Today we have taken it easy, it can be rough to keep going on adventures and swimming in the ocean! We took a little down time from all that. It’s been a very nice day here. We haven’t kept any schedule it’s just been whatever, with the exception of lunch. For lunch we wanted to try a little cafe/deli down the road.
After breakfast we took a walk up to, even though it’s south it’s mostly uphill from the hotel, the a.t.m. for some cash. We just got more dollars since they have been easy to spend here. Emily had gotten some colonies earlier in the week, we figured there wasn’t much point in it.
On the way back down we decided to follow one of the only sidewalks we’ve seen. It is all up hill and ends in a parking lot with a guard shack and shower house. I believe that it is for the Marriott hotel that is over that way through some trees. It was a nice morning though for a walk. After that, we hung out, Emily finished a book and I went through the pictures and commented on them. I’m not sure if everyone can see them or not. You have to click on the individual pictures and “open” them. I don’t know that everyone’s getting the same views following links and getting emails. I went back as far as I could. It stoped letting me comment on one of the early posts from this trip.
If you have any good links to the posts you can access more posts from it at the bottom. It usually shows the one before and the one after. You’d have to scroll and keep clicking on the last one but. You can go back as far as you want I believe.
The cafe we had lunch at was very small but it had some baked goods that we haven’t seen elsewhere. Sort of a mini Starbucks. Only a handful of sandwiches two of which were ham and cheese one was a panni they didn’t actually press and one on a croissant. The other two were a pulled pork that I had and a roasted vegetable. Emily had the ham and cheese panini. Afterwards we had a piece of their special cake. It was layered with a crispy layer that tasted sort of like pie crust and the other was a caramely layer that was probably sweetened condensed milk that was cooked down and the whole thing was covered in a marshmallowy meringue. We got a cinnamon roll to go. While we were there we had a conversation with Bing. He said that was his name anyway. He is an ex-pat from Texas who has an ex wife he used to do a lot with. He mentioned her several times. He said he only used his social security income for his residency here. He’s having a small house built in the area, he seems to like it a lot here, he’s been coming for 27 years. His Spanish is bad according to Emily. She’s very good. But I also didn’t think he was very smooth with it as well.
He said he came here with three pounds of marijuana gummy’s and a bunch of vape cartridges. He brought them in with his sinks and faucets. Once you pay off your house and car he said you have it made here.
From what I was told by our driver yesterday a new car here will not only be expensive to buy but you have to pay about $2000 a year for the registration/tax. It’s cheaper with older cars.
We stopped at a souvenir shop that was owned by a French couple. She was on the phone the whole time we were there and they didn’t have much, mostly homemade signs with sayings. Nothing interesting.
The afternoon we just relaxed and spent time in the pool. The pool here is not very warm for being in a warm climate with a lot of sun. I’m not sure how they keep it so cold.
Currently we are without power. It’s time to go up for dinner. They are doing a special dinner tonight as they celebrate more so tonight than tomorrow. They are doing something special for the guests tomorrow night as well though with live music. I’m not going to be surprised if the lady we think may he the owner sings while her man plays a tune. They play the exact same music everyday on repeat from one singer. I’m thinking it’s her. Emily said they switched to Christmas music last night but same singer.
We made it part way through dinner and the power came back on. The power company came fairly quickly for Christmas Eve. Francie said it happens because too much power draw to one box and occasionally it will explode. It looked like our hotel was the only one without power. They busted out the old fashioned double dipped and hung over a pole candle sticks that we used as nunchucks as kids. They only cut the wick once so they were really long and would burn into the candle and at the top. The hotel needs a generator if this is a common occurrence. It’s not full here but there are several rooms occupied and if the power was to go for an extended time I don’t think people would want to stay here.
Dinner was good, it did remind me that I wanted to mention that the salads here are basically about 20 stems of something resembling parsley that have a single leaf on the end that is smaller than a penny piled up sometimes mixed with some julienned carrot and some other bland vegetable. They sometimes put a vinaigrette on it. It comes with about everything here at the restaurant for lunch and dinner. It’s also part of the casado meal that is a normal meal in Costa Rica. It’s not bad but it’s not a salad. This restaurant also likes to present the food with a lot of garnishes, pickled beet on top of the rice or some radish slices in front of the meat and pineapple leaves stabbed into the small chocolate cake that they call a brownie.
I’m debating on trying one of the Imperial Cervezas that seem to be popular here. I’m not much of a beer drinker since my more youthful days. I’m curious though. We’ll have to see, if so I will give it a review.
Tomorrow is Christmas, we’re going to spend some time down at the beach and maybe do some snorkeling on the north end of Brasalito beach. There’s an island just out from shore like at Pirate’s beach we thought may have similar things to look at.
About rafting, for those who haven’t done it, when you go the guide sits at the back and steers while telling the people in the raft when to paddle and when to stop based on what he wants the raft to do. You have to pay attention and listen for the commands so it does take concentration. Our guide would call out “paddle” and we both would paddle, “right side paddle” and I would paddle, “left side paddle” was Emily. There is also “back paddle” and “paddle hard”. Some guides will call out the number of stokes they want as well, ours didn’t. I think it may be because I could move the raft pretty well when I paddled. I like to canoe and have my own that Emily and I take out, she uses her paddle board since she got it and I solo in a 12-13 foot three person canoe. I like canoes better than kayaks. Mostly because I’m better at the canoe and it’s more comfortable for me. I think most of what we rafted I could have done in my canoe. I’m not sure how the canoe would do dropping off the big one. I know some of those can be, I don’t know what the limits are though. I wouldn’t mind finding out to some extent.
I’m sure as soon as this gets posted I will remember some more things you may be interested in knowing. If you have something feel free to ask us. We can get some answer for you!
Traveling with Emily! 