October 29, 2008
On the road again…we departed Punta Uvita (Marino Ballena) late morning. We were headed toward what appeared on the map to be 40 k of one of the worst roads (Route 34) in all of Costa Rica. Much to our delight, it wasn’t so bad! It dumped into Manuel Antonio and we continued on past Quepos and landed somewhere near Jacos. I was checking out Lonely Planet while Scott drove. Our ultimate destination tomorrow was Arenal, but we decided to have a short drive day and hang another night somewhere along the coast before heading back to the depths of the jungle. I was looking for places that may have turtles. That was uneventful. Lonely Planet wrote how the Villas Caletas just past Punta Leona had the world’s best sunset. Scott and I happened to be arriving at each of our destinations by sunset, so we figured this was certainly something we wanted to check out even if we didn’t stay there. Ya see, Villas Caletas was rated as one of the top seven destinations in all of Costa Rica. We figured it would be way out of our budget. We also figured there was no harm in inquiring. We snaked our way up the 1 mile driveway that seemed to be barely teetering at the edge of the world. Our arrival was greeted by a young man opening our doors and another man welcoming us to the hotel. We were whisked inside and given the elevator pitch, which was easy on the ears.
Once again, we were in luck! It was expensive compared to the other very reasonably priced lodgings, BUT they gave us some crazy Luna de Miel upgrade and we got an ocean-facing Villa instead of a standard (facing nothing but the other buildings) room. Cool.A nice young guy helped us with our bags- out stinky, unorganized, heavy bags filled with unwashed clothes, muddy shoes, bottles of water, food. We were The Hillbillies meet The Hiltons. And to make matters worse, our Villa was somewhere near the top of the grounds. A steep incline up up up up and up. Poor guy.
We dumped our stuff and high tailed it to the sunset viewing area, which, incidentally, was also a bar. We were sitting at the top of a Greek Amphitheatre listening to a crescendo of dramatic orchestral music and watching what was by far one of the most spazztacular sunsets I have ever seen. My photos do not do it justice.
Oh…and the morning. Our villa’s balcony overlooked both the green lush valley, the mist covered mountainous jungles and the ocean. We saw Scarlet Macaws and what seemed to be a million hummingbirds. Hiking around the grounds gave us a really good idea of the reason for their prices. The Zephyr Palace was stunning and had an infinity pool that hung off the edge of a cliff. I saw at least three new types of butterflies. Did I mention the hummingbirds? Wow.
If you’d like to follow all the Costa Rican posts, click click click away and enjoy!
Post #1: The first days of our Costa Rican Honeymoon here
Post #2:: Little Grape Big Grape here
Post #3: First Monkey Sighting here
This is Post #4: Spazztacular Sunset here
Post #5: Looking at Lava with my Lovah here
Post #6: The Sanctuary here
Post #7: More of the Sanctuary here
Post #8: Playa Pan de Azucar here
Post #9: Yes We CAN! here
Post #10: Back at the Sanctuary here
Post #11: Adios Sanctuary! here