Costa Rica - January 2014

 January 2014 - We were in Costa Rica for a week.  We really loved doing absolutely nothing!  Well that's not true.  We did eat a lot of great food, sat by the pool, or in the water.  Eat some great food.  Drink frozen drinks.  Eat food.  Took naps by the pool.  Eat food.  Golfing, spa treatments.  Eat food.  So really, our trip was exhausting.

The "Ticos", what the Costa Rican's call themselves are friendly people.  Their national slogan is "Pura Vida" which means Pure Life.  Very eco-friendly country and I'll always have fond memories.
So Mexican's would say "gracias, amigo"..Costa Rican's would say "gracias, tico"..or "thanks, friend"

Costa Rica is a beautiful country.  Made up of mountains formed by volcanoes and sea.  10 degrees north of the Equator situated in the 'narrow neck of the land'.  My Mormon friends should recognize that phrase!  It was exciting to be there, oh the history of it all!!
Costa Rica is about the size of West Virginia with maybe 4 million people.   That's a pretty small nation.  We were there during their dry season, the other is all wet.  I'm glad it was dry.

Did I tell you that we ate a lot of food?

Kim grouped these photos together of a few snapshots.  We discovered that adding banana to a pina colada (virgin of course!) makes the best fruity frozen drink ever!

The sunshine was such a blessing.  Our winter in Ohio had been brutal, frigid and snowy. So drinking a frozen colada really kept our home in our hearts.

We ate food.

 Kim and Scott did a round of golf while Marsha and I visited the spa 2 DAYS IN A ROW!

I loved my manicure, and I loved the relaxing facial I received.  I think it was worth every penny.  My husband rolls his eyes about that.  I think a round of golf costs more than a day at the spa..don't you think?

Food.

These photos were too good to be taken by me!  I snagged them from the Westin Resorts Hotel page.
The bungalows to the left are where we stayed.  The rooms where spacious and cool for the hot weather.
It was always windy.  The sea breezes from the Pacific ocean sounded gale force to me.  The winds whispered for me to eat more food.

 I wish I had a picture for how the rooms looked inside each bungalow.  We had a hard time figuring out the resorts numbering system and where we lived.  Thank goodness for the taxis!  We were too full from eating all the time to walk back to our rooms.

We ate food, we ate LOTS of food.

I discovered I liked to eat passion fruit.  It looks nasty, and you have to get over the slimy texture surrounding the crunchy seeds.  But, it is soooo yummy!

The white sand beaches are in fact white sand.  But it's not the smooth silky sand you would expect.  Its shell sand, ground up sea shells from the ocean makes it a rough walk for newly exfoliated feet.  OUCH!

 The picture on the right is the hotel lobby, where you were greeted with a lush drink (we didn't partake, not a fan of alcohol) and little taxis to take you to your bungalow.

No food here.  Only drinks aloud.  I did get a bottle of water.

Kim here soaking up the sun by the pool.  It was nice to do nothing and let our brains go numb with boredom.  We actually did do somethings, like eat food.

And finally, a photo of the HUGE pool.  It was beautiful.