Time to get fat before we head home
Trip Start
Jun 23, 2011
1
27
Trip End
Aug 30, 2011
Tambor, Province of Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Friday, August 26, 2011
And that's what we did. Our first morning there, I asked K-money if she wanted a drink. She said, "It's only 10:30. Isn't that too early?" I gestured to the pool bar, which was absolutely packed with rowdy 20 and 30-somethings who had evidently not thought it too early to start a few hours ago. So K said OK, and I got us some Pina Coladas, our main drink while we were there.
The place was really nice. It had a giant pool that wound around the whole property with tons of chairs to sit and get sun, although it was soooo hot in the sun, the real trick was trying to get one in the shade. There were all kinds of activities like water aerobics and pool volleyball, which we were happy to sit and watch, drinks in hand. There were also shows at night - the best of which was a Michael Jackson tribute that included an amazing Michael Jackson impersonator and a lot of his best songs. We were impressed with the production quality on that one. There was also one night a kind of trivia show where you had to name the artist who sang the sample of song they played. The gameshow was 90% in Spanish, but we understood probably 45% of it - enough that we laughed at most of the jokes. Just goes to show how 10 weeks of total immersion go a long way to learning a new language.
We spent our days reading (I already had cases and other pre-reading for school to get started on), swimming, playing tennis, having drinks, watching giant lizards and birds, and eating. Lots and lots of eating. There was a snack bar where you could get pizza, french fries, nachos (with fresh salsa), hot dogs, or hamburgers any time of day. And there was a huge dining room where they served each meal. The food (other than the fresh salsa) was generally underwhelming, but we enjoyed it anyway. Our last night we went to the steakhouse on site, which we were only allowed to go to once with our three night package, and the food there was considerably better. It also had a really cool atmosphere, with a soaring grass ceiling that was probably 50 feet high in the center and open walls that looked out to the beach and Pacific. You could hear the waves as you ate. That was a good dinner with good food and good wine. That place turned into the "club" late night, with green lasers and loud "Ohmch Ohmch" music. We spent a little time there, but weren't really in the mood for that at this point.
On the second to last day of our trip, we took a bus-ferry-bus-tax trip back to San Jose and the Marriott there. We spent that day relaxing in the pool and hot tub and reminiscing about all the awesome things we had seen on our trip. We were sad to be done travelling for now, but happy to get back to NYC and see all of our friends, eat all of our favorite foods, and start our real married life together, so it was a very conflicted feeling. Overall, I wouldn't change a thing about the trip - it was truly a once in a lifetime experience.
One more post to come once I finally upload the pictures from my analog film camera. It will have a few more pics from throughout the whole trip. Hopefully soon.
