La Yeguada

Instead of running out the door and onto our next destination as we had planned last night, we decided to stay another night and head on up to a different area to the east of Santa Fe called La Yeguada.  There’s not much to say about the town, but there is a national park with an artificial lake nearby, it’s way up in the mountains, and the park is full of tall pine trees.  I guess I should probably state that every picture is clickable to enlarge, just in case you didn’t know.

Let’s start with this place.

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New Years’ Eve

You’d think that being in the midst of surf-central, that’s where we’d want to be today, but here is the reality.

The beaches are sweltering hot, 35-40 degrees.  The sand is on fire until you get to where it is still wet from the tide.  At some, the surf makes it unswimmable with dangerous currents, and the one that is swimmable will be swarming with New Years Eve revelers today, which means blaring accordion music all day, and the drunks to go with it.  The drunks here aren’t obnoxious, in fact their quite friendly, but need I go on?   It’s just not my cuppa… Or Cass’ either.
Instead, today we went up the other river route we had heard about on the first day we got here.  We packed a few sandwiches, more water than the last trip to the waterfalls (we learn), hammocks and books.  Here’s a picture of yesterdays’ waterfalls.  Not big, but nice.
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Torio (slowest internet connection EVER)

An hour down the hill out of Santa Fe, a stop for gas and $$ in Santiago, and then another hour and a half down the west coast of the Penninsula de Azuero, and we found ourselves at Torio, a small touristy village by the sea.  The road out this way isn’t the best, but it is paved all the way.   There is rice and cattle out this way, and the trucks that service it beat the road up pretty good.  60 km/hr is a safe enough speed to avoid losing your front end in a chasm like this.  There is surfing here, well, not really here but more up the road at Playa Mallena, but it is here.

Our first night was spent at a place that looked nice enough, but with a noisy bar at night (two customers) and no internet, it was too much to pay.  The same evening we went hunting around a little better.  At first glance there were no other games in town, but there were once you looked. Read more “Torio (slowest internet connection EVER)” →

Merry Christmas from Santa Fe!!!

Click here for a full-size image of above, taken at The Anachoreo, our current home.

Holy crap, has Santa Fe ever changed.
The last time I was here, there was just one place in town to stay, the Santa Fe Hotel.  It had a small sign nailed to a tree across the street, and was pricey.  There were two paved streets in town, and maybe one restaurant, but it was questionable at best.
Now, this hotel has some competition, which is good, because the prices are about the same.  Off of the two paved roads are a multitude of paved streets, which used to be nothing more than horse paths between houses in the mud.  Every single one of them is now paved, and a nice job of it too.  It’s odd, because it makes the town a veritable spider web of roads and cross-roads, which would only be possible to memorize with time.  There isn’t a road sign anywhere, and how could you name them anyways?  Jose’ street?  Julio Ave?  They just went between houses built on the flat spots.  Ok, enough on that. Read more “Merry Christmas from Santa Fe!!!” →