Monday, January 13 was a quiet day. We did school and chores in the morning, and more chores in the afternoon. We didn’t venture out until dinner time.
This time we walked farther down the causeway, to the restaurant at Flamenco Marina, which was about 1.5 miles away. It was a gourmet food court with a fancy bar in the middle, and Eric was eager to give it a try.
We sat at a table near the Japanese restaurant. A waiter came by and confirmed that we could order from any of the restaurants in the food court and he’d bring everything to the table for us (except for the Brazilian restaurant, which only had a self-serve buffet). Apparently, all beverages came from the bar. The food choices were all high-end.
Neither Christi nor Keith had much of an appetite, so we had a tapas style dinner with assorted appetizers from the Japanese and Spanish restaurants. The food was great.
The sun was beginning to set as we walked back to the La Playita marina, making the scenery even more stunning. To the right in this photo is the boat entrance to the marina.
We’ve stated several times that the La Playita anchorage was one of the worst anchorages we were ever in. Here is a short video showing how rocky it is.
The moon was now 100% full and stunningly bright in the sky.
Sunrise on Tuesday January 14
It was another quiet day. We did school and chores in the morning. In the early afternoon, Christi had an important video call for her land-life project, so the men went to lunch without her.
They decided to go back to Hacienda Colombia, and ordered Colombian food this time. They got empanadas de carne, which were corn dumplings stuffed with potatoes and ground beef. They were a little bland and dry by themselves. They were served with a sauce that tasted like it was simply mayo and ketchup mixed together and a mild salsa. The empenadas were much better with the sauces.
They also ordered salchipapas, which were French fries covered with the mayo/ketchup sauce, shredded chicken, slices of sausage, a cheese similar in taste and texture to mozzarella, and a sprinkling or corn on top. Apparently, there was also a pineapple sauce and a red sauce of some sort in there, too, but we couldn’t taste them as the mayo flavor dominated the others.
Another kid boat had pulled into the marina that had a boy close in age to Keith. After getting back from lunch, the boy came over and the kids played games for most of the afternoon. Unfortunately for us, they had just come through the canal and were on their way to the South Pacific, so they weren’t potential cruising companions.
We forgot to write about this over the weekend… in previous posts, we’d mentioned that the two shopping centers have several restaurants, but we failed to mention that the strip malls also had numerous places where you could rent small vehicles, such as bikes with bench seats that the whole family could ride together and electric scooters. There was a VR game center, a paintball place, a go-cart track, and lots of other fun activities for teens. This area reminds us of Belmont Park in San Diego. Over the weekend, in the evenings, it was jam packed with families and groups of teens.
There was also a cute little train that went by periodically, too. We’re not sure where the train went from/to, as we never saw it stop.
We also forgot to mention that near the Sabroso Panama restaurant, there is an ice cream place called Gelarti and a frozen yogurt place called Yogen Fruz which are located side by side. We’ve tried both of them. The gelato place is good, but not great. We liked the frozen yogurt better.