Santiago, Puriscal is our destination this morning. Tired of being in the house. We're off for a day trip!
I only knew one way to get to Santiago from Playa Hermosa because I had been that way with my friend, Richard last year. We needed to drive south to Parrita and go up from there. That is the old highway from San Jose to the Pacific Coast towns until they built the new toll road to Caldera. Well, I wouldn't exactly call it a highway. This photo shows workers welding more steel on a small bridge on the way out of Parrita.
We went in OB's Toyota 4-Runner. He just had his AC fixed, so we like it best. Actually, we're not sure if we are going to make it all the way to Santiago on this trip. We got a late start, about 9:00am. The road doesn't look too bad, but the surface is rock and the tires feel every one. Its a rough ride in the beginning.
We came to a river and crossed on this old metal bridge. The river was low, but had a small flow of water coming down from the mountains.
As we steadily climbed the hills into the mountains, the terrain went from a dry, dusty brown, to a variety of green. Many trees have blossoms on them at this time of the year.
We stopped for this gorgeous tree with yellow blossoms. I zoomed in with my lens and noticed something move. Yep, its a large Iguana laying on the branch, almost the same color as the bark.
It just kept getting prettier as we climbed.
After about an hour of driving, going oh about 20 mph max., we came upon this Tico farmer selling his pineapples. We figured we'd would since all the hills were covered in pineapple plants. He has the most ripe ones on the right.
Linda and OB bought two each of the ripe ones. They were 50 cents each.
They were delicious when we got them home, and this guy was happy.
We drove on...
This time of year in Costa Rica is "burning" time. They are getting ready for the rainy season to start, so they cut down all the dead stuff they can find and burn it. Here is a fire with smoke going across the road. We just have to plow on through it. No big deal.
We thought this was an interesting little finch. Its either a reforestation project, or this farmer is planting an orchard of some sort. The longer we are here the more we learn, so at some point I will be able to say what they are doing.
Finally, after driving at least two hours, we arrived at a little place called, "Aldea Restaurante."
Alex Chaves is the friendly proprietor. He runs the bar and restaurant and his wife does the cooking in a little kitchen behind the bar. She was just leaving as we arrived. She was to do some cooking for a group staying a few miles away and wouldn't be back for about an hour. So lunch was out of the question. Beer was not, however.
This beautiful little place juts out over the side of a fairly large mountain. You have to go through a national park entrance to get to the real mountain. The road we were on went around it on the way to Santiago. We decided that we would think about whether to try to make it all the way or just be satisfied with this partial destination.
This rustic little place had a great looking bar.
Here's OB enjoying the Pura Vida view over his shoulder.
As we sat there drinking our beer and looking out at the fire, we all noticed that the sky was full of small, black floating pieces of what looked like burnt paper.
Here's OB's account:
As we three amigos sipped on our Imperial cervezas, basking in the beautiful mountain views, I noticed a small plum of smoke about three miles away, rising up from the valley floor below. We all assumed it was a controlled burn started by local ranchers, and within ten minutes or so the puff of smoke grew into a raging fire with huge gray an black clouds of smoke towering hundreds of feet into the air. About that time, we watched tiny flakes of burnt leaf or brush embers floating up through the mountain's leeward side air currents. Most of it was floating over our heads. We were all mesmerized and stayed still just watching. They had come such a long distance. Then, we all watched as one silver dollar-sized black flake came down towards me. I gently raised my two hands in front of me and the flake magically landed right in my palm. We all had a good laugh. Larry commented it was like watching the feather in Forest Gump!
Did you notice the white cat sleeping against the pot?
Here's a closeup. Beautiful color. Muy tranquillo.
Alex and his wife live above the bar in this little rustic room. We saw her climb down the steep stairs when we sat down.
Sitting there and talking to Alex, I noticed a set of stairs going down below where we were sitting. I asked Alex if he is renting rooms out. "No," Alex replied, "I have two rooms below for my friends to sleep who are too drunk to drive.
We climbed down the stairs and sure 'nuf, there were about four bunk beds in the two rooms, complete with small bathrooms. The view was spectacular and the price was right... FREE! Alex doesn't want to see anyone killed on the road. Nightime driving is tough here, particularly on mountain dirt roads with no markings.
Well, we determined that half way was about all we were going to make it to Santiago Puriscal on this day. We were getting hungry and decided to head back down. Alex said the way we can up (from Paritta) was the long way. He said we should turn right in La Gloria –– and something about turning right after a bridge.
So, we took off again and whoo hoo, it started raining. We hadn't seen rain in several months, so this was great.
We went through some remote little villages and kept following the road down. It still took about two hours to get home, but it was shorter. We had to backtrack a few times, but stopped and asked the Ticos for directions. We generally got good advice. Eventually we made it home, hungry but in good shape. We had been on a great day trip, and now we know the best way to get there.
We're looking forward to taking our next visitors up there for a cold cervesa!
No comments:
Post a Comment