Day 13
With a thank you nod to Panama, land of the starfish lovelies, we returned to Costa Rica and the Hotel Indalo. It’s always fun to return to a familiar place, and more importantly to our electronics which we’d stored in the trunk(safe) of our car. We didn’t have the hotel to ourselves, but shared it with a group of well-marinated yoga retreaters. They couldn’t find a pitcher so were mixing drinks in their sink. Creative problem solving at its best. Perhaps being super relaxed improves flexibility.
The hotel manager warmed us up with coffee, always appreciated. It was cozy listening to the rain on the roof of the wall-free lobby, fingers wrapped around warm mugs. He talked about various political systems at play in Central America, and compared their effectiveness to CR’s.
Since it was Dad’s Day, we both called our dads then called both our daughters so they could talk to their dad. Then we set out in the horizontal rain to find a restaurant for our own celebration. The rainy season was finally showing off. Rain doesn’t seem like an ample description. The skies were dumping water by the tankerful. We were happy to have the car-umbrella.
The Flip Flop restaurant was empty, yet only two tables weren’t reserved. The waitress confirmed that we couldn’t sit at those tables. Perhaps a tour bus would arrive any minute. I pulled out a chair but it was taken by a napping kitty. Tough place to find an available chair. When I swung my legs under the table there was a napping doggie. Tough place to squeeze in to overall.
Urgent Ketchup warning: The kiddo squirted ketchup onto her whole plate of fries. It was a cross between sweet and sour sauce and a red mystery jelly. I have extremely food standards and even I couldn’t choke those suckers down. Our waitress said this is Costa Rican ketchup. We’ve had ketchup quite a few times here and it was never like this–perhaps it’s a regional thing or a restaurant thing or an oops put-the-wrong-stuff-in-this-bottle thing. We ordered the kid new fries. She put vinegar on them the Canadian way. Both the Indonesian curry and the carbonara, and were ketchup free.
By the time we got to the Father’s Day brownie, the other tables were sitting in water. The reserved signs weren’t for people, they were for flooding. They needed “reserved for the flood” signs. The kid thought they needed ketchup warning signs as well.