Slowly going insane: Resort day

Friday was our last full day at the Buenavista Tulemar resort. Amelia, John and I spent a relaxing day enjoying the grounds while Scott went on a full day deep water fishing excursion.

The resort property was so gorgeous that we wanted to enjoy it as much as possible on this last day. So we started off the morning with a walk from our bungalow down to the beach. The roads located within the property were so steep that we often took advantage of the free shuttle to get around, but the downhill short walk to the beach was easy enough to manage.

This was our third visit to the private beach, and the water was definitely quite rough this time. The kids started off trying to ride the waves on the boogie boards, but changed their minds after getting roughed up by some larger waves. Amelia and John happily created sand castles for a few hours while we all enjoyed the sunshine and sounds of the surf.

A day in Costa Rica doesn't go by without an animal sighting every couple of hours. Here is a sloth that was just hanging out in a tree down on the beach. This sloth was close enough that you could watch him move (very slowly!) to get leaves on each branch to eat.

We took advantage of the surfside restaurant and ate lunch on the beach. Animals sighted during lunch included small lizards, a garden snake (that just about gave me a heart attack), and a gigantic iguana that would not leave us alone.

The fact that our waiter fed "Carlos" (the name the waiter called the iguana) french fries seemed like a double-edged sword. On one hand, dropping french fries on the ground worked to lure Carlos away from the dining tables, at least for a short time. On the other hand, Carlos' attraction to the french fries seemed to make him return to our dining area over and over again. This iguana was quite pesky.

Finally our waiter changed his strategy and used a chair to shoo Carlos away. As always, the iguana made me cringe, but the kids were definitely amused by Carlos' persistence in being around our lunch table.

After lunch, we decided to visit the third pool on the property, the "family pool", which we had not been to yet during our stay. Amelia and John made friends with kids from another family, and the dad took turns throwing nerf balls to all of the kids in the pool.

More animals! We had been at the pool for about a half hour when a huge troop of howler monkeys came down through the trees. This group got very close to us and put on quite a show of jumping form tree to tree. The monkeys stayed near the pool area for about 20 minutes, giving us quite good entertainment while we swam.

See the dark and stormy skies in the photo below? We couldn't help but wonder if Scott was stuck on the boat in the midst of the storm. We were lucky enough to escape rain until much later in the afternoon.

It turns out that Scott and the fishing crew did get rained on during the storm. While Scott reported that he enjoyed he fishing experience, he said that the two-hour ride back to the marina through pounding rain was a little rough.

After our swim at the family pool, the kids and I cleaned up and rode the bus into the town of Quepos. Our goal was to try and find Scott at the marina where he was disembarking from the fishing boat. Since Scott and I were not able to communicate effectively with cell phones our plan to meet up did not work quite as planned. But the kids and I enjoyed our short walk around town until we admitted defeat and returned back to the resort.

We found a marina in town, but Scott had already returned to the resort by this point.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that Scott brought back (A LOT!) of fish that he caught that day. Scott expertly used the electric grill that was on the balcony to grill this fresh mahi-mahi.