We got going on the road. It was a straight shot on the main highway through the country from the rental car place to Liberia, where I had detailed directions the rest of the way to the hotel at Playa Ocotal that included "when you come to the top of the hill with a lot of signs, keep to the left".
The roads are a little treacherous at times and people are definitely not defensive drivers in the least! At one point, we came around a curve and saw two semis coming straight at us, one in each lane, directly next to each other. It's a good thing there happened to be a shoulder at that moment....it was one of the only times there was a shoulder in the whole country! I caught a pic just as he was pulling in between the other semi and a car (right before I took it, the red semi and white semi were almost next to each other and the white one slammed on his brakes and got over--we were going approximately 50 mph at each other):
4 hours later, we made it to our hotel. It made me sad because even though it was only 5:30, the sun had just gone down, so I didn't get to see the view. We went to dinner at the hotel's restaurant and had a great steak with mashed potatoes and sauteed root vegetables. It was absolutely delicious! Unfortunately, we don't speak Spanish so when the waiter asked our order, DH said "I'll have the same, but with a Pepsi instead of a margarita". The waiter nodded and said "yes". So we figured he got it.
He came back with 2 of the strongest margaritas I've ever had (other than shots of tequila) and no Pepsi. DH figured he would just drink it. Neither of us really drinks and we were exhausted from traveling, so we only drank 1/2 of it because it was so strong. When we finished eating, our waiter came over and asked us if something was wrong with our drinks. We said no, they were good, just strong. He then insisted on remaking them for us. We argued back and forth with him but he insisted so we agreed that he'd bring us 1 new one to share. A couple minutes later, he came back with 2 new margaritas, still strong, but drinkable. We had to force ourselves to drink them because at this point, the manager, the waiter, the bartender, and the bus-boy were all staring at us from the other side of the patio. When we were done eating and drinking, we had to walk our happy butts up the steepest ramp ever back to our room. We actually thought when we turned the corner that there would be stairs. I'm just glad neither of us rolled down it in the dark!
Here it is in the daylight the next day:
We got back to the room and went to bed. When we woke up, I started some coffee and walked out to the patio to find this view staring me in the face:
Not so shabby! Too bad I missed the sun setting over the water, but it was a pretty awesome surprise to wake up to!
We went down to breakfast and as we were walking there, we noticed this odd sign:
It was especially strange seeing as it was stuck in a flower bed that didn't even have bushes you could hide in...
Breakfast was equally strange. There were tons of iguanas begging for food on the patio and the staff were chasing them away with a broom. Some crazy lady was feeding this one (despite the sign that said "Please do not feed the animals"...):
When the staff told her she needed to stop feeding it, she asked "why? will it hurt his tummy?". They did not know what to say to that, so they just let her keep feeding it. It reminded us of my mother! :)
After a quick stop at the beach, we headed out to the Arenal Region (another 3-4 hour drive). Bye-bye Pacific!
It was a little sunny if you couldn't tell! :)
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