Cerro de la Muerte? Meh.

Sunday, Dec 9: My posts will probably be less than "real time" due to the general lack of internet. It's not a huge priority to keep this thing *that* current :)

Saturday definitely ended on an "up" note and the morning started out pretty good too. The folks at the hotel put out a simple breakfast of gallopinto, fruit, toast and tea. Yep, I drank tea and I *never* do that. I was just so thirsty and it was so sugared that it worked out. After walking around and checking out all the funky plants in the courtyard my ride showed up and dropped me off at Budget to pick up my bizarre little Daihatsu Terios (henceforth to be known as Gordito).

 The huge inroads that I recall German cars seem to have in Mexico definitely haven't been made here. It's mostly Toyatas and Suzukis. Oh sure, there's a wide variety of other things including some little El Camino style Chevys and Nissans that I haven't seen before.

 Today's drive definitely had some dramatic scenery, but the road did not meet my expectations of doom. I've driven crazier roads on the west coast of the US and more dangerous roads in West Virginia. This was actually pretty easy driving with the last 15 miles leading down into San Isidro de El General being the prettiest. There were quite a few wind power stations working up in the mountains and the clouds were really whipping across the road but some reason I never felt it in the little gordito I was driving.

There were plenty of of roadside cafes (called Sodas) along the way. They don't sell gas or anything like that but they do sell snacks (hot and cold), drinks, have restrooms and sometimes like one of the ones I stopped at have game rooms for the kids.

Here's one of about a million older Land Cruisers I saw, and an interesting fact about the number of early 80s series Toyota Land Cruisers I've been seeing down here. It turns out that the price of coffee had an unprecedented spike back then that hasn't been seen since. I think it was like $3.40/lb compared to less than $2. When the money was rolling in a lot of the farmers took the opportunity to get a new truck and that model was really popular at the time. What I'm even more jealous about is that many of these are diesel. Way cool.

San Isidro de El General is *not* a big city, but it is a big town. It's busy, dirty and confusing with lots of one way streets and it's not always apparent which ones go in which direction, especially the way people park. On the upside I had no problem leaving the little truck thing parked like a local while I walked into the hotel to confirm I was trying to get into the right parking compound. Holy moly, what a mess.
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So today I pretty much walked around watching the townies do their thing. My room felt something out of Casablanca. Even the bar/restaurant down/in front was full of old, white ex-pats who gave me the impression they had gotten divorced and just bailed out. A couple of them had what would seem to be local brides but overall just looked like perros sin dueño and there was no shortage of them rolling in and out of there all day. It was totally strange. I don't think I'd spend a day in this town again but over all I was able to get around easily and it was worth it just to soak up the local vibe.

Next Stop, Osa Peninsula.