Rather than head back up the Pan American highway again, risking life. limb and car, we took off towards Neily, navigating a very foggy, windy road reminiscent of the road to Hana on Maui. We passed through San Vito, by the Casa Botania and the botanical gardens, and down the windy road. Road conditions were far better than they had been. Our goodbyes with Darien were brief, she had an extremely busy social schedule that day! =]
After getting through Neily, we headed towards Ojochal, a little bit past the midway point to San Manuel Antonio/Quepo. We crawled through the last 30 km, as the construction crews were out repairing the roads. They had done an amazing amount of quality work in the short few days we were in Fila Guinea. As we pulled by the Ojochal turnoff, we were very impressed with the work. We had lunch at Citrus, a fairly new restaurant that had been listed as up and coming in the Lonely Planet Costa Rica guide. We would both highly recommend it!!!!
Even with road construction underway, our remaining time riding to Quepos was fairly quick. The longest part was taking the side road down into San Manuel Antonio to find our hotel, La Mansion. We were told that they didn’t have the room we booked, and that we had a room that was “not very small” that we would be pleased with. I feared another hotel with two twin beds, but should have known better. We were taken on a tour around the hotel, and then led to the Presidential Suite!
Dinner plans quickly changed from in town to in-room -- the elegant setup, the beautiful food presentation, and the personalized service made it a room that was very hard to leave.
