Thursday, December 4, 2008

Day 7 - Mal Pais

After waking up and showering at 6:30 I took a walk along the beach north of town to Ylang Ylang and back. I then had some coffee at El Sano Banano and went back to El Jardin to wake up Kat so we could get on our way to Mal Pais. We had a good breakfast at Cafe Mocezuma and then checked out of El Jardin at about 10am and did the 45 minutes drive to Mal Pais. On our last visit to Mal Pais in 2005 the road was freshly paved but this time it was pretty worn but still a fairly easy drive.

Our first choice in Mal Pais/Santeresa Teresa was Ritmo Tropical but they were full so we went next door to "The Place" which gave us a room in the main building for $60/night - not as nice as their bungalows ($100/night). Our room was nicely decorated and probably had one of the most comfortable beds I've slept on in four trips to Costa Rica. The only problem with the room was that the bathroom wasnt well designed - thre was no mirror in front of the sink and instead it was located on the opposite wall making shaving a bit difficult. Also, the shower only had a hand held nozzle that didn't mount anywhere so you had to hold it in one hand while showering or place it on the floor where it would usually end up flooding the rest of the bathroom.

The pool was awesome along with comfortable lounge chairs scattered about. Breakfast was offered for $8/person but declined and figured we could eat elsewhere while we were there.

After we got settled in our room we headed out looking for a snack and then a dip in the ocean. We drove to Playa Carmen and perked in the lot at the end of the road. We then walked up the beach a bit to Tropico Latino and had some gucamole and chips along with a few pilsens to wash it all down. Afterwards we took a swim in the ocean at Playa Carmen which was a bit rocky.

After swimming a bit we drove back to the hotel and took a dip in their wonderful pool - meeting another family from the US who had been in Mal Pais for a few weeks.

That night we drove to Las Piedras hop-ping to eat their famous chicken (motto is "our chicken is the shit") but they were not open. We ended up going to Ritmo Tropical where we ordered a lot of food ($42) - including margaritas, focaccia (a meal on its own) along with chicken curry and mushroom dinners for the two of us. After dinner we took a walk down to the beach and saw some lightning in the distance. We then walked to the Howling Monkey bar for a few beers and guaro while watching american football. After that we walked back top the hotel and Kat was pretty tired and went to bed while I stayed up and had a few beers at the bar at our hotel and chatted with the bartender

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