The road this month took us to Miami International Airport to connect to a flight to Costa Rica. We had booked to stay at Rui Guanacaste for 4 nights. I’m am going to be right upfront here, I took my big camera, but truthfully, I only used it a couple of times and the rest is phone images. I just wish the phones would come out with Camera Raw, so that I can post edit them.

Of course, Ella’s Mr. Sloth joined us on vacation. He lives at Grandma’s house but is one of Ella’s favorite toys.

Leaving Miami, I resonated on the number of vehicles I could see on the road, like a little Lego city. Constantly on the move. There are so many people living in this city. Traveling over the ocean and crossing Cuba and back out again the coastline and water patterns were just so impressive. The last flight image is flying over Costa Rica with all their beautiful little bays. We flew into Liberia and were through customs quickly with no issues.

Traveling through to Rui Guanacaste was via a 7 seater taxi. One thing I will say is that the roads are not great and the taxi’s shocks are probably worn. The trip was bumpy. The roads are somewhat narrow in places and over bridges it appeared that it was a single lane. There were times when we were on the road that I was a little nervous. Not only for myself but for the guy riding the bicycle that we were overtaking. Yet we got there safely thanks to our driver. Overall the trip was about 1 hour from the airport to the hotel.

The hotel was huge but was not too busy until Friday. Then the crowds came. From what we understood from my daughter’s work colleague, was that Tuesday was Independence Day and that people had most likely taken a long weekend. Amy’s colleague and his family had driven 7 hours from the capital to come and spend the weekend with us. We were all blown away that they would travel that far. That said check in was done, suitcases were in the room, kiddies were hungry and a Pina Colado was calling my name. There was 7 different restaurants on site. The main dining area, the American bar, the Italian, the Mexican, the Asian, and the Steakhouse. I never found the 7th one to be honest. The only complaint I had was we could not get into either the Asian or the Steakhouse, and the were closed on the busiest days. All the other restaurants were a buffet style, which I am not a big fan of. The food was average. That said this had to have been the best hotel bed I had slept in. The room was decent and my only complaint there was the shower gradient was such that the shower always had some water in it. It never fully drained. But otherwise the place was more than enough.

As I mentioned, the hotel is huge. It involved a lot of walking from one place to the other. First stop was a swim at the beach. The beach sand was black. We also quickly realized that the current was pretty strong and getting out was not as easy as getting in. The pools was scattered around the hotel, some close to where we were and other close to the splash pads. The splash pads were a walk to get to from the main area, but Luka headed there most days. There was some little shops on site that I visited and ended up doing some shopping. There were different bar stops, and outdoor entertainment. There was a neon party the one night, and Luka hung out with mom and dad, and Ella had a sleepover with Gran and Granda. Saturday night had evening entertainment but we did not attend because we were tired from the sunset cruise.

We encountered some natural wildlife in and around the hotel. This little guy was begging for scraps of food. While everything in me says that this is a racoon, it did look a little different. Its stripes are not as prominent and it’s tail is not long. Looking close up at this one it looks like it has an eye issue going one as well. That said all it did was beg and was not pushy.

The other natural wildlife that we encountered was the white faced monkey known as Capuchin. They were on the beach pathway the one day and we were able to get up close to them. The mom and baby were very cute but mom did show her teeth at one stage when one of us got to close.

This monkey was just happy go get some banana.

We spent a lot of time at the pools, when Luka wasn’t at the splashpad. The first two days it really wasn’t busy and we had the pools to ourselves. Luka is into Moana right now and so his boat went with us to Costa Rica. He spent a lot of time playing with the boat and the shape of the chairs made for great waves.

We did a trip to an eco park. I wanted to do the wildlife tour. It was pretty much a mini zoo and that was the only time I used my camera to take photo’s. But after the self walking tour we found a great playground for Luka to hang out in until our ride came back to pick us up. Apparently you could do zip lines, and 2 wheelers there but it is hard to do those thing when you have 2 kiddies.

Nap time was typically Luka’s splash pool time and so I got to take Ella for her sleep time. That wasn’t awful because it meant I got air conditioning for a while :). Sometimes that took a little while, but eventually she got good sleep and woke up in a happy mood most of the days despite probably having a cold.

One of the highlights of the trip was a sunset cruise. We drove an hour by taxi to Coco Bay and then were shuttled via a small boat to the catamaran. The trip was about 2.5 hours , and I was blown away to see my first whale in the water ever. Of course, with all of these sunset cruises drinks and food are included, and they were enjoyed. On the cruise was a Peruvian group of couples and single women, and I truly admired there sense of joy. They danced and sang and just had fun. I told Amy that we were really boring people. Even Luka got into the dancing, although I think he was trying to do Danny Go to the music that was playing. It was good to share that time with others. Before you know it you are heading back to land, being shuttled via the small boat back to the sand, and then it was the taxi ride in the dark back home. That was a little hair raising and twice I thought the guy on the bicycle was going to get bumped but he stayed upright. Thankfully the taxi was able to take us right back to the hotel check in area and not just the gate because I had visions of trying to get Luka to walk from the main gate to the room.

For a good part of the cruise I had Ella asleep on my chest and missed the beginnings of the sunset but eventually she woke up and I was able to use Amy’s phone to take a bunch of sunset pics. Mine had died by then. Below are some of my favorites.

Of course all good things come to an end, and the end of the trip meant packing up and getting to the airport only to find out that the plane has been delayed by an hour. Airport time, meant eating and shopping and walking around the tiny Liberia airport. The flight home was quick. Ella slept on me a good 3/4 of the way home. This time I sat by Amy and Daniel sat with Richard. After a while Daniel came and took Luka back to sit with them. That gave us a seat for Ella when she woke up. Flying late afternoon and 2 hours ahead meant we got to see the sunset on the skyline and the city lights as we flew into Miami airport

Thank you for joining me on this photography journey. Blogging may change from month to month. Sometimes I will link up to a fellow blogger, sometimes I may not. This month I am linking up to the talented Lupji Photography. Follow the link to read what he has for us this month.

Until next time..

Stay well