La Cruz: a trip to the “big city”

From Playa Copal, the closest city (actually, I’m probably being a bit generous with that descriptor) is La Cruz. If we were going to stay here for two weeks, my wife and I figured we might as well see what La Cruz was all about. Besides, we were running low on fresh fruits and vegetables as the store within walking distance has a somewhat limited selection of perishables. So, it was time to catch the bus. There are no bus stops here, you just wave to the driver and he pulls over. We only had to stop once for live stock on the 30 minute-ish drive to town.

After spending a few hours wandering around, it was pretty apparent that most of the tourists in the area stay in the resorts closer to the beach. The town itself wasn’t exactly breathtaking. Houses were generally small, one story boxy little buildings with paint that looked pretty worn, presumably from the constant wind and tropical sun.  There’s more garbage in the streets then you’d expect in a US city. A fair number of dogs wandered the street unescorted, but they all had shiny coats and went happily about their business. The locals (humans that is) seem fairly indifferent to tourists wandering around. A couple of the friendlier folks said “hola”, the more alert cabbies yelled “taxi” at us, and one child looked rather indignant at our presence. In a couple of hours, I’m pretty sure we saw almost all of the town. It had, by my best count, two banks, half a dozen supermarkets, and a department store, which from the street mainly looked like it had two departments: motorcycles and washing machines. There was of course an array of small shops and restaurants as well.

The most impressive sight was the view. La Cruz sits up on a hill overlooking the Bay of Salinas and the surrounding hills. It was pretty impressive, I must say. But see for yourself in the attached picture Elani snapped.

We ate lunch at open air restaurant that was positioned to take full effect of the view. Normally I’d say the food was nothing to write home about, but I guess I’m doing just that, so that’s categorically not true. Anyways, I wasn’t wowed by the fried shrimp, but they were perfectly edible and reasonably priced, and it was a good excuse to sit in the shade and look out over the bay for an hour. A close second on the most impressive sights we saw in La Cruz was watching a man chase an iguana out from the middle of the road. My Spanish isn’t very good, but I was able to gather from body language and a couple words I was able pick up (spoken to the lizard) that he was concerned someone would run the little guy over, so he made sure to chase him well onto the vacant lot on the other side of the street.

All and all, I’d say don’t go out of your way to visit La Cruz, but if you happen to be passing through, make sure to stop and look at the view. And if you happen to be the one driving, look out for iguanas sunning themselves on the roads.