Vacation! Part 3

We spent Wednesday afternoon through Sunday morning at the resort where the wedding was held, the Occidental Grand Papagayo. It's located in Playa Panama on the Gulf of Papagayo, on the northwest Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

The Occidental is an all-inclusive resort. Unfortunately, the all-inclusive concept was wasted on me, since I can't drink, but I attempted to make up for it in number of desserts eaten. : )

Under normal circumstances, Bob and I never would have spent four days of travel time just hanging around a resort. I think we would have been bored out of our minds (Bob especially). But traveling with a child really is different—spending hours at a time at the pool takes on a whole different meaning when you've got a 2-year-old with you. : ) So, with Elsa and the rest of the gang with us at the resort, it was a lot of fun, and there was more than enough to keep us busy.

Elsa especially loved the pool and the beach, of course. We brought along this little inflatable boat for her to float around in.

I think she probably spent at least an hour or two playing in the pool each day.

The beach was pretty, but it wasn't the greatest for kiddie play. Maybe I'm spoiled by West Michigan's white sandy beaches and fresh water, but this beach seemed to consist of at least as much dirt as sand. And there were dead jellyfish everywhere (ewww), another thing we don't have to contend with in Lake Michigan. But Elsa did play down there one afternoon. Instead of building a sand castle, she really wanted to build a mountain. Her version of Arenal Volcano is above.

The resort had three restaurants: A buffet, an Italian restaurant, and an Asian restaurant. We ate at the buffet for dinner the first two nights. After dinner each night, we all hung out in the open-air lobby. One of the things I loved about Costa Rica was the lack of walls in many of the buildings—I guess you don't really need walls when every day is in the 80s with a refreshing breeze!

They had a different live music act in the lobby each night, and Elsa loved dancing to the music. She was one of only two kids I saw under 12, so she was definitely the hit of the resort—we were constantly getting comments about how cute she was and how people loved watching her dance. One woman even asked if she could take video of her! (She was young and didn't look at all creepy, so we let her.)

Elsa also developed an obsession with the flower arrangements in the lobby. She was constantly plucking flowers out of the arrangement to put in her hair, carry around, etc. Elsa has always really enjoyed looking at flowers since she was just a tiny thing, so I guess this confirms her love of them. We decided that whoever is in charge of the flowers at the Occidental would be really happy when we checked out.

The wedding was held on the beach at sunset on Friday. They had a beautiful set-up, with lots of tropical flowers everywhere. Katie told Elsa she could be the flower girl and the ring bearer, but apparently the Occidental was much too efficient for such things—before we knew it, some lady had rushed down the aisle scattering the flower petals and the job was done. Fortunately, Elsa didn't seem too disappointed. She was, however, very concerned when the breeze picked up halfway through the ceremony and started blowing the petals away. "Where are the flower petals going?" she asked me in the middle of Katie's and Nate's vows.
Katie looked beautiful, and the ceremony was short and sweet. We especially enjoyed the fact that they told Nate it was specifically his duty to earn the money for the family's expenses.

Afterwards we had a champagne toast and cake on the beach. (Elsa had ginger ale.)
The Heinrich family (minus Tom):
The three of us at the wedding (photo courtesy of Lisa's Facebook page—thanks Lisa!):
Following the wedding we all ate together in a private room at the Asian restaurant. Initially I was a little concerned because it was one of those Thai-style tables where everybody sits on the floor. I wasn't sure they'd be able to haul me back up again after dinner. Fortunately, it turned out that there was a hole in the floor underneath the table for everybody's legs, which essentially made it just like a regular table—only lower. Here's the whole group at dinner:
On Saturday, we took a half-day trip to Palo Verde National Park (a little over an hour from the resort) to see some more wildlife. It was the three of us, plus Beth, Mike, Mike's girlfriend Sara, and Tom and Mary. There was also one non-Heinrich in the van with us—a gentleman who apparently was really into birdwatching. The ride to the national park took longer than we had expected, and Elsa got a tiny bit crabby along the way. It didn't help matters when we stopped at a restaurant to use the facilities, and Elsa noticed that it had a little playhouse. She decided she was far more interested in the playhouse than she was in potentially seeing monkeys.
But we did talk her into getting back in the van, and after a few annoying bird-watching stops, we made it to the Tempisque River in Palo Verde National Park.
There, we boarded a boat and headed down the river.
This was probably among the best wildlife-watching experiences we've ever had, and that includes went Bob and I went to the Amazon and the Galapagos. We must have seen at least 20 crocodiles in the course of the boat ride—there was another huge croc around every turn.
We also saw a snake (Bob spotted the snake himself), a couple of bright green iguanas, and numerous different kinds of birds. But of course, the highlight of the trip were the capuchin monkeys (also known as white-face monkeys).
At a certain spot on the river, our guide pulled the boat right up onto the bank and whistled. All of a sudden, monkeys materialized from the trees, leaped onto the roof of the boat, and proceeded to fearlessly join us in the passenger cabin. It seemed like every time I turned around, there was another monkey making its way down from the roof.
In spite of the sign you saw earlier, these monkeys clearly are fed by human beings, and fed often. Our guide was no exception—he had a stash of banana slices for this very purpose. He started handing out the slices, and wow, those monkeys didn't mess around. They were grabby little things—I kept trying to get a banana slice into Elsa's hand so she could feed them, but the monkeys would wrestle it right out of my hand before I managed to pass it to Elsa. They actually physically checked our hands, pawing at us to see if we had any more slices, and they peeled the bananas before eating them.

One monkey even put his paw on Elsa's leg, a fact that has stuck with her to this day. Whenever she tells somebody about the monkeys we saw in Costa Rica, she says, "The monkey put his paw on my leg!"
Once the banana slices were gone, the monkeys had no more use for us silly humans. They hopped back up to the roof and then were off into the trees and gone. They were probably in the boat for no more than ten minutes total. But it was an amazing experience—I don't think I've ever been that close to a monkey, and certainly not a wild one! It definitely made the trip worthwhile.
For our last dinner at the resort, we managed to get a coveted reservation at the Italian restaurant. Elsa noticed as soon as we sat down that this was a "very quiet restaurant," unlike the buffet. She enjoyed her pasta with bolognese sauce.
Here's the sunset as seen from our room on the last night of the trip:
The next morning, we were up at 5:30 a.m. for the trip back home. We had a long layover in Atlanta on the way back, adding up to a full 14 hours of traveling, not easy for a 2-year-old. She did nap briefly on one of the flights—on Bob's lap. Looks comfy, huh?
Overall, we had a wonderful trip. I'm so glad we were able to travel like this before the new baby arrives, since I'm sure it'll be a good couple of years before we're able to do so again. It also was nice for us both to have so much quality one-on-one time with Elsa in her last few months as an only child. And I think she was the perfect age for traveling (no more diapers or other baby gear needed, aside from a car seat), so I told Bob that we should definitely plan some sort of trip when #2 gets to be about her age. A big thanks go to Katie for giving us the excuse to do this, since I don't think we would have otherwise!