Happy birthday, Terry!
Unfortunately, as it turned out, it was not the best birthday Terry ever had.
Up until now, we had been visiting places a short drive from where we were staying. For the last three days of our trip, we started going much farther afield. This day began with a drive of over four hours, to see the stone spheres. (w)
In the far south of the country, near the town of Sierpe, are an assortment of over three hundred stone spheres, carved by Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region. They range in size from just a few inches to over six feet across. No one knows for sure the significance of these stones, and to add to the mystery, the stone used to make the spheres comes from mountains several miles away. I suggested that maybe they carved the spheres up in the mountains, and then gave them a push and let them roll down the mountainside, and leave them wherever they landed.
In any case, there's an archeological site which is open to the public, so that's where we went. It was a long drive, and along the way, there was a terrific rainstorm - the kind where you have the windshield wipers going at their highest speed, and you can still barely see the road. It was scary, but it was short. After the rain passed, I took some pictures of the rain clouds:
But when we got there, we discovered that the site was temporarily closed, due to damage from the recent hurricanes. To make it worse, I realized that if I had checked the website before we left, we would have known that the site was closed.
Well, we couldn't just turn around and go back, because we had dinner reservations at a nearby restaurant. And thereby hangs a tale.
While skimming through the guidebook, we noticed that the town of Ojochal, on the southern coast, is reputed to have some of the best restaurants in the country. One of them, Ylang Ylang, is an Indonesian restaurant. Terry likes Indonesian food - and there aren't that many Indonesian restaurants in Los Angeles - so she decided that was where she wanted to go for her birthday dinner.
The guidebook advised that reservations were necessary, so we called to make one. When the woman answered, Terry, assuming that the woman was Costa Rican, began speaking in Spanish. But the woman didn't seem to understand her, and asked if Terry spoke English. Terry, still speaking Spanish, answered that she spoke both English and Spanish, but the woman still appeared not to understand. It was at this point that I realized that the woman we were speaking to was not Costa Rican, and didn't speak Spanish. So I broke in and started speaking to her in English, and all was well. Or so we thought.
Once again, we had some time to kill, so once again, we drove around aimlessly. By the side of the road, we saw what appeared to be the broken remnants of a sphere:
Then, in a little town called Palmar Sur, we discovered a park:
Park of the Spheres
...which contained several large spheres. So we got to see some, after all:
The park also contained several colorfully painted benches:
So after driving around for a while, we got to the restaurant. We had to go off the highway, and up a steep dirt road. When we got there, we found a closed gate. But we were a little early, so we waited. After a little while, a man came out, and told us that they had made a mistake when they took the reservation - this was Thursday, but they thought we were coming on Friday.
Well, after the earlier disappointment, this was just too much. Terry was quite upset, and the rest of us weren't too happy, either. However, the couple that run the restaurant were extremely apologetic, and assured us that they would serve us, if we just waited a little while.
It turned out to be worth the wait. The restaurant is owned and run by Hans and Caroline Vos, a Dutch couple who retired to Costa Rica and started the restuarant. He's originally from Holland, and she's from Jakarta:
The food was excellent, and since they had no other guests that night, we got a private dinner.
Notice the open sides of the room - an architectural feature common to tropical countries. It allows for cross breezes, reducing the need for air conditioning. Of course, it also allows the intrusion of local wildlife - like this lizard I spotted on the wall:
And then, of course, we had a long, late drive back. Here's the map:
