Day 2 - Costa Rica

Day 2 began kind of early. The birds and other creatures start making noise about 4:00 am. I didn't hear them, but Kevin said it woke him up. We got up and walked around the resort a little. Then we went to breakfast and sat outside at the restaurant. We had a bird friend join us. It was their blue jay or magpie. It was pretty big and really pretty.

After breakfast we went to the pool. I went to the pool boy to ask for some towels, but they wouldn't give them to me. They asked where we wanted to sit and then proceeded to set up our chairs with towels neatly tucked in and then used another towel and rolled it up to make a pillow. They put a table in between our seats and brought us cups of ice cold water. Every so often they would come by and see if we needed anything. During our stay, here were our poolside amenities: ice water every time we emptied our cups, Popsicles, cold wash clothes, someone would come by and offer to clean your sunglasses, someone would come by and offer to spritz you with Evian, samples of a frozen cappuccino and a strawberry/banana smoothie plus we ordered lunch there a couple of times. Oh, and popcorn shrimp came with popcorn and shrimp. Really. We also had our first celebrity citing that morning at the pool. It was James Hetfield from Metallica strolling by on his way to breakfast.

After we were at the pool for a while, Kevin's group decided to play a little beach volleyball. I was very excited to play. Unfortunately, I was on the only girl. We won the first game, but lost the next 2. They did have 1 more player than us and they had all men. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Sorry to let you down guys!

Down on the beach, there we 2 guys selling pottery. I went over to look at it. I was talking to 1 of the men and he was telling me how he made the pottery and fired it for 40 hours. He showed me his name on the bottom and then showed me another piece with another name on it and told me that his friend made it. Kevin and I picked out a couple of pieces and bought them. Fast forward to Sunday. While in the gift shop at the zip line place we saw a shelf of pottery that looked exactly like the pieces that we bought. Wow, those guys have been busy! :) I didn't bother to look at the price. I didn't want to see how much I had been ripped off. Fast forward to Monday. We went to the other beach and there was another guy selling the same pottery. I asked him "did you make that?" and he said with a big smile on his face "Yes!". I said "no you didn't". I showed him - ha! I did end up buying some bracelets that "he made". Right!

After purchasing our pottery that was hand made by the man on the beach, we headed back to the pool. There was a planned boat outing, which we weren't going to go on, but changed our mind when we found out that the catamaran had 2 levels, so we could get out of the sun. Plus they were serving lunch and going to watch the sunset on the water. While waiting to leave, the moneys appeared on the beach again. I went down to get a picture, but they were moving too fast. Then a guy on the beach got my attention and was yelling "parakeet!" I was looking, but didn't see a parakeet. I did see 2 monkeys above me. He keep saying "parakeet" and then said that the monkeys had a parakeet and were eating it. Nice! I took a picture, but it's hard to see the parakeet in it's hand.

The boat was on the Pacific side of the beach. While waiting for the boat to come to shore we had our 2nd Metallica front man sighting. I tried to discreetly take a picture of him. Tacky, I know. Back to the boat...they were trying to get the boat as close to the beach as they could by riding the waves in so we could get on. In the process of doing that, the dinghy tied to the side of the catamaran was shoved into the side of the boat and flipped over. I think at least 1 person bailed when they saw that. 2 of the men from the boat jumped into the water to try to flip it back over and bail out the water. All of this took place while there were still waves crashing in. Fortunately, no one was hurt. We boarded the boat and there were couches and chairs set up all over the place like a lounge. There was also a bar and buffet.

We sailed to a cove where most of the people got off and went snorkeling. About 5 minutes later, most of the people got back on the boat. Apparently, there were jellyfish in the water stinging them. We lounged around there, ate and chatted with people. After about an hour we cruised around until the sun set. While we were cruising, a pelican decided to hitch a ride with us. Then he/she decided that the buffet looked pretty good, so he jumped up on the table, stepped in the salsa and left. Needless to say, they removed the salsa.

The sunset was beautiful. We did not see a green flash, though. We were so glad that we went!

We came back to the room and it was clean. Whoever cleaned the room did not like how I had arranged all my products on the sink, so it was rearranged. They also did not like where our shoes were, so we had to search for them. Apparently, shoes belong in the closet. We took a little snoozer, because it was such an exhausting day - ha! After that we went to dinner - celeb sighting #3. Kevin and I went to the outdoor restaurant and got a romantic little corner table overlooking the beach where someone had paid to have dinner on the beach with their honey. We had the Brazilian buffet where they bring around a bunch of different types of meat to your table. I tried most, but not all! The breeze was blowing and the stars were out. It was a lovely evening.


When we got to the room there was a note from the manager apologizing again for the ceiling fan incident (he had already called twice to see if everything was ok). His note said "Dear Mr and Mrs. Gabhart, We hope you have a wonderful stay with us. We sincerely apologies (that's how he spelled it) for the inconvenience you had regarding the ceiling fan. please do not hesitate to contact us if you need anything else. Warm regards, Gustavo Monks". He had delivered a bucket of beer along with chips, salsa, guacamole, and trail mix. Unfortunately, we were so stuffed from dinner that we didn't eat any of it. Plus, we don't like beer. It was a really nice gesture, though. We were supposed to go back out and meet up with some of Kevin's coworkers, but were just too tired. Again, it was an exhausting day - ha!