Today Lorrie and I moved out of Hilltop apartment and into Casa La Vista. While staying at two house is nice in that we get to see different parts of the island, the logistics of making the switch is always challenging. Many times we can't check into the second house until early afternoon. So there you are with your Jeep "loaded to the gills" with luggage and such. Plus, if you do decide to go hangout at the beach you have no beach chairs or coolers. At is turned out Dennis, the property manager for Casa La Vista said we could meet up with him @ 10am to drop off our stuff. That was a nice gesture that not many property managers do. We had already arranged with Judy and Andre to borrrow some of their beach chairs. Actually, Judy and Andre were going to get to the beach early and place a couple a extra chairs and a few other items to stage our little cabana so as to keep others from getting it before we could make it. They are the best, Judy and Andre.
Before we left hilltop I took some video of the place.
I needed to get some gasoline and sunglasses. Strange combination..I know. I have managed to break 3 pair of sunglasses this trip. Lorrie has broken 2. We have no idea what our problem is with sunglasses, but we're going through them like crazy. I got gas from the station that's on the south side of 200, you know, the one with the grumpy guy always working behind the counter. After gas we had nearly an hour before we needed to go into Isabel, to get more sunglasses. We decided to use the free time to drive up into Monte Carmelo. We've never been up that way and know of a couple houses that we wanted to see. I had just barely pulled off of 997 and into Monte Carmelo when we saw something that caused to stop. It was a shipping container house being built. Lorrie and I walked up to the house. We could here a generator going and someone working. We were lucky enough to meet the owner/builder of the new structure. His name is Ron. We got a complete tour of the place. This was particularly interesting to Lorrie and I because we had been researching building a shipping container home. We were both so engrossed in the tour and Ron's knowledge that we didn't take a single picture or video. If we make it back I'll be sure to take some video of the house. We ended up talking to Ron until 10:05 and needed to get to Casa La Vista to meet with Dennis. No sunglasses today.
Dennis had told me on the phone that I needed to back down into the drive. He said it's much too difficult to turn around if you pull straight down. Well let me tell you, with a dust covered back plastic window on a Jeep it's darn near impossible to back up, let alone down such a steep drive. Lorrie got out and assisted. Next it was a quick tour with Dennis. Now I've mentioned before about how much stock Lorrie and I place in first impressions. My first impression was when I was backing down into the house. You see there's this huge looming Hix house right above Casa La Vista. The thing reminds me of that movie called "The Keep".
So we go into the place and the first thing Lorrie notices is that the fridge is really small. Too small for a 2k a week house and there's no ice machine. Plus there's only 2 ice cube trays. Who want's to be buying ice everyday...right? The house is old..but we knew that before we rented it. The views from the house are spectacular. The layout of the house is kinda quirky and there's a plethora of locks. Luckly most can be opened with 1 or 2 keys. One of the bedrooms downstairs have 4 locks to get into it. The rejas (bars) on the windows in this house are on the inside and there's big padlocks on each one. Now we've delt with all the rejas on houses before and have kinda of gotten used to them. But they're mostly on the outside, not the inside. So we've got the "Keep" across the road and all these metal bars on the inside. Let me show you a picture of the kichen:
Before we left hilltop I took some video of the place.
I needed to get some gasoline and sunglasses. Strange combination..I know. I have managed to break 3 pair of sunglasses this trip. Lorrie has broken 2. We have no idea what our problem is with sunglasses, but we're going through them like crazy. I got gas from the station that's on the south side of 200, you know, the one with the grumpy guy always working behind the counter. After gas we had nearly an hour before we needed to go into Isabel, to get more sunglasses. We decided to use the free time to drive up into Monte Carmelo. We've never been up that way and know of a couple houses that we wanted to see. I had just barely pulled off of 997 and into Monte Carmelo when we saw something that caused to stop. It was a shipping container house being built. Lorrie and I walked up to the house. We could here a generator going and someone working. We were lucky enough to meet the owner/builder of the new structure. His name is Ron. We got a complete tour of the place. This was particularly interesting to Lorrie and I because we had been researching building a shipping container home. We were both so engrossed in the tour and Ron's knowledge that we didn't take a single picture or video. If we make it back I'll be sure to take some video of the house. We ended up talking to Ron until 10:05 and needed to get to Casa La Vista to meet with Dennis. No sunglasses today.
So we go into the place and the first thing Lorrie notices is that the fridge is really small. Too small for a 2k a week house and there's no ice machine. Plus there's only 2 ice cube trays. Who want's to be buying ice everyday...right? The house is old..but we knew that before we rented it. The views from the house are spectacular. The layout of the house is kinda quirky and there's a plethora of locks. Luckly most can be opened with 1 or 2 keys. One of the bedrooms downstairs have 4 locks to get into it. The rejas (bars) on the windows in this house are on the inside and there's big padlocks on each one. Now we've delt with all the rejas on houses before and have kinda of gotten used to them. But they're mostly on the outside, not the inside. So we've got the "Keep" across the road and all these metal bars on the inside. Let me show you a picture of the kichen:
So anyway..that's the first impression. Like I said...the views from this house are right up there with Quinta Jabali. Probaly the best thing about it so far has been the veranda. They did that right. It has very nice furniture and superb vistas. I took video of the house but right now it's 12 mins long...I need to edit it down some. I will give you a sneak preview of me trying to get into the downstairs bedroom:
It was 11am before we got to the beach today. Lorrie was a trooper and drove back to Sol food for lunch. We got a pulled pork sandwich and a "Funky chicken" sandwich. The Funky chicken was a new one. The funky chicken didn't "jive" with Lorrie and I though. I don't think we'll be getting that one again. Once you get funky with that chicken it doesn't want to leave you. I'm still a little funky tonight typing this although I'm trying to regain my mojo with some scotch. Weather called for a 20% chance of rain today. We had rain most of the day on Orchid. Didn't bother us though cause we had our cabana. We spent the day walking the beach, between showers.. and reading. I spent some time opening up a coconut for some water. At the time I was getting the first wave of that funky chicken. I thought maybe some coconut milk might help.
Tomorrow we go sailing with Jorge (Little boat sailing) @ 8am.
Hasta la vista....
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