Playa La Saladita Feb 17, La Cala Restaurant and Pangea

Playa La Saladita

Today, February 17th, we took a run in the car up the coast about 40 Kilometers to a little beach called La Saladita (salty) We looked up our friends Keith and Yvonne and Brian and Arlene who had just left El Manglar, then went into a little restaurant and surf shop for lunch.


The food was inexpensive and very good, and the restaurant dogs Lobo, Luna and Pluto were very friendly. Lobo reminded us a bit of Wolf and Pluto looked a LOT like Trekker. The yellow Lab in the picture is Pluto. The other is Lobo.



While we were having lunch Tia decided to jump out of the car to play with the dogs! Trekker was not impressed–his barking alerted us to the truant Tia who was soon back in the car, this time secured with harness and leash.

We returned home via a 9 Km roundabout route over dusty dirt roads through the village of Majahua, then last 3 0r 4 kilometers along the waterfront towards Troncones. Along the beach front the road is lined with expensive summer homes but we quickly decided the area was not for us.

La Cala Restaurant

Wednesday was our usual night out and so in the “pursuit of excellence” we decided to try another high end restaurant, this one at the north end of town called La Cala, (The Cove) This restaurant is part of a hotel and sits on the cliff and goes right down to the water, in a very picturesque cove. The hotel complex we later discovered has a very bad name with many locals because of environmental issues. Many people believe that the pier built by the hotel has changed the water circulation pattern in the bay and is increasing the already significant pollution problem.

The food was adequate at best and expensive. The wine list was fair, but extremely expensive. A bottle of wine that we could buy in the grocery store for well under 100 pesos was 600 pesos on the menu. We ordered the Tournedos, which to our eyes appeared to be an enormously thick cut pyramid of beef. It was done to our liking, medium rare, and was very juicy and flavourful but that was the best of the meal. It was accompanied by a huge baked potato, one slice of very hard carrot, one small slice of soft bland eggplant and one slice of equally soft and bland zucchini. The service was fair–we had to ask for napkins and when the waiter brought our meal he had to go back for the cutlery.

We have pretty much decided to forego the so called "high end" restaurants for the foreseeable future.

Pangea again

With this in mind on Saturday we returned to the Pangea Restaurant for dinner, this time with a couple from the RV Park. Time is Marching on and we did want to visit Mal’s place at least once more.

Art went for the lasagne (no surprise here) with chicken liver pate as a starter–a portion that fed all four of us–30 pesos–less than $3.00! The margaritas were still only 30 pesos each. Art drank three and for some reason can’t remember the prices of the rest of the dishes or what the others had.

The four of us ate very well here for less than a quarter of what the two of us had paid at La Calla, and the food was better prepared and better served.