A post from afar

I'm writing this post from lovely Costa Rica. I arrived last night after over 15 hours of traveling. It was pitch dark and I had no idea what the place looked like -- I just crashed.

In the morning, I woke up to find this outside my window:

It was complete with warm air and the sounds of tropical birds. Unfortunately, I've come to see that those birds sound a lot cooler than they look. They look kind of like a cross between a pigeon and a crow. Pretty disappointing really. But I still credit them with my initial jaw-dropping impression of where I found myself this morning.

Because this is a work-sponsored business trip, I'm able to stay at a "luxury" resort. Here are a few pics:

The swimming pools snake all around the grounds -- they are all connected and it seems to just keep going and going. Their walls and floors are all covered with these tiny bright blue tiles that make the water look so inviting. The shot above shows a wall of fountains pouring into rock bed covered with water. There's a walkway under the arches.

Unfortunately, the beach is nothing much to speak of.

Sure, there's a yacht hanging out there, but what good is that?

The majority of the beach is rocky and the part that's not, is constantly being washed up with very dirty water.

And if that weren't bad enough, the near part of the water where one would be inclined to swim, has been perpetually bombarded with seemingly insatiable pelicans:

(These birds make our Wisconsin seagulls look downright polite -- and tiny! These things are HUGE!)

In other non-human news, I've met several iguanas so far today:

This one below nearly ran over my feet as I walked around the pool area after breakfast!

You can't tell from the picture, but he's about 2 feet long. I was so confused when I first saw him. I was expecting to see some lizards while here, but I was shocked to see this enormous thing just sauntering around the resort grounds. Only later did I realize that it's a fairly regular occurrence... and the name of the golf course/club "La Iguana Golf Club" suddenly seemed a whole lot more literal than I had expected.

After getting the craziest looking tan/sunburn ever (In addition to swimsuit lines, I have the most random splotches of white all over -- super attractive!), I set out for a walk to check out the surrounding rainforest -- or whatever one could see on foot and while still technically within the resort area.

These are actually roots of four trees.

And then I found just what I told Juliette I would go and find: some monkeys!

That's all for now -- I'm off to bed. I miss you all!!