With our change of plans the day was to start with being picked up at 8:40 by Aurelio, our driver. That meant we tried to get down to breakfast in time and made it there by maybe 8:30. Breakfast was eggs with ham and fresh cheese and a fruit juice that I couldn't identify along with a cup of coffee. Aurelio was a bit late so though we went down to breakfast late we didn't get rushed trying to eat.
Our first stop of the day was Panaca, which is an agricultural theme park which was loaded with animals. It had some zip lines that would run around the park but when we got there the weather was not so good and they wouldn't let us go then later in the day we didn't have the time. Realistically we should have had all day to visit Panaca except that we were going to the National Park of Coffee later. There were two shows we could see for the time we had at Panaca. So we tried to aimed to get both of them in during our visit and managed to. The park is loaded with all sorts of animals mainly agriculturally themed,such as cows, goats, sheep an horses. There were birds, mainly chickens. Rabbits. Guinea pigs. Cats. Dogs. The list goes on. We didn't get to see all of them. We did get to meet Martina who was some weird sort of plant eating rodent that was very friendly and let us pet her and we took a few pictures of her. She made a strange whistling sound. It might have been like a purr it was making. She was definitely cool. The first show was about livestock that could be milked. They ran a humor based show that also required audience participation. Daniela was selected to go out and milk a cow. I was unfortunately selected to milk a goat (which I failed at). The entire show was in Spanish by the way with very little English being used to help me when I was in front of the audience. I had to say things in Spanish and do a silly dance. It was very embarrassing. They also had kids ride animals or carts drawn by animals and a tug of war with an oxen where of course the people lost. It was a fun even being publicly mocked. I did get to drink the goat milk and Daniela got the fresh cows milk too.
After the first show was over we looked at the goats and cows and rabbits among other things then headed to the second show. This one was a comedy show about a country woman that was leaving the country to go to the city. This also was obviously in Spanish and they spoke so fast I really couldn't understand even a couple words. I told Daniela not to bother translating because there was no real value to it. She wouldn't be able to enjoy it if she had to do that. I still enjoyed watching it. They had a couple animals do tricks but overall it was about the comedy. After that was over we walked down and saw the ostriches and then headed out to the gate to be picked up by our driver.
We were then taken to the National Park of Coffee which we were supposed to do the day before but didn't because especially we'd miss the dance show Daniela wanted to see. So we made it in time to get in line for entry to the dance show and only had to wait a few minutes to get in and the show started. It was fairly impressive in the sense the dances looked very difficult and it was very showy. There was a little bit of English to be had this time. The show might have lasted around 45 minutes and had a lot of different dances in it. We weren't allowed to take pictures of video of it. After the show we walked through the bamboo grotto to the restaurant area and ate at the only real restaurant in the place. We got a bottle of Argentinian wine, a red, Malbec, the brand being Trapiche. It was reasonably good. I got a dish of pork cooked with a coffee based sauce and Daniela go beef tips with a wine sauce. Both were really good though perhaps the coffee based sauce was a bit sweet. In all honesty we were having a good time enjoying the wine and just talking that we really didn't do much else in the park except ride the cable car back to the entrance and then visit the Jeep Willys and then get a cup of coffee. After that it was time for or ride to come pick us up.
After we got back to the hotel we got changed and hit the Jacuzzi again. This time the water heater was actually working and the water was warm. After we finished with the pool it was dinner then in for the night.
The pictures from today can be found here.
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