The Beach

The final three days of our Costa Rican Adventure were spent at a resort on the Pacific side of the country:  The Playa Flamingo Resort.  Buds had the idea of splitting our trip between the city and a beach, and he’s the one who tracked down The Flamingo.  It looked beautiful, but you never can tell until you actually get somewhere.

And, getting there was a haul.  It is only 120 miles from San Jose.  One hundred twenty miles–max of 2 hours in the U.S., right?  The resort website said 4 to 5 hours from the San Jose airport, which was close to our casita, and it was right.  Four and a half hours to drive 120 miles, but once we made it out of the rough and tumble of San Jose and Hwy 1, it was a beautiful drive.  The children did great, we were driving in the day time, it was gorgeous.  On the trip back at the end of the week, we even saw two wild monkeys just hanging out in a tree next to the road.  Truly beautiful country.

So, we left San Jose around 10:45 a.m., and headed for the beach.  We were so glad.

The beach ended up being everyone’s favorite part of the trip.  We’d get up in the morning, have breakfast, generally in our room with its little kitchen, then head down to the pool.  The children’s pool was completely covered, so shaded except in the late afternoon.  We’d splash and play and read and lounge for a couple hours.  One day we even got drinks from the swim-up bar, which was a hoot and a half.  Good grief they were strong, and we slurped them right up.  Another day, Buds took on sole kid duty and Mom and I disappeared to the spa for Serenity facials and head, neck, hand, and foot massages.  That was absolute heaven.  I have never loved my skin more than I did that day.  Mom was glowing.  Very luxurious feeling.

A little rest time in the room after we had lunch, then down to the ocean around 3:30.  Playing, splashing, and sand castle building until the sun set, then a relaxed evening and dinner.  The children were all generally asleep by 8 or 9.  Actually, all of us were generally asleep by then.  Truly paradise.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Oh, yes, and the waves.  Yessa was too overwhelmed to go very far into the water.  I spent some time playing in the surf.  Mom got knocked on her keister by waves a couple times.  The Buster spent the last afternoon playing in the waves a bunch, but overall was a sand-castle-building beach bum.  But Buds and Monkey?!  They were like fish.  Addled fish, but fish nonetheless.  Zoe would bob around out there on her own, then Buds would convince her to ride on his shoulders in the big waves for awhile.  When she had gotten tossed once too often, she come back in closer to shore for a breather.  Buds was a merman.  We almost missed our last, fantastic dinner out just the two of us because he was still shaky and a little nauseous from the beat down the waves gave him that day.

The character of the waves changes from day to day, and the last day of playing, there were big and brutal, and great fun, if you like that sort of thing.