It rained so much last night that our tour to the Venado Caves was cancelled. That was sad because it looked to be like the most fun out of all of our activities. I tried to find an activity so we wouldn’t waste the day away. Poor Dallas, was getting incredibly frustrated with all of the rain, I just say that it’s all a part of our adventures.
We found an ATV tour that would take us around the area. There were about 5 ATV’s on the tour (another group) last time we went ATV’ing it was just us and the guide going crazy in the Alaskan wilderness, sigh. We were going at such a tame pace that we were really disappointed in the beginning thinking it would be a bore, but it definitely picked up a little bit later. Dallas stayed up with the guide who commented on how slow this group was!
We took a pit stop at a river where I almost fell in from the cliff. Our hiking shoes DO NOT work on wet rocks. Damn Bear Grylls and your shoes. Though we didn’t bring swim trunks, but we had extra clothes, Dallas thought it would be fun to jump from the rope and swim in the river – once in a lifetime you know. So while he was playing tarzan he tripped on his way up, not having water shoes, and nearly broke his toe. Between his toe and my bruises from fall this was getting to be dangerous! He also went swimming in jeans, he only had 2 pairs. In this humidity, it took 4 days and lots of moldy spores to finally dry! We saw leaf cutter ants for the first time, which was really wild. I felt like I was watching Discovery channel.
We stopped by a cute little restaurant for lunch and had another casada. The food wasn’t great but it started pouring before we set off so our guide had to bring us ponchos. Too fun ATV’ing in pouring rain! And silly me left my helmet upside-down while we were having lunch! This experience was amazing because we got the chance to drive through the streets of the small town and see how people live in the area. There were small children around, little dogs coming at us. It was our first real chance in their culture of it all so it was wonderful.
We decided to have dinner at the Volcano Lodge where we ate at last night – TERRIBLE experience. First with all of the open tables they had us wait a couple of minutes to put us where 2 other people were leaving. I guess that is their 2 person table even though there were 4 seats? Anyway, with all of the lobsters people were eating last night we asked if they had some. The server said they did, but it’s not on the menu and he came back to tell us that it was $40. Ok, that’s how much it costs in the States. We were going to go for it, but then some other guy (who seemed to be managing everyone) came to us and said that the lobster was $60! Excuse me, the other guy just said it was $40. So the he proceeded to negotiate with us and said he’d give it to us for $50. After seeing our frustration at the audacity he proceed to try to sell us their “Christmas Banquet” – a price fixed menu that had the option for lobster. Whatever, we didn’t want to pay $65 for a Christmas cafeteria meal! So, without having a car, we were a bit stuck and wasted their time by taking another 15 minutes (furious) ordering.
After placing our order – me, shrimp with fruit and Dallas pork tenderloin and waiting to try to think positive in spite of being angry. I see that a colorful plate that could have been mine is being served to a table away from us, we were here first yet their were getting their food before us – hmmm. I’m watching as they enjoy their food, that REALLY looked like mine. And when we are being served our food, which in fact was their food, I pointed out their error. They take our food to the back. Pick up my shrimp from the woman that was already 4 minutes into eating it and take it away. I guess they decided to let the husband keep Dallas’ food he was already digging into it. Then I see them 2 minutes later try to serve me THE SAME FOOD that the woman had already eaten from and give Dallas the other man’s right food. Of course I’m livid at this point, and they play stupid not understanding the English that I’m saying even though they very well know what happened – how they were trying to serve me food that was half eaten, I saw them take it away and give it to me. And the ‘manager’ who tried to rip us off on the lobsters asked what we wanted. We said, we wanted our right food. He said, our kitchen is very busy and he was protesting doing so because they had too much to do in there and if we wanted a Christmas lobster instead. UGH. Needless to say we left. Definitely no pura vida in this place, they were f*@^ing a$$holes! And the sad part is, this really sticks out in our mind when we remember what should have been a great adventure.
|  | 
|
