Cara and Dan, couple of new amigos!
Once again, one of the best things about traveling is meeting new people and enjoying some great conversation. Cara and Dan (great name, huh!) are a couple we met while lounging around the pool at The Falls Resort. While ordering cervezas in the bar, we struck up a little Gringo-to-Gringo conversation about the heat, nice place, cold beers and other tourists. They had gone to Manuel Antonio Reserve that morning, around 10am, and said the line was impossible, close to 300 people waiting to get in the park. Just can’t get around those damn tourists! Anyway, they decide to hit the beach instead of the reserve and see how red Dan could get before going home. We chose to hang out at the pool for the afternoon and then went back to the room to get ready for dinner.
Before we could go to dinner we had to enjoy cocktail hour in front of our room and watch the critters start to roam. I thought they were picas, or tapirs but turns out the little brown animals running around the place were called Agoutis, a member of the rodent family and similar to a very large guinea pig. Didn’t get a good picture of one but that’s OK. But we did get a great picture of the sloth that was hanging on the phone line.
The next day we hit Manuel Antonio early in the morning based on Cara and Dan’s experience the day before, while they decided to have some real fun, go fishing. We met up that afternoon back at the local bar and had a little Gringo-to-Gringo conversation about the heat, nice place, fishing and Manuel Antonio! Oh, yeah and tourists.
Turns out these guys are from Cleveland where Dan is in construction and Cara is in sales and service. This was their first trip to CR and having a pretty good time even with Dan’s 3rd degree burn on his feet. Not to worry, the resident doctor (and bartender) prescribed cold cervezas to relieve the pain. Seemed to work so I thought I’d try it also. Collette went for the umbrella drinks.
After a very short time, 3-4 hours, we were all feeling much better, the pool was cooler and those tourists didn’t seem to matter. Found out that Dan wants to move to Alaska while Cara would consider it but has a few stipulations. They also want to go to Ireland so that gave us a lot to talk about.
They also shared with us that there are a couple of islands (yes, islands in Cleveland) where even old retirees can have a good time. Kelley Island, located in the western basin of Lake Erie and is the largest American island in Lake Erie, is home to some great fishing, golfing, biking, you name it. They also mentioned another island where they filmed “Girls Gone Bad” which sound a hell of a lot more interesting than Kelley Island, but probably not for retirees.
So we finished up the day talking about Alaska, Ireland, fishing, fishing and then about fishing and then called it a day. Seems strange that Dan appears to be such a nice, level headed guy yet he likes to go ice fishing, go figure! Well everybody has their faults. Good thing he has Cara to watch over him. Then again, I heard she likes to ice fish!
Great couple that we really enjoyed meeting and hope them the best wherever they decide to settle. Hope they stay in touch.
