CR Day 6: Along for the Ride

As much as we wanted to drag it out, today was our last day at the beach.  We savored every last second of it by heading to the beach first thing after breakfast, strolling along the shore while Phoebe napped in the stroller.  We took our time, examining and exploring as I attempted to masquerade as a photographer.  After Phoebe woke up, we took her to the pool (which she clearly preferred over the ocean), had our friends watch her for a few minutes so we could go play in the ocean, and essentially soaked up the sun along the ocean until the very last minute.  We headed back to our room with just barely enough time to pack up and get out by checkout time.

There were several of these "shelters" along the beach.

That was the easy part of the day.  The rest of the day consisted of making our way back to "home base" in San Isidro.  Which involved, well, a lot of riding.  The "plan" (now remember, we were on vacation and attempting to refrain from planning, per se) was to stop just outside of the resort property to get lunch and hit the road until we made it home.

We loaded up the cars and headed out.  And drove.  For awhile.  Longer than we all thought before we finally stopped for lunch.  We made it to this quaint, local mom and pop seafood place for lunch.  Best food I had in Costa Rica.

Just to clarify, the drinks were made with just fruit, water and milk.  And SO good.

Not sure what's going on with that tongue.  Love the wooden high chair!

Fish, "salad" and plantain.  Don't miss the lime that was orange inside.

As it turned out, we happened to be in a town that was in the middle of a "fair".  Complete with roads closed, lots of people and a Costa Rican rodeo.  We'd heard about Costa Rican rodeos and how the bull is let lose in the ring to chase around the all the men crazy enough to let this happen.  At first we were intrigued, but by this point, we were really more interested in just getting home.  But then, we were just along for the ride, so we decided to savor the moment and soak in the culture.

We ate.  We got back in the cars.  We drove.  We parked the car.  We got out.  We walked several blocks to the rodeo.  Our free seats had a view that looked something like this.

We waited for the bull to be released.  We watched.  We left.  We bought churros.  We bought water.  We walked.  We (finally) headed back to the cars.  Poor Sweet P was EXHAUSTED at this point.  But she was hanging in there, along for the ride.

Three hours after we checked out of the hotel, we finally re-reloaded the cars and headed out of town.  Maybe this would be a good time to talk about what Tim had read about driving in Costa Rica.  You can look at a map and figure it shouldn't take any time at all to get to where you want to go, but the rule of thumb is that you can never plan on traveling more than 20-30 miles an hour.  Our experience was, well, just exactly that.

We drove.  For hours.  Just as we hit the edge of town, we went through a toll and saw our "tour guide" pull over in front of us.  We pull up behind him, and you know it's going to be good when he starts with, "Well, you see, the thing is..."  The thing was that traffic was bad so we were going to U turn and head back the other direction.  (U turn on 5-6 lane interstate road just on the other side of a toll booth, mind you.  While trying to keep track of the car in front of us.  Sure, no problem.)

We did it and survived to tell about it.  Along for the ride.  We get into town and then we stopped at our "tour guide's" house.  I think for a potty break and for them to switch cars.  Or maybe just to make the trip a little bit longer.  Phoebe, who for 6 days had endured our travels as a trouper who was along for the ride, was not so happy just to be along for the ride at this point.  Thankfully, it was a brief pit stop, and we were on our way once again.  Briefly.  Until we had to stop yet again at an ATM.

Tim and I were beginning to wonder if we were ever going to get home at this point.  The trip that was expected to take about 3 1/2 hours was bordering on 7 hours at this point.  Talk about Costa Rican time.  But what could we say?  We were, after all, just along for the ride!

We did eventually make our final destination, of course, and were able to laugh about the whole experience.  We were with the sweetest Costa Rican couple you can imagine, and they were doing their very best to make sure we had got as much exposure to Costa Rican culture as we could.  Without them, we would have never got to witness the rodeo that Tim had talked so much about.  And I hate to even try to imagine how on earth we would have found our way back to where we started from.  (Have I explained yet that the streets in Costa Rica are not labeled w/ street signs?  They can't be because the roads don't even have NAMES!)

How often is life like our road trip through Costa Rica?  God is our native tour guide, with so many things to show us and experiences to allow us, and instead of being along for the ride, we are so impatient and rushed and stressed that we miss out on all He has for us?  Let this be a reminder to me to let Him be my tour guide and that I just need to go along for the ride!!!

Day 5: Going with the Flow

For most of Phoebe's life, I have repeatedly proclaimed that she is so chill.  She's almost always willing to put up with whatever the rest of us are doing and very happily "go with the flow."  We've constantly debated how much of that can be attributed to her personality, how much of it is simply because she's the third kid, and how much of it is actually because we are so much more relaxed and confident in our own parenting abilities.  In answers to our own wonderings, we've been content to agree that it must be some sort of combination of all of the above.

In any case, Phoebe handles it all very well.  Including an entire day spent traipsing around the northwestern coast of Costa Rica.  The actual hotel portion of the resort we stayed at was actually a few short miles from the actual coastline of the property.  This meant that from our hotel room, we had a short drive to the beach.  Also, the natives that we were with had a few different ideas of where to hang out on the beach and where the best surfing could be found.

So day number 5 in Costa Rica began with breakfast, and a general layout of the game plan for the day.  Tim and I felt bad because we were with two other couples, and we were the ones with the baby, so we were always the one to complicate plans.  Phoeb's may be chill, but having a baby on this kind of trip always changes your flexiblity somewhat.  Even with a chill baby.  Everyone else was on vacation and were attempting from making plans of any kind, but because we were trying to maintain optimal baby happiness, we were attempting to have SOME kind of naptimes!

The "plan" we came up with for the day: go to a different beach a short distance away at the neighboring resort, get some lunch, maybe check out another beach and come back to the hotel for Phoebe's afternoon nap.  Pretty simple, loose plan.  When asked, we did say that in an ideal situation, we would have Phoebe back for an afternoon nap around 1:00ish.

Here's how the day actually played out.  We left around 9:30ish for the beach by the Marriott resort.  It was AMAZING.  I don't think I took a single picture at that beach.  I was too busy enjoying it.  So you'll just have to take my word for it.  We put Phoebs in the stroller and strolled the beach for a bit, and she napped like a champ. 

Shortly after she woke up, we loaded back up in the cars and headed to a second beach.  This one was a bit busier than the resort beaches, but we got a much better taste of local culture.  It was everything you expect in beach culture, but it was Costa Rica instead of San Diego or Cocoa Beach.

The craziest part was that we parked in the parking lot and couldn't see a drop of water anywhere.  To get to the actual beachfront, we had to walk almost a quarter of a mile along this rickety, wooden plank boardwalk through the mangroves to get to the water.  If we hadn't been with people who had been there before, we would have never found the water.  

Phoebe wasn't so in love with this beach.

But at least Tim got a taste of surfing.

We hung out at this beach until long past baby lunch time, while Tim and I frantically fed Phoebe everything we had stashed in the diaper bag for a "just in case" situation.  And she survived with hardly a protest.  Once we left the beach around 1:30, we stopped at a restaurant that was just at the edge of the parking lot.  We ventured back through the mangroves, and Phoebe almost fell asleep in the stroller.  Once again, "going with the flow."  The restaurant was this perfectly "thatched roof" nearly outdoor beach lunch stop.  I ordered a fruit salad (in Spanish, thank you very much), and to my surprise, it came with ice cream on top!

Restaurants in Costa Rica are a totally different experience.  In the sense that you are on Costa Rica time.  You wait to order.  You wait for your food.  You wait for your bill.  A simple meal can take hours.  And usually does.  

This one was no exception.  Poor Phoebe was absolutely exhausted, but she was hanging in there like a champ.  And once lunch was finished, we decided to part ways with our friends.  They took us back to the hotel, and the rest of the crew went shopping in nearby Tamarindo, and we finally laid Phoebe down for a nap and chilled out at the pool right outside our door while she slept.  

After her nap, we met the rest of our group down at the resort's pool/beachfront and bar for sunset on our beach along with a little bit of pool time and dinner.  After dinner, we headed back to our room just before everyone else to get Phoebe back to bed.  Incidentally, she unquestionably prefers the pool over the ocean.

Looking back on the day almost makes me laugh.  I spent a good portion of the day trying to balance enjoying our surroundings, not being the difficult people with the baby, and worrying that Phoebe was not going to be able to handle all that was going on.  But really, was she phased by it all?  Not hardly in the least.  As I've boasted hundreds of times, "she just goes with the flow."  

And I'm beginning to learn that I should should take some lessons from her.  Relax.  Go with the flow, Aim.  It's all gonna work out just fine!