We woke up early again and had breakfast at Ylang Ylang. Nearly the same menu as in town at El Sano. The big difference is that Ylang Ylang specializes in crepes. That was my conclusion. My husband had a crepe and he said it was quite tasty. I had the fruit - tons of fruit!
In the middle of breakfast, this blue bird came and sat on the back of my husband's chair. I didn't notice until I saw him jump. He turned around to find a bird three inches from his face. The bird spent the rest of the meal sitting on our table trying to eat our food. He was gorgeous but I was scared he was going to peck me. After breakfast, the waiter pulled out an animal and wildlife guide and taught us the names of all the animals we had seen while being there. That was pretty cool. They also have marked all the animals that live on the property, so you know what to keep your eye out for.
WATERFALLS
We think there must be two sets of waterfalls. I think the horses go to a waterfall past Playa Grande. A couple we met on our Isla Tortuga adventure said it is right past Playa Grande. We never made it there, though. I think the main one is on the other side of Montezuma.
We felt like we "should" go to the waterfall so we set out after breakfast. We hiked back to town, down the road past all the hotels. There is a parking lot (I think it is past a place called Las Cascada maybe) that says Waterfall Parking. We walked through the parking lot and found the trail. It was really hot and we made it to the base and decided to turn back. The word waterfall and arrows were written on the rocks pointing you in the right direction. We were actually exhausted and decided it was okay if we didn't do everything, expecially since we had already seen some gorgeous wateralls in Arenal.
We checked out smoothly and headed to Malpais. The only thing that caught us off guard was that they asked us to pay for the Isla Tortuga trip in cash. I think they didn't want one transaction so that they could separate the costs to Cocozuma. However, he had planned out our cash pretty exactly and it messed us up for the last few days. We were just a little short to cover our remaining expenses, so we would have to stop at a bank later.
Overall I really liked Montezuma. I didn't find it extremely "hippiesh" like everyone said. There was someting about the town I really liked. It was very young. Probably the youngest crowd of any of the places we visited. My husband wasn't as big a fan. He didn't feel like the people were quite as friendly here as in all the other places we visited.
BANK TRIP
This is too funny not mention. We needed to go to the bank and exchange some of our money. We decided to stop in Cobano on our way to Malpais. First we had a heck of time finding the bank. We saw the huge bank building, but it was under construction. Silly us assumed it was closed. We spent a while driving in circles in Cobano until a woman told me it was still open. We didn't realize that the big truck parked out front actually had the ATM in it. The line of young Americans should have given us a hint! So we went to a teller inside who did the transaction for us.
Since Josh doesn't know any Spanish, he just states words in english. I think for this situation he spits out "ATM". I started laughing telling him that no this woman wasn't an ATM. She asked us to write down how much we wanted so we wrote $200.00. It was our fault. We didn't write USD.
Hmmmmmm.... we ended up with 200,000 colones that is almost $500. I suddently realized that whenever something was 1100 colones on a menu, they worte it $1.100. Oh well. It's pretty funny now. We never had a lack of money the rest of the trip. It ended up working out fine. We paid for absolutely everything in colones.
BLUE JAY LODGE
If you like rustic and nature this place is awesome. We really wanted a variation of places to stay and we got it.
When people say there are a lot of steps, there are a lot steps. Our place was one of the furthest up. I didn't count the number of steps, but there must have been a couple hundred. If you have problems walking, don't try it. The steps were small and would be easy to trip on.
We just thought this place was really neat. I felt like I was in the Swiss Family Robinson. It was very secluded and peaceful. There were two hammocks on the porch. Perfect for reading. We had the biggest room here, of all our hotels. The guy working there, didn't speak one word of English, so I got to practice my Spanish a lot.
No frills at all. One note though. The bathrooms are open to the outside with the same screening that is around the rest of the treehouse. That means you can see straight in the bathroom. I tested it. I went to the cabin next door and sure enough, from there you could see straight in. If this bothers you, make sure you check the bathroom location right away. Not all are this open like ours. Luckily, the people staying there arrived really late and left very early, so we never had a problem.
LAS PIEDRAS
We went to a late lunch at Las Piedras. We really liked this place. The family running it was so nice, like everyone in Malpais. The son, about 10, got a kick out of Josh who speaks no spanish. He just says "si" to everything. So the boy would ask him things, Josh would say yes and then I would have to tell him no my husband didn't want another meal. We thought it was funny.
Good food. Cheap. Good people.
ALEX's SURF SHOP
This place was right next to Las Piedras. Tabu is also across the street and we checked out that place, too. It seemed everyone in town rented for about the same price. Someone else suggested Courduroy down by Playa Carmen. After lunch we decide to rent my husband a surf board. It's not even 3 and the guy at Alex's ends up giving us a 1/2 day rental for $9. The half day is until 2pm the next day (23 hours later). Not a bad deal.
DINNER at RITMO TROPICAL
Well we tried to get to Buenos Aires. By the time we found it, sun had sent. We drove all the way from Playa Carmen to Florblanca. Turns out it is was really close to where we started. Tip, the sign is only pointing towards Santa Teresa, not towards Malpais.
We headed to the Santa Teresa market and picked up a few odds and ends and walked over to Tropico Latino for dinner. We found out they were not open. We watch the remainder of the sunset on the beach in front of their hotel and decide to go to Ritmo Tropical close to Blue Jay.
This place was pretty happening. Tons of young folks staying here and hanging out at the bar. We got a really cheap pizza, some beers and called it a night. Everyone there seemed to love the place and it looked nice from what we saw. We had a great banana split that really hit the spot.
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