Grecia to Cuidad Colon

Hola!  Yesteday we left the Mango Hotel...  we'd been there just over 3 days, but in a way it was sad to leave...

This was our cabin at the Mango Hotel...  It had everything we needed...  even more...  but we had already rented the house in Cuidad Colon and it was time to move on.

 Here is Dovile and Jose Luis...  the young couple who are the owners of the Mango Hotel.  They are gracious hosts...  have had the hotel only a year and are working hard to make it a destination for travellers.   Jose Luis picked us up at the airport...  took us on a day-long tour sightseeing...  and at the end of our stay drove us to our place in Cuidad Colon.  If anyone out there is interested in vacationing in Costa Rica, we'd highly recommend the Mango Hotel.

This is Jose Luis's mother, the proud grandmother of Kiran, 2 months old.  She and Jose Luis's father live in Spain, but came for a month-long visit to see their new grandson.

Jose Luis drove us the 30 miles or so from Grecia to Cuidad Colon.  We left around 9:45 and arrived at 11:00 am.

We all checked out our new house... ohhh... and ahhhhhh.... and then we got back in the car and JL dropped us off at the main plaza in Cuidad Colon as we had to do some shopping. 

That's Jose Luis...  driving away after taking us to our house in Cuidad Colon.  He took us to the house where we dropped off our luggage and we all looked the house over.  Lois, the other Mango Hotel resident was returning to Manitoba and had to be at the airport in San Jose at 3pm, so she came along for the ride before JL dropped her off.

Here's where we'll be living for the next month...  I'll include some pictures of the outside tomorrow.

The house is long and only 1 room wide...  I don't know what a shotgun house in New Orleans actually looks like, but this house you could stand at one end and shoot a gun with the bullet exiting at the other end.  This house has a big bedroom, then a big bath, then a smaller bedroom, then a huge kitchen/dining/sitting room.  All have huge windows and doors leading out to a patio.  There are skylights in every room.  There is a huge tree with nuts of some kind just behind the house and the birds are constantly dropping nut shells onto the roof. 

I'm standing in the kitchen area looking towards the dining area and "sitting room". 

 Now I'm looking towards the kitchen...  there is a hallway the whole length of the house.

 This is the middle bedroom.  That chair in the lower left corner is where I'm sitting right now...  there is a desk and I have my laptop there.  We're looking into the kitchen/living area.

 The "master" bedroom  ;-)    

I think there's a featherbed for a mattress....  I can say that it's comfortable.  The closet and some shelves are just to the right of where I'm standing to take the picture.

The bathroom...  that's a small washer in the lower left corner.  I haven't used it yet...  got to buy detergent in town today. 

After checking out the house we went back into the plaza to do some shopping.  Yesterday was Palm Sunday and the start of Semana Santa...  Holy Week.  This is a holiday/vacation time in Latin American countries and Cuidad Colon had its own festival going on.

 The plaza is right next to the church and it looked like mass had just finished because lots of people were carrying palms. 

 This juggler was entertaining the crowd....

 The bazaar looks kind of deserted, but I think it was early (before noon) and most of the people we saw were in the courtyard watching the entertainment or standing around the food booths.

This guy had a bubble blowing "machine"...  (made me think of our granddaughters, who had somekind of bubble machine once)...  Anyway... more of the bazaar... 

We didn't wander around this area very long because the markets close at noon for a couple of hours and we had to get some shopping done if we wanted to eat.

This tienda sells veggies...  the one next to it sells carne.....  we came away with a mango, several avocados, some onions, a squash, tomato, pepper, pineapple...  and probably more.

Next door, at the meat market, we bought 2 pork chops and a big link of chorizo, and also 3 eggs. (that's all they had).

We knew that we would be walking the 1/2 mile or so back to the house and our bags were getting kind of heavy.

There was a large supermarket nearby...  we bought a 6 pack of beer and a box of wine.  The wine is packaged like a milk carton in the States...  we've bought wine like this in the Mediterrean ...  it's cheap and really not too bad.

By this time we were ready to head back to the house...

 Wren's Nest

Rufus Naped Wren

Saw the wren nest in the cactus in the yard next door...  This wren is a lot larger than a little house wren...  there are lots of them around.

It poured rain for about an hour after we got back from town.  But we'd had lots of time just to sit outside and enjoy the birds.

We do have a big porch...  it even has a couple of hammocks strung up...  but we like to sit where we can see the birds better.

Here's a familiar bird...

The Baltimore Oriole

We're still learning to identify the birds and learn their names...  Hoffman's woodpecker, White crown parrot, Blue crown mot-mot, Black and white becard...  all new to us.  There are also some familiar birds like the yellow warbler and Baltimore oriole. 

All in all, this is just a fantastic experience...

And... it's only just begun!

Today it's back to the market...  we'll take a cab home as this it's a serious shopping trip... everything from laundry detergent to toilet paper.

Time's a'wasting...  gotta get outside and see those birds.

That's All for Today...