Folks, we had a truly fantastic holiday season. Tara, Ata, and Andre arrived on Christmas day after a long, exhausting flight from San Francisco, with many delays and no chance for rest. Bob and I also had a lousy Christmas Eve, thanks to a mistake made by the man who owns the B&B we'd booked our room in. (For those of you not in the know, our house is a long, stressful four-hour bus trip away from the Central Valley and the airport, so we went in the day ahead and rented a car, not trusting our ancient Jeep to make the trip). Anyway, the B&B owner had rented out his "rancho" an outdoor seating & dancing area, for 12 hours--from noon to midnight, for a party--he thought. Turned out it was from midnight to noon on Christmas Day, and it was a rave, complete with yowling drunks, boom-boom-BOOM-boom bass, and other such disturbances. He didn't charge us for the night, which was pretty decent of him.
The next day, we got to the airport in plenty of time to meet our kids' flight--only to find it had been delayed by a few hours. When it finally did arrive, the airline had lost one of their pieces of luggage--the most important one, of course, with fresh clothing and meds. Hence, two stressed out parents, a really laid-back baby, along with two tired grandparents spent a night in a hotel very near the airport where all slept quite well. I was too tired and not hungry enough to join the others when they went out for dinner. My Christmas dinner consited of cheese, crackers and wine accompanied by a good book. Can't think of a better one.
The day after Christmas,after the lost luggage finally turned up, we came home. Andre--what a great little trouper he is--slept part of the way and when awake, watched eagerly for horses. We had vegetable beef soup for dinner, since that was the quickest thing to thaw.
For Tara's birthday, Dec. 27, we went to an animal rehabilitation center where Tara had her heart's desire fulfilled--she got to hold a baby monkey. It loved her hair and grabbed a fistful, probably thinking it would find a mama monkey in there somewhere. That night, we finally got our planned "good" Christmas dinner, a lovely roast of pork loin marinated and cooked on the rotisserie, accompanied by all the usual stuff and followed up by sweet, yummy platanos (plantains, slowly cooked in butter), bad for us, but oh, so delicious.
Sometime during this period, Tara and Ata went on a zip-line tour, which Ata loved and Tara sort-of enjoyed, despite screaming a lot, or so it's reported. Granny and Grandpa sensibly stayed home with Andre, who loves to watch horse-shows--jumping and/or racing--on the computer, or the iPhone, or iPad. He's also fascinated by basketball (brought his own ball and hoop) and tennis, though since BB, tennis has begun to take a back seat.
This trip was Andre's introduction to surf. He wasn't very sure of it at first, but after his mama carried him out till it splashed her knees, and his sneaky granny splashed his feet, he began to relax, uncurl his toes, then his knees, then to laugh, then to beg for more until hypothermia became a real concern.
Tara, Ata and Andre went horseback riding on the beach, while Granny stayed home and tried to get caught up on some reading for work. Later, we went back to Cahuita, introduced the rest of our family to the owners of Kelly Creek Hotel--Shannon, Alan, Meghan and Sean had met them a number of years ago--then went to Black Beach for more swimming.
Ten days goes much too guickly when there's a lot of fun and a not-quite-two-year-old on hand. On New Years day, we drove back to our B&B in the hills near Alejuela (Ah-la-WHAY-lah), a beautiful place with a roaring waterfall, and lovely grounds filled with interesting plants and flowers, as well as perfectly bilingual little kids with brand new bikes, who were delighted to show off their riding skills.
We spent two nights there, the first with a picnic supper, having had a late and filling lunch after visiting the spectacular Zoo Ave (Ah-vay), where not only aves (birds) are rehabilitated, but many animals as well. Tara took lots of great photos, so you'll need to check out her FaceBook page for some of them. I stupidly left my camera in the trunk of the car.
And wouldn't you know it, Laurie Burns? We went to Ceviche del Rey in Alajuela for dinner, checked the menu first thing, saw Chocolate Mousse proudly listed, asked the waiter and he sadly shook his head. "No, we don't have that." We asked why all the C-d-Reys have it on the menu, but never on hand and he shrugged. Pura Vida. (I had flan).
The next day, we got the family to the airport, turned in our rental car, and because by then it was too late to catch a bus home, spent a night in San Jose in a very nice little boutique hotel not far from the bus terminal. It's one we'll visit again, I'm sure.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
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