We do sleep in a little bit this morning, but eventually get up and make breakfast. While Jeff straightens up the kitchen, I make the bed and take out the trash. We want to leave the house as tidy as it was when we arrived.
We decide to send an email to the owner of the Puerto del Cielo cabin and tell him we are interested and to share our time frame. We’ll see how/where that goes.
Soon Pedro and his wife (whose name I cannot say or spell, but it sounds like Patricia) pull up and they come in. They seem stunned at how clean the house is. I mention that I had not washed the towels or sheets because I knew no one would be here to put them in the dryer and Pedro says “You can rent from us anytime! Anytime!”
We load our luggage, including a grocery sack filled with food that we are taking to our condo in San Jose, hop in and the four of us are off to the capital of Costa Rica. We stop for gas (all the service stations here are full service) and are soon on our way for real.
I knew Pedro had made lunch reservations for the four of us and before leaving the house, I decided to exchange my tee shirt for a blouse and necklace, figuring any restaurant that needed reservations probably needed a nicer appearance. Boy, am I glad I did because, first of all, Pedro’s wife is a knock out and second, she is wearing the tightest, most gorgeous dress I’ve seen in years, along with high heels and make-up. (There’s no way I can step up my game that much!)
It is 45-50 minutes to San Jose and as we drive through the city, they point out various sites. We arrive at Tin Jo, a very, very, very nice Asian restaurant. This place is great, and the menu is wonderful. I order miso soup, paneer with tofu and ginger/lime ice tea. Jeff has the same soup and salmon with some sort of glaze, veggies, and a glass of wine. Wow! YUM!
In Costa Rica, you eat your food when it arrives at the table and the dishes come out at different times. You eat while it is hot, not waiting until everyone at the table is served. And, the check is not brought automatically, but you must ask for it. Meals are to be relaxing and enjoyed…and this one was.
Now, to our condo. We are staying at “Condominio 6-30” and it’s a darn good thing I have Waze on my phone because we never would have found this place. The owner had mixed up the Avenida (avenue) and Calle (Street) numbers, but luckily, I had entered the name of the condo and not the address. It takes some time to find, but here we are. We say good-bye to Pedro and Patricia and start our big city adventure.
Unpacking is a breeze. I find a safe in the bedroom closet and before putting our passports into it, I make sure I know how to open and close it. Umm…no. Now its locked and I can’t get it open. Thank goodness it is empty. Jeff tries and now the stupid thing is beeping. Oh dear. We text Elena, the owner, (she lives on the 11th floor) and she says did you use the code? “Code?” I text back. “Yes, there is a code in the message I sent to Jeff.” Well, okey dokey then. Yup, there’s the number and it does work.
After a while, Elena stops down to meet and greet us and to see if we need anything. The only request that we have is for more coffee. Though she lives in Costa Rica, home of some of the best coffee in the world, Elena has a Keurig; I guess that makes sense because this is a VRBO. And it is great of her to supply coffee at all.
For dinner we finish up our beans and rice with tortillas, and afterwards explore the little complex. We find the swimming pool, which is a wide lap pool next to a kiddy pool. Eventually, after two tries, we find the workout room. It is small and has some weights, a couple of bikes and an elliptical. It is going to be too cold to use the pool and we think we’ll get plenty of exercise walking everywhere. Exploring for the evening complete we go back upstairs, where we are flummoxed by the condo door. It has an electronic lock, which is what we have at home, so that is not the issue; the issue is that we are supposed to touch the pad, two numbers will appear and then after you press those, the full keypad pops up, so you can type in the code. We take turns pushing on the keypad to no avail, but finally it works. Weird. It shouldn’t be that hard.
We hang out watching a Netflix movie for background noise while I cross-stitch, and Jeff does some more research on the Las Puerta del Cielos cabins. Soon it is time for bed.
Stop in tomorrow…we have some plans.