Week in Review

More things that have diminished importance down here:

• hair brush
• hair dryer
• socks
• shoes
• underwear
• meeting a family before allowing play dates or sleepovers

And we're back! Quick tl;dr summary for those who don't want the minutiae: Kathleen has arrived, we had an action-packed weekend at Rincon de la Vieja, Molly has a promising career as a cat burglar and Costa Rica is no longer in the World Cup.

Still with us? Great.

Last weekend the girls and I decided to just relax in Tamarindo. We visited the farmers market, walked on the beach, collected shells, and grabbed a few waves. The farmers market here has ceviche and fresh fish, along with lots of interesting fruits, veggies and spices. I bought a kilo of mahi-mahi and grilled it to make fish tacos (NB: a kilo may have been excessive, although we managed to consume it all over the course of a few days).

A kilo of mahi mahi on the grill

On Monday the next new group of students arrived, and Molly immediately made friends with a girl named Alex. When I saw them at the morning break it seemed as if they had known each other since pre-K. At 2 the camp director called me and told me Alex's mother wanted to have the girls over for the afternoon to swim (I was going to be busy surfing). Free childcare? Why not...

Molly with her new best friend

Kathleen arrived on Thursday after an epic day of transit. She got up at 4 to catch the 6:00 flight to Houston, then connected to San Jose, arriving a bit before noon. We had a driver pick her up there and bring her over to Tamarindo - 4 hours in transit. So 13 short hours after she woke up she was here in paradise. She brought a new waterproof camera and informed me that I had not taken enough pictures - maybe we can remedy that. We showed her around the town and tried a restaurant down the beach where we could catch the sunset. None of us had eaten much, and I had spent the day trying not to drown in some big waves, so this sign sealed the deal:

 

 

Friday morning the waves were continuing to pick up, but they still took the girls out to surf. Sadie caught several waves and had a blast, followed by a 4th of July cookout on the beach.

Sadie with Juan the surf instructor

After camp we packed a little bag and headed to Rincon de la Vieja, one of the 10 active volcanos in Costa Rica. We got about halfway there when we realized we had managed to leave all of our closed-toed shoes in Tamarindo. Oops. I summoned all of my Spanish to tell the driver "it seems we lack shoes" and he stopped at a grocery store that had cheap water shoes - 4 bucks a pair! They almost survived the weekend, too.

The Rincon weekend was awesome. We stayed at a resort called Borinquen, which was pretty luxurious. We had requested a suite and I think they gave us the honeymoon suite. Not sure if they realized we had kids with us, but they really went all out welcoming us.

We didn't even mention our anniversary!

Sadie tried to claim the bed. Sometimes I worry this kid is getting way too used to luxury...

But she decided to sleep in a chair instead of sharing the pullout with her sister. Since there was only one set of sheets for the sofabed she improvised a sleeping bag out of a bathrobe. Maybe she'll turn out ok after all.

Improvised chaise lounge

 

On Saturday we got up and went whitewater kayaking on the Rio Colorado. No, not that Colorado River (Grand Canyon). Or that one (Austin) either. Apparently there are a dozen or so in the world. Who knew?

We stayed upstream from these guys. I'm certain they never permit this upstream of the kayakers.

 

Then we headed back to the resort for some mud baths, which everyone enjoyed immensely. The property is situated on natural hot springs, and they made a sauna by building a cedar box (or some other fragrant wood) on top of a steam vent. You walk inside the box and sweat for as long as you can stand it (15 minutes is recommended. 5 minutes is almost tolerable.) and then go cake yourself in hot mud that they have in big urns. You can tell it is the real deal because you have to pick small rocks, twigs, leaves, and probably dead animals out of the goo as you are slathering it on yourself. Then you let it dry, wash it all off, and jump into a series of three tubs - really hot, sort of hot, and freezing cold.

The sauna

Step 1: Steam until cooked

Step 2: Slather liberally with goo

 

Sadie opted for war paint instead of a full mask

I may have gone overboard

Next to last step - relax in the hot tub

Final step: Wake up call with ice cold water

 

Sadie opted for war paint instead of a full mask

 

At about 2:00 the resort (ok, the whole country) shut down because of the World Cup match, so we watched it at the bar along with everyone else. From the cheering you would have thought that Costa Rica was winning 11-3, but the first period ended 0-0, as did the second period, as did the first "extra time", as did the second. The Ticos, it turns out, cheer for virtually everything. The ball changed directions! The goalie blocked something! The guy from the other team tripped! That guy just kicked the ball all the way down the field and the other guys didn't stop him until he got near the goal! Then it went to PKs and Holland replaced their goalie with a really tall guy. Costa Rica lost. Lots of people cried. But there was still some celebrating because they weren't supposed to get this far and really, how bad can it be when you live in paradise?

After the match, Kathleen and Molly walked back up the hill to our room while I waited around for a bit. I realized on the way up that I still had the keys, so I figured they would not be very happy with me (the room was at the top of a hill with probably 200 ft of elevation gain, so we minimized trips back and forth). I didn't see them loitering outside the room when I got there, though - Molly had used a hanger to jimmy the lock. I was so proud - I think I was in high school before I acquired any breaking & entering skills!

On Sunday we awoke to a small tremor. Sadie felt it and was a bit concerned. Molly slept through it - that kid can sleep through anything. After breakfast we went to the stables where we mounted horses for our tour of the property. Molly and I chose the two-in-one tour which included a horseback ride and a zipline canopy tour. Kathleen and Sadie just rode horses (the adults will switch activities next weekend - Sadie has no interest in being suspended hundreds of feet in the air). Afterwards, Kathleen and I did the mud baths again and met our ride back to Tamarindo.

Wait... We're ziplining over this???

 

We are now beginning our final week of classes. I have moved up to the "advanced" class, which is all subjunctive, all the time. As much as I enjoy waxing poetic about my hopes, dreams, aspirations and doubts, I will probably ditch half of the classes so Kathleen and I can explore on our own a bit more.