One of the nice things about living in or visiting the San Carlos City and Calatrava area is exploring the mountains. Whether you like to trek, enjoy the views, or just have a nice place to have a morning coffee, there are dozens of places to choose from if you can find them. As trekking and discovering new places is a personal interest of ours, and as service to our guests, SmallFry’s Beach Resort will post blogs periodically so others can share in our experiences.
Today we decided to go up the mountain road in Calatrava and we stopped at a new cafe called Hill 350 Cafe about 5km from town. We originally were planning to go to Malview Cafe but when we saw the incredibly steel hill we wanted an excuse to use our 4 Wheel Drive. They paved the bottom of the hill so a two wheel drive can make it up at least part way. We decided to park at the first level and walk up the rest of the way because we didn’t know if there would be room to turn around at the top. There was, so if you’re brave enough to go up all the way in your car, there is space to turn around to come back down.
Hill 350 is cute. We ordered a coffee, chicken and rice for the kids, and Bachoy soup for us. The staff is friendly, and food not too bad. The coffee is the same and even in the same paper cups you get at most of the roadside cafes, but that is not a bad thing. The local coffee beans are quite good.
The furniture is all home made and the chairs a bit small and hard on your butt, but if you’re not staying too long it OK. The view is amazing from the cafe. It’s higher than the cafes down on the highway, but it’s hard to say if that gives a significant advantage. There are lot of tables scattered around the natural rock structures. They cut open one large rock for display, and it appears to be solid quartz inside. The kids enjoyed seeing that.
All in all it was worth the visit especially if you like a rustic setting.
