Christmas in Costa Rica Part V

Quepos, Costa Rica

Day Ten:

The next day we took all the kids with us to explore downtown Quepos.

This beautiful Catholic Church really stood out when compared to it's surroundings.

We walked along the beach's boardwalk once again, and even ventured to some sketchier parts of town.

We kept finding references to "Merinda" (well...close enough), in all the little convenience stores. 

At least we know that people in Costa Rica would not have a problem pronouncing her name!

Even though there were convenience stores and super markets, it's the specialty stores (bread, meat, fish etc.) that had the best food, and surprisingly enough, they were often the cheapest. 

That night for dinner we had delicious Carne Asada Fajitas.

Before bed we played some family games like Family Feud. 

Merinda was the host, and Brittney and Aubrey were going head-to-head ready to slam their buzzers (yep, we get pretty fancy with our games!).

As cheesy as game night is, it's still one of my favorite things do as a family!

Day Eleven:

Deep Sea Fishing Off the Coast of Manuel Antonio

Brad has always wanted to go deep sea fishing with Breck, and since the coasts of Quepos and Manuel Antonio Park are known world-wide for their deep sea fishing, this was the perfect opportunity.

This is what their fishing charter boat looked like.

View of Quepos

View of Manuel Antonio National Park

View of Breck feeling really seasick and getting ready to toss his cookies (breakfast) overboard. 

Luckily, Breck felt better once his stomach was empty, and was able to enjoy the rest of the trip.

After heading out to sea for an hour-and-a-half, they finally reached their fishing destination, which was right in the middle of some kind of dolphin feeding ground.

Brad said there were what seemed liked millions of dolphins!

The dolphins were swimming in families, often times right under their boat.

They were also jumping all over the place,

and making all kinds of  funky sounds!

Brad said the whole dolphin scene was fascinating, and almost more exciting than the fishing itself.

Brad trying to keep from falling in the ocean while reeling in his fish.

The first mate putting a belt on Brad so he would have a place to hold the end of his pole.

With a little more leverage he was able to reel in this nice looking Tuna Fish.

His second tuna was even bigger.

It was then Breck turn...

He too caught two nice looking tunas. 

Apparently, there is a limit on how many fish you can keep because they both actually caught more tuna, but the captain had them throw the other ones back.

One of the guys fishing with Brad and Breck caught this awesome Sailfish.

The guys had a great day fishing out at sea, and if you asked Breck what his favorite part of Costa Rica was, he would tell you it was deep sea fishing!

Downtown Quepos

 While the guys were fishing, Aubrey and I decided to explore Quepos a little more...

we were on the search for a dollar store (because things in Quepos were still very expensive) Aubrey had spotted the previous day, because we were hoping to find some cheaper souvenirs.

 We also needed to find a pharmacy that sold this magic green cream which healed everything. Josie found it in San Jose and said it instantly cured Emily's horrible bites and rashes. Brittney also used it and had the same success. I was hoping to find some to put on Aubrey and Brad's poor legs, and the rest of our extremely itchy flea bites! We found the dollar store but there was nothing of interest, and we never did find the cream, apparently, they only sell it at organic pharmacies in San Jose (we did look in San Jose, but still never found any...maybe I can find some on Amazon!). 

After walking all over Quepos, Aubrey and I were sweating buckets (now we understood why people mostly stayed in their homes until evening) so we bought some juice and drank it while sitting on one of the benches above. We then walked back to Casa Wow, and crashed!

 After our naps, the girls and I decided to cool off in the pool.

 It was so nice to just relax and float on our backs, swim like dolphins (in which Brittney was the expert),

and pretend like we're pool princesses with loose pool tiles stuck to our foreheads (uummm...yeah, that would be Aubrey). 

Dinner at KuKula 

 Just as we were getting out of the pool, Brad and Breck came home carrying their very heavy tuna in a garbage sack. We had no idea what to do with all that tuna, so we gave away half of it to the caretakers of Casa Wow, and then walked back to town to KuKula to see if they would cook it up for us. The cook said no problem (or something like that) and took the garbage sack with him to the kitchen. Shortly thereafter, he came out with the tuna cooked up three different ways. He prepared some of it sashimi style (or raw and rolled in sesame seeds as pictured above), which just melted in your mouth,  

and lightly grilled on the outside and perfectly pink in the middle, which was hand's down the best tasting, 

 and then cooked all the way through for those less adventurous fish eaters (like Breck).

Here is my plate, and yeah, I gorged on the tuna, so you're not going to believe me when I tell you that I don't like fish, because I don't! However, all of the fish we had eaten in Costa Rica was so fresh (especially the tuna just caught by Brad and Breck a few hours earlier) that it never tasted fishy. And then add to that the most amazing tarter sauce ever, which was just the icing on the cake!!