a hug and thanked her again and again, and got into another 4-wheelin taxi for the bumpy ride home.

This morning we decided not to do a large, organized, guided volcano hike and instead to attempt the Laguna Cerro Chato hike. It was described as a 5 hour strenuous hike with amazing views of Volcano Arenal that ended at a turquoise-colored lake formed in the mouth of an inactive volcano. Sounded good to us!

Prior to our hike we took advantage of the free breakfast at the hotel. Since Jess cannot have wheat, her options were reduced to corn flakes and fruit. She was not a fan of the flakes, which reduced her pre-hike breakfast to a glass of juice and a few pieces of fruit.

After a 10 minute taxi ride, we paid our entry fee for the trail and began the long, hot walk up into an inactive volcano. We learned very early that when The Lonely Planet guidebook says “strenuous”, they mean every bit of it. The first part was all up hill and completely exposed to the sun….and it was hot….and it was HUMID.

Once we entered the forest, it seemed a blessing, but this is when it really got steep. As the book promised, this would prove to be a three hour ride on the stairmaster. We were essentially hiking up and over the roots of enormous trees.

It quickly became obvious that the few pieces of fruit were not going to sustain us on this hike. Jess was complaining of nausea and dizziness. With our only food being a banana, I offered that we turn around, but Jess insisted that we keep moving forward. For the next mile she just kept moving 100 feet at a time. After what seemed an eternity, we finally crested the hill to the top…only to find that it was 720 more meters down a even steeper hill to get to the lake.

Running short on time (as we had to catch a 2:30 shuttle to Monteverde), we hauled butt down the hill only to be tortured further by a small guided hike eating a huge spread of lunch. While we’re shaky and hungry, they are piling salami and cheese into their sandwiches, having just come out of the lake from a refreshing swim. With very little time to get back to catch our shuttle to Monteverde, we only had time to dunk our heads into the lake before turning around for the long, quick haul back to the trailhead.

We made it back into town with only enough time to have the taxi drive us to a Super Mercado to pick up some snacks. Then we boarded a mini tour van for the first leg of our jeep-boat-jeep transport across Lake Arenal to Monteverde. My time in this shuttle was the most afraid I’ve been so far. The driver was in much more of a hurry than we were and was driving like a NASCAR driver on the final turn of the Daytona 500. He was weaving across the double yellow trying to find the slightest window of opportunity to pass the van in front of us. At one point he was forced to slam the brakes and sneak back behind the van to avoid a head-on collision with a motorcycle.

The next mishap of this leg of the trip was when Jess was stepping out of this cursed van. The step was coated with a Teflon-like plastic that offered no traction at all. Jess’s feet slipped out from beneath her as she landed directly on her back. She assured everyone watching way too quickly that she was fine. I had my doubts.

With both of us still alive, we took our seat in the water taxi and enjoyed the ride across the lake. It was a picture perfect day of blue sky, few clouds, and another incredible, unobstructed view of the smoke pouring from the top of Volcano Arenal.

The final leg of our shuttle to Monteverde was in an old, tired-looking Toyota mini van. I had little confidence that it was going to make it over the hills that we were asking it to navigate, but slowly and surely it moved over every rock and pothole on the dirt road. After several hours of getting thrown around the inside of the van, we finally pulled into Monteverde.

With no hotel reservation for the night, we inquired about rooms at the Hotel Belmar (where the other passengers were staying). They were asking $85 for the last room available. We passed this up and asked our driver, Juan, if he had any recommendations. He drove us to the heart of the tourist-laden downtown area and turned 100 meters down a side road to the most serene setting of tiny cabins we could have imagined. I guess we were not the first to fall in love with this place as they had no vacancy for the two nights we were there. The very nice owner referred us to her friend’s place that she said was very similar.

So, another taxi picked us up and drove us out of town opposite the way we had arrived. The roads out of town were as bad as any of the jeep trails that I had experienced in Southwest Colorado. After five minutes of this road, we pulled onto a private drive that led to a well-lit house in the middle of the forest. A very nice young woman met us at the front door and introduced herself as Reina. She walked us down a path to a private, 2 story, 2 room cabin with a full kitchen, bedroom, private porch and bathroom that had magnificent views of the surrounding countryside. She asked that after we got settled to please let her know what we wanted for breakfast in the morning and to also let her know what tours she could arrange for us. All this for only $50 a night!

For dinner we took another taxi into town and found ourselves the only customers at El Romantic Restaurante. The food was great, the beer was cold, and we were both incredibly hungry and exhausted. It was a very delicious and relaxing end to a very tough day.