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.

After starting to give up hope, Cass caught this place out of the corner of her eye, so we stopped to check it out. Internet, A/C, parking, laundromat, and $38.50/night. It has a certain “Hotel Seuss” feel to it in that nothing is straight or square, but that only applies to the additions put on after the initial building was done. Sit down, or hold onto something before you click on the picture.

The rest of the place is pretty nice, so I was curious and had to ask. They will rent out furnished apartments for 840/month. I didn’t even begin to haggle. I’m absolutely sure I could get it for quite a bit cheaper than that, but why? The thought of having a place central to everything has an appeal, but it’s not so central that all else is day trips, so you’d often end up paying rents on two fronts. The price would have to take that into account to make it worthwhile.

On up the mountain was a nice little drive, and damn steep in several places. The road was in much better condition than the one to Santa Fe, but still, 60-70 km/h was tops being low to the ground as I am. At every river crossing there were cars and people down in them cooling off, and I would have liked to stop at one specifically. Weird rock formations had carved swimming holes in them, but I couldn’t stop.

The lake was a reservoir for hydroelectric facility, and you can see the pipe rather easily here.

Wayyy up here, you can see the tall pines that begin to make up the park itself.

And the windy little campground everyone stops at first before moving on. Tall pines, just like Canada without the fee.

One of the things I really like about Central America, is that there is no one holding your hand all day long telling you what you can and can’t do. If you want a thrill, go ahead, we won’t stop you, but you better have someone there to help you if anything goes wrong. If you don’t make it, good riddance, but Canada likes to keep their idiots alive, so they can breed, and burden the capable. True? Mmmm? LOL

These guys weren’t writing tickets. They were having an absolute blast getting paid to whip up the mountain on a bike. There were several others doing the same. Note: the passenger seat is the cargo rack. Ouch! Cass was soooo happy these guys showed up and then posed for her. She had been trying for weeks in David to get a shot of them as they rolled past daily at 7:30 AM… ish….

Around the other side of the lake is the waterfalls, and ANAM had their little operation going on there. 5 buks a head for tourists, but they let us in for 2 buks. Dunno why, dint ask.