Day 9 Headed Home

Woke up this morning with the tough decision of how to start our last 1/2 day.  After we briefly analyze our options we decide to take it easy and do a beach walk!  It was lovely, started with walking south up the road to the long scary staircase down to the beach that sis-in-law loves to use for her work out, then walked along the beach and arrive at the malecon, as we head inland I point out that we can pass by the French bakery and pick up a sweet delight for breakfast.  I get a very yummy caramel pecan roll  and Dave an almond croissant, we stop and pick up a couple of bananas to add to our last day breakfast and enjoy it on our balcony with coffee while watching the ocean and the construction going on in front of us. We hear that the condo in front and to the side of us is adding additional condo units that will go as high as the 5th floor of Villa Olivia so it will affect the views from anything below the 6th floor here.  We will be on floors 5 and 6 next year.  I took pictures so we can compare the difference in our views next year....might not be as good from the lower floors next year but we do love this place and the people at Villa Olivia and think that will continue to win out, community is a wonderful thing :)
We pack up and go to talk to Denise, she tells us that our room was the one that is open so we don't have to check out until we leave. We head out for a last walk about and check to see if our favorite artist on the malecon added to his long legged animal collection, he was painting but nothing new, I do know I have pictures from last year to send him to have him do a couple of commission pieces, we will see how that ends up. We  have our usual last lunch at Cafe de Olla of chicken enchiladas and margarita for me, beer for Dave. Then we check out the new condo's for rent next to us, Vazul, they had  told us to check back today after noon so we could see a unit. They are lovely modern one bedroom units with  living rooms, nice kitchen and balconies, roof top pool, would totally stay here or encourage friends to stay here since Villa Olivia is always booked up.
After hugs goodbye with Denise and me fighting tears we catch our cab to the airport, 200 pesos this year. We find out our 4:50 flight is an hour late after we check in, they change our flight out of Seattle to the last flight of the day,  it was a long day getting home.  Dave has to scrape windows of the car and we have to let it defrost for about 10 minutes before we can see, we drop into bed at 1:30 AM and freeze for a couple of hours until we warm up enough to sleep.  I am wondering why we came home!










View of Villa Olivia from the beach, middle building, our room this year was just to the left of the sign.  Think this will look different next year when the building with the pink completes building over to the left. Will have to remember to take this picture next year for comparison.

Day 8

Our last full day, hard to decide what to do, too much we want to do yet, we will have to wait for next year when we have more time!

Decided to skip a run again, we are on vacation, but torn because we do love to get runs in here, but feeling like time is short and we haven't gotten in all the neighborhood walks in. We went to breakfast at Cafe de Olla, pancakes for me and only one breakfast for Dave, I love the cinnamon coffee here, noticed a few groups of local gals coming in for coffee to go, no drive through Starbucks here! 

After breakfasts we walked up, through and around the neighborhoods for a couple of hours. Saw some interesting things along the way. We noticed a big gathering of local people in a neighborhood, chairs and tarps set up, people sitting in a row of chairs, so we walked by to see what was going on, Dave saw an open casket in the house, people were going in to view the body. This is a tiny shack of a house, imagine it was their living room, so glad we realized what was going on and didn't take pictures! Saw several locals washing their clothes in the river, enjoy getting around and seeing the goings on back in the neighborhoods. We stopped for lunch at Dacquari Dicks. Thanks to some women at the  next table I bought a lovely bracelet, they had contacted their favorite vendor to meet them there, they told me he has the best quality silver, the 3 gals bought a few peices too. Dave had to eat fast and get back to our room to make a conference call, I stayed and chatted to the gals we met before heading back for a swim. Then off for some browsing and shopping. Back for another swim about 5 PM because it is much warmer today! I finally see Nick from 2 years ago grilling he and Debbie's dinner, he tells me that the group we know meet every night at 6:00 on the pool deck for a happy hour. We go and have a great time visiting and catching up, what great people, they feel bad for us that we leave tomorrow, they all stay for 2 to 2 1/2 months so have s couple more weeks but all said they are ready to go home then.  We have our last nights dinner of pizza at Los Muertos Brewing, delish :) I'm so not ready to go home tomorrow! 

       
Going to miss my view from the pool

 

Day 7

Decided today would be a beach day, so we both did a morning run before planting ourselves at the beach :)

Love running here along the waterfront taking in the start of the day from beach places setting up, the dog groups meeting up, men fishing, Zumba class, and passing by fellow tourists we know from our place and/or the beach who are also out for their morning excercise, very present temp this morning. We have breakfast on our balcony and Dave does a little work which puts us off a bit late getting to the beach, our favorite spots are all filled up by 11:00, we go to La Caretta next to Fedencios, about 5 rows back from beach, note to self go early and get a spot, I should know by now! Still a fine beach day but the guys here are not as sharp as our Fedencios waiters, over charged, pointed it out, still overcharged, give up and say

"Oh well it is still cheap !" We get a swim in and eventually head to

Theresa Bistro for dinner, absolutely amazing

And great service. We spotted a whale while dining, always a thrill.  So far both new places will be on our must do for each trip. I had seafood stuffed poblano peppers and Dave had shrimp with ravioli and blue cheese sauce, dessert was a Mexican coffee and chocolate coconut cake. After a beautiful dinner went to La Bogedia to listen to Cuban music drink  Mojitos and watch the dancers, we danced once to Girl From Impanema, laughed as much as danced! Late night for us, bed around midnight!

  
 Buster from Tennessee

 Lab from Calgary, his first trip here :)

Worker collecting rocks from the beach probably for a walkway 

 

Afternoon view of our balcony 

Theresa Bistro

 

 
 La Bogedia

Day 6

We decided today was the perfect day to go to the zoo, it rained again during the night, cloudy and forcast is for a cooler day, low 70's. We skip our run so we can get an early start. Catch the bus to Mismoloya, 8 pesos per person each way, 40 cents, what a bargin. We walk through the town of Mismoloya to get to the zoo, walk isn't far but sometimes feels hard due to heat, today felt so short! We pay for a bag of food to feed the animals. Today all the big cats are up and active, what a treat, think they have more energy in the cool morning. We feed the our usual favorites, hippo, flamingos, Boris the giraffe, zebras and  tossed  peanuts to the monkeys. Before catching the bus back  we walk down to the beach at Mismoloya, haven't checked it out in a few years and it was closed 2 years ago due to law suit, it appears all is back to normal now. The waves today are huge, have never seen the seas this angry here, just beautiful but no one can swim. We bus back and make sandwiches at our place and shower to get off the bug spray that is needed at the zoo. We walk around and head down the malecon to find the artist we want more pictures from, he is just packing up but told us a lady bought most all of this paintings on Saturday:( bummer!!! He had a couple but not what we want, said he could do some commission pieces for us, got his email and phone number.

Spent some time at the pool then back out, wound up at Theresa Bistro for happy hour drinks and to check out the restaurant, beautiful place and great looking menu so made dinner reservations for tomorrow, we didn't feel dressed right to stay tonight. 

Thought we would try Cafe Roma for pizza and karaoke but at 8:00 pm we were too late, standing room only so went to Fajita Republic for dinner.

        

   

Day 5

We woke up to rain this morning. Dave went for a run but I was a wimp and just didn't feel like running in the rain, it was coming down hard at times. After our simple breakfast in our room, and I mean inside our room, no balcony breakfast this morning, raining so hard it was coming into our balcony. The rain slowed so we decided to head out for a walk, the rain was almost stopped  so decided to see if we could walk all the way to the marina. We made it to the Las Glorious mall when the rain started again, so decided to hop on a bus to go the rest of the way. The rain stopped and it was actually a perfect day to be at the marina, normally it is too hot there. We walked from one end to the other then had lunch st Victors, shrimp tacos and fries. I had a margarita that packed a punch, had a hard time getting through it! The tabled next to us commented on it, looked different then theirs, mine was darker, one of the gals said she noticed them making mine and they were topping it with extra alcohol, she wondered where it was going..... guess to me! I just ordered a regular margarita!

We walked around the marina and looked for allegators, didn't see any, saw lots of birds though. Took bus back to Old Town and walked home. On the way back to our place we stopped and took a tour of some new condos going up on Basilo Badillo street, saw a beautiful one bedroom 1 1/2 bath, huge balcony street view for around 240,000 USD. Fun to look! For some reason they made us wear hard hats, funny because they were not working today, Sunday, and even construction workers here don't usually wear hard hats! Got back and went for a swim, read and talked to Steve from Chicago at the pool, I remembered him from a couple of years ago. 

We went to dinner at Cafe de Olla then went to listen to music at Cuetses Cuetses, same two guys who played there a few nights ago, we remembered they were back on Sunday and we really wanted to hear them again, they are just that good! We had another great day in paradise :)