The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
December 9 - The Road to Turrialba and Casa Turire
There were some truly pleasant aspects to the Dominical property. Margene especially liked the juxtaposition of flowers and the ocean. Since you can barely see it in the photo on the left, I enlarged a section of the photo to show you the hummingbird that was zipping around the flowers.
I can tell you that it's a thrill to see a big honking bus pull out to pass another big honking bus ... on a blind curve! How would you like to spend a couple of hours like this ... in rain and fog? The right-hand shot is not really typical since most of the time when we ran into a truck like this, there would be a dozen cars stacked up behind it, everyone jockeying for a view angle enough to know when it might (key word: might) be safe to zip past ... so they could get in line behind the next truck!
I can't describe the relief when we finally saw the Hotel Casa Turire through the rain. Best of all, they had an empty room for us! The rooms are arranged around a central atrium and while the property looks like it was built by some coffee plantation owner around the turn of the last century, it was actually constructed as a hotel in 1991!
All they had left was a standard room (I thought I had snagged the Master Suite for a few minutes there until they discovered it was already reserved), but it is large and airy with a balcony looking out to the Lake Angostura, mostly hidden behind the trees. Margene is a happy lady tonight ... and when Momma's happy, everybody is happy!
© 2007 Restaurant Doctor
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