Indeed! He had been working with another agent who had just informed him that the place he had rented to us was not available since he had given it to a friend to whom he owed money. Whoops. To be fair, Luis was good on his word and picked us up at the airport so he could show us other properties available that met our price range. That may have been the case, but in terms of what we expected, those apartments left a lot to be desired and were not up to the standard we knew we would find at Loma del Mar.
In the end, Luis did the right thing and returned our money and we booked a hotel we've stayed In before for the night and started working out our strategy for the month ahead. We had a lovely meal that night at Mariscos Polo's - a good seafood restaurant in town.
Baby RedSnapper fillet grilled
Bacon wrapped Mahi-mani stuffed with seafood and vegetables. Note the rice with ribbons of fried sweet potato.
In the morning we went for coffee and ran into a couple of friends. We had already spoken to our hotel about renting one of the rooftop apartments and planned to see it later. On the way to coffee we stopped on at Freddy's pharmacy which also had an apartment available. At coffee we met Jack, Fred and Victor all of whom knew about apartments too. Jack took us to his place, the Villa Olivia up the hill and when we saw it we felt we didn't need to go anywhere else. It was so lovely, and the landlady, a French Canadian, was charming. We took it the next day although we had to stay in one apartment studio for the first four nights before moving to our present location up one floor. There's a roof top patio and pool too with an incredible view.
We stayed one more night and checked out in the morning but not without mishap. While brushing my teeth I leaned a little hard on the sink and it broke off from the wall. No pictures. Some of you will know that this is the second time I've managed to break a sink in a hotel. The last time was in Osuna in Spain. I'm hoping that's the last time. If I'm visiting you, you might also want to reinforce your sink.
Our first studio.
Our studio home until we fly back to Vancouver.
The patio
The view from our patio.
Interior view.
Jack and Nigel in the whirl pool on the roof.
The view from the roof. Note the swirling thing is on the pier from which I took the photos looking back to land elsewhere in this post.
Now that we are settled with no more drama to deal with, perhaps my blog will get back to fewer words, and lots of pictures - since I heard loud and clear last year that my readers liked that. I enjoy it too. Herewith, a few pictures of things seen around town.
Frida Kahlo in effigy.
The view from the wharf at Los Muertos Beach. The building just left of centre and below a sloping building that nearly preaches the top of the hill is where we are staying.
Geordie and a new friend.
A hibiscus flower in bloom outside our building.
Colour and vibrancy at a tienda. And useful to boot.
Aztec dancers.
School decorations for Revolution Day.
An accidental fish in the sidewalk. I saw this and realized it was made by two different footprints in the wet cement and I'm certain it was unplanned.
And finally a panorama from the pier. Our building is in the photo.
I'll look around for more photo moments to add to the blog as we enjoy our time here.
Cheers.
