Our Beach Home

For my benefit in years to come, and for friends like Gina who value a visual image of where we’ve been and where we stayed, I’m posting pictures of our second Costa Rica home.

Based at the Flamingo BeachResort and Spa, our room had a capacity of 6 people, which is what we had.

You walked into our room, bathroom on the left.  Then came the kitchenette with a microwave, toaster, little fridge, sink, and bar with stools.  Then, came the couch with queen-size bed, across from the big tv that sat on a bureau that housed the mini-bar.  Then two queen-size beds under the window.  Freezing cold air conditioning and we were all set.

Here it is in color:

These are some of the outside spaces at the resort.  This is the children’s swimming area, which our crew loved.  Imagine a couple of those lounge chairs pulled up right next to the side of the kiddie pool, with a couple women and a man in them, all drinking daquiris and grinning, oh, and the man has a kindle in his hand–and you’ll know what we looked like as the wee ones splashed away.

This is the children’s play area out in the sun by the kiddie pool.  Our crew preferred the pool, although they did play out here with Buds while Mom and I got our spa treatment.  Buds said they

played out there for about 40 minutes until he was afraid, “I’d burn them to a crisp.”  Even with sunscreen on, the sun still pinked up cheeks and shoulders during our stay at the beach.

I love this shot of Noa and Grandma in the play house.

This is the lobby of the hotel.  It didn’t really hit me at first, but one of the huge differences the climate makes is that the lobby of this luxury hotel is completely open on the sides.  If you look at the light shining on the far right side of the picture, that is where you walk up directly from the parking lot.  No doors, just open space.  Note the staircase on the left.  That leads up to the Spa, among other things.  Have  I mentioned I liked the spa?

This is the view opposite the doors leading up from the parking lot in the picture above.  You looked down from the lobby into the pool area.  The covered area on the right is the children’s pool.  The covered area on the left is the swim up bar, and straight through the back, past the man in the banana hammock, that’s the Pacific Ocean.  THAT close.  It was lovely.

And just a few last much-loved shots of this portion of our trip: