Costa Rica - Day 1

View from our balcony :)

Back to one of my favourite countries in the world.   This time the plan isn’t to explore and adventure - partially because of budget, and partially because we wanted to go back where we got married 10 years ago and that is not exactly local to where we’d like to explore ;).  The plan for the week is primarily beach, pool, and relax.   And did we ever start it out right.

So we got in late last night, found food, and went to bed ;).  Private transfer met us exactly where they said they’d be, and other than some traffic, was a smooth ride.

Not a bad way to spend the day :)

Today was a lovely resort day.  We snagged some spots by the pool, but also spent part of the day walking down the beach, watching monkeys, looking at tourist shops, locating the beach massage ladies (win!) and even inherited a new horse?

Lol that last part - if the horse distribution system works like the cat distribution system, C and I now have a grey ;).  😂. We were out looking and monkeys and this horse just randomly joined us.  Super friendly, sociable creature - more so than any horse I’ve ever owned for sure.  Followed us around for a while - I suspect in hopes of treats.   My guess is he belongs to the people doing trail rides on the beach, but they were nowhere to be seen, so was a little random.  He was cared for though and not at all concerned about being out there, so not too worried.  Disappointed I didn’t have a camera with me at the time, but still was a fun, albeit slightly surreal, experience.

I found him again later in the week :)

Today’s drawing exercise was “take this book in public and sketch people” 😂.  I have zero idea how to draw people without the painful duplicate a photo approach, and even that is iffy.  But the idea w this one was speed and the concept of capturing them doing something and I actually really enjoyed it.   A teenage kid leaning against a palm tree; someone about to throw a football; a woman w a really amazing hat that obscured her entire face; a person in the pool with their arms on the pool ledge; people on lounge chairs, etc.  It was actually a lot of fun.  The “drawing in public” idea is shockingly intimidating even though literally nobody cared or even noticed what I was doing.  Also, none of my drawings even vaguely resembled the unintentional models so even if I were called out I’m 💯 safe due to my own incompetence ;). But while none of the people look like those who inspired the images, they DO look like people and even some core characteristics are there.  So I’m pretty pleased :).   Yesterday’s prompt was “draw something you’re looking forward to tomorrow” which definitely resulted in a beach and a palm tree.

Speaking of, the beach was yellow today so I got to enjoy bouncing in the waves a bit.  And the water was super warm which was lovely.  Looking at past notes, I believe it's actually *hotter* this trip than previoiusly, but the humidity isn’t as high this time so it's actually fairly perfect.   Interestingly, I realized that while the beach is my favourite place, I really didn't take many photos of it.  Ah well - lots of pics of it included in our wedding photos :)

Flashback Pic - for completeness :)

Dinner at the Fusion restaurant tonight - mostly cause Japanese which C wanted to try was full and had a long line and Fusion was next door.  😂 neither of us knew what to expect but I had steak which was shockingly good (ime, steak at all inclusives is usually questionable at best), and C felt similarly about his lamb.  So solid accidental win there.