Excursion #1: Day 2 Caldera Puerto

Most the towns have these neat signs with the name of the place!

This is the third of four posts related to our Monteverde weekend. Even though our vacation rental was beach front property, the tide was very high, there was a lot of drift wood, and the shore was a little deep making it hard to swim. The waves were a big rough which added to the difficulty of swimming. 

Saturday morning, we decided to go south of Puntarenes to Caldera. There is calmer swimming beach and port at Caldera. We opted to grab some breakfast at a "soda" across the street from the beach instead of eating at the food trucks again. I can't wait to introduce our extended family to the Tico style food trucks. They remind me of the Indian style food trucks in New York just different cuisine. The sameness is what gets me. 10 food trucks of all the same cuisine in a row. Whose do you pick? 

The kids still weren't in the mood for gallo pinto so Rose ate an empanada (this is her "safe" food), Craig chose "cheese cake" which was "flan de coco", I had frijolitos (refried black beans with pickled jalepeno YUM) and Clark ate huevos y tostado (scrambled eggs and french bread toast).

Instead of a picture of the food, I captured this handsome guy. The beach is directly across the street. It is always a pleasure to eat in an outside patio close to water. 

We wandered over to the beach which had BLACK sand. Ok not quite black but it is the color of dark cocoa powder. In some places it does look black. It leaves this silvery residue on your toes. The kids and Clark played in the water awhile and some of us snooped around some rock outcroppings with small tidal pools. We got to see more of those little crabs, which are green and skitter like...themselves. I don't know anything else that runs that fast. 

The sand is darker in person.

There is a little green crab near the rock.

Tidal pools.

My camera is looking south.

If you zoom in, you might be able to see the "silver" on my toes.

It's not a complete trip to the beach without burying a body part.

Panorama of Caldera beach.

A great view of the line of food trucks but I was really trying to capture this unique bird in the tree.

It's like a blue jay but larger with a pheasant crest and long tail. Its call is what got our attention. He's loud like a jay!

We headed back to San Jose and stopped at the fruit stand Clark had visited recently on a business commute to a factory. That's where we picked up our golden melons, zapote (sah-poe-tay), and papaya. We found a casado buffet directly across the highway for lunch. The food is so fresh and the salad that is served seems to be unique to each restaurant. Me mucha gusto!

On our way home, Clark wanted to show me around the Auto Mercado. I found my red bell pepper and we bought a regular loaf of bread although I saw better loaves at the Pequena Mundo. Oh well. We laughed about our farting tires in the parking garage again.