Costa Rica Day 4

Date: February 27

Yesterday was a fun filled day at the Manuel Antonio National Park, so that meant we had today “off” and got to do what ever we wanted. One of my favorite things, whether on vacation or not, is to have a slow morning. No where to be right away and no to-do list beckoning, calling you to be productive. This was that kind of morning.

We slept as late as we wanted, which wasn’t super late, but enjoyable none-the-less. Once we woke up enough to leave our air-conditioned bedroom, we brewed some coffee and sat out on the patio sipping our drinks, pointing out birds and taking turns looking at them with our binoculars. The whole week we were there, we had the not-so-great noises next door hitting us as early as 7:00 AM. There was a new house going up and the construction workers put in a lot of hours. It certainly didn’t ruin our experience, however. Most of the time we just turned on the stereo and pumped some island music (Bob Marley got played A LOT!).

It wasn’t long before I jumped into the pool to cool off a bit. It was so nice having a pool to ourselves and being able to get in and out to dry off and put on dry clothes whenever we wanted. Jill cooked up some delicious eggs and sausage for breakfast… at least we think it was sausage. The package was in Spanish and we were a bit scared to look up the translation. It tasted good, so that’s all that mattered 🙂

After hanging out at the pool for a bit, we decided to head in to town for some lunch. We had our sites set on the Whale Tail Brewery. We sat outside at a table for four and played a game of Costa Rican Jenga while we waited for our food and drinks. There were a few bar games around the outdoor patio and Mattix and I played a few games.

At one point, Mattix saw some birds land in a nearby tree and we all got excited because we had been wanting to see some Scarlet Macaws up close. Unfortunately, they were not Scarlet Macaws, but they were still some pretty cool looking birds.

Jill and I sampled at couple of beers and the kids each got their most favorite from the menu. The brews were very tasty and I enjoyed the beer names, logos, and marketing. Our food was really good as well. I had the fish tacos, Jill, the tuna tartar, and the kids each got a pizza. Everything tasted fresh and we had it all gobbled up in just a few minutes.

After our lunch, we headed back to the Casa Futura and had some more pool time. Mattix and I strategically placed ourselves in the shade whenever possible to avoid additional sunburn; at least until the sun wasn’t so intense. We had homemade quesadillas for dinner and capped the night off by finding a radio station that played the Don Bosco boy’s sub-state basketball game online and rooted them on from Costa Rica. They won (61-54) over Maquoketa Valley in overtime, for a trip to the sub-state championship!

The next day brought us to Caño Island for a boat ride and some snorkeling, so we went to bed with some anticipation for the day ahead.