Las Musas

Jen made pancakes for everyone, which was a nice way to start the day. The original plan was to go to the beach today. The Sheridans live about an hour from some nice Pacific beaches. Sofia was looking forward to going to “her” beach again, as she had gone there with the Sheridans earlier during our trip.

After sunscreening, we got in the cars and headed off. We didn’t get very far before we hit bumper-to-bumper, fully-stopped traffic. And it didn’t seem to be moving much. We could see miles ahead of us thanks to the curvy mountain roads, and the line of cars and trucks went on and on. After being stopped for nearly 20 minutes, and then barely poking along for a few more miles, we decided it was not worth the risk. In Costa Rica, you never know how long you might be stuck in traffic like this. Better to go to plan B before investing too much time in the slow traffic. And it’s not like there are other routes to take. This road was our only realistic choice.

We turned around and drove to the Sheridan's property where they will soon be building their dream house. I knew the views would be good, but I did not realize they would be so fantastic. Photos can't do it justice. They want to build an octagonal house to maximize the views as much as possible. I can't wait to stay with them again in a few years when the house will be finished!

This will be the view from the Sheridan's living room

Just down the street from the Sheridan's rental house is a recreational area called Las Musas. The park has a large pool, a kiddie pool, a big water slide, a playground, and best of all, a huge (natural) waterfall. It cost 1000 colones for each adult, Sofia and Alex were 500 each, Bella was free.

First we checked out the waterfall. None of us really felt up to climbing into the cold water at the base of the falls. The cold mist was enough. Back up at the pools, the kids had a great time riding the water slide. Isabella even went down once with me and twice with Cristina. I took a bit of video here, which I haven’t done much this trip. Now that we have a nice digital camera, it’s too easy to neglect the video camera. Even though my video camera is fairly compact, it’s still a bit more cumbersome than our little slip-in-the-pocket camera. But here I got some video, especially of everyone going down the slide. The batteries on the still camera actually died, so we mostly got video here. However, Sofia had her camera, so we still got plenty of stills.

There is also a restaurant at Las Musas, so after looking at their menu, Bill and I went up to get some lunch for everyone. They didn’t have some of the stuff that we wanted (no fried chicken, no chicken empanadas) but we got enough stuff to supplement the items Jen had brought.

Back at our picnic table we feasted on PBJs, French fries, fried yucca, cheese empanadas, tortilla chips and refried beans, and popcorn.

After getting our fill of the water play, we drove home and got showered. The Sheridans have two bathrooms. The bigger one has a gigantic shower that fit all five of us easily. The power went out for about 10 minutes, so we had to wait to have hot water.

I started working on dinner, with help from Jen and Cristina. We made oven-roasted garlic and herb chicken with chopped salad with creamy caper dressing. It turned out great. Jen made a pot of rice to go with it, and we had good, crusty bread from Mus Manni. The salad seemed to be a big hit with Bill. I thought the chicken was very good. Not amazing, but solid. It was the first time I made the recipe (from Rachael Ray’s book, of course). I’d make it again.

We had wanted to drive back to Pavas tonight, since early in the morning Cristina was going into San Jose to renew her cedula. The Sheridans offered for us to stay there a second night, but we thought it would be best to drive home after dinner. We timed things pretty well because by the time dinner was over, it was about 6 pm. We were all already showered, so we could just drive home and put the kids in bed.

Cristina drove home so Isabella wouldn’t be as tempted to nurse. That usually works in Arizona, but this time she wasn’t going for it. She cried pretty much the whole ride home, which took about an hour. It was rainy and dark and one of the windshield wipers fell off, but we made it home safe and sound.