On Friday,
February 15 we took off early in the day to see the Lankester
Gardens between Paraiso and
Cartago. The drive over was very
pretty. We stopped along the way at a
scenic overlook - the Mirador Ujarras.
The Lankester
Gardens are famous for their
orchids. They had huge greenhouses of
orchids.
The posts in the
greenhouses were covered with baby orchids.
Some of our
favorite orchids.
This orchid smells like chocolate |
Eric and I named these the "Space Alien" orchid |
They had a few
orchids in trees.
We also saw the
variety of orchid at the garden that I had seen along the road the other day
and stopped to pick a couple of blooms. So
yes, we have seen orchids in the wild.
The gardens also
had several outdoor garden areas with a nice trail through them. We really enjoyed all the bromiliads.
I did not however,
enjoy the bee garden. As we were going
through the cactus garden area, I saw a cluster of bugs and called Eric over to
look at them. About the time I said
"do they look like bees?" one of them stung me. He said he was pretty sure they were bees as
he laughed and ran away.
After a stop at
Wal-mart in Cartago, we headed to Orosi for some coffee. We stopped at a different coffee shop and
enjoyed an expresso. The shop owner had
several varieties of Costa Rican coffees to sample. We, of course, had to buy some with a bit of
a chocolate note to bring home to share.
We found the cutest sugar dish there that we hope will be fortuitous as
we look for a new home.
We ran across a
barber shop and Eric stopped for a haircut from Ken, the barber. He got an old-school haircut and loved
it.
After leaving,
Orosi we stopped to look at the Rio Macho on our way out of town. Eric thinks maybe he should live in Rio
Macho.
We stopped in La
Alegria and went over the suspension bridge that connects the village of La Alegria with
Orosi.
We had planned on
sharing a pizza for dinner with Michele, so on our way back through Cachi we
stopped and called her to tell her we would piddle around for about 30 minutes
and pick up the pizza she was to call in and have ready about 5:00. We
looked in the general store to compare prices.
You can get everything from a motorcycle to large and small appliances
in there. We didn't kill quite enough
time so we stopped in the El Conquistador to check out the local watering
hole. It was very nice. While we were there, a dog wandered in
dragging his chain behind him. At five,
we headed over to the pizza place. The
barred gate was closed, but not locked, so we went on in. We told the owner, who spoke no English that
we were there to pick up a pizza. He
told us something in Spanish that ended with 5:30. We assumed he said our pizza would be ready
at 5:30. We left and checked out the fruit stand, the
butcher shop and the grocery store. At
the grocery store, the lady clerk told us "hace calor". I translated for Eric "it's
hot," he insisted that I had heard
incorrectly and she really said "He was hot." Finally at 5:30,
we went back to the pizza place. As we
walked in, the owner handed us a menu and his phone rang. He answered it and then handed it to us
saying it was for us. It was Michele
saying that he had never answered his phone all this time and that we needed to
order the pizza. After another 10
minutes and a story in Spanish about someone going to Italy
(we think), we got our pizza and headed home.
I am happy to report that the pizza was worth the wait and we really
enjoyed getting to know more about the town of Cachi.
No comments:
Post a Comment