Ultimately, we resigned ourselves to being a bit stuck within the "palace" walls and having to wear a numbered wristband the whole time (at least we had a small kitchen and so could prepare our own food-lots of corn tortillas and salsas- for most meals). When the pool and beach became a bit redundant, I turned my focus to playing with the cameras, both ours and my mom's Canon Powershot which has a macro setting. The immaculately landscaped grounds, complete with fake moat for kayaking and pontoon boat rides and a disney-like kiddie train served as subject enough. Iguana watching proved fascinating, too. This one climbed the palm tree right outside our room window and spent the rest of its time scarfing down red hibiscus flowers whole, leaving most of the bushes below our room bare of flowers.
Certainly something bright and pretty to look back on during dark winter days.
Sorry. I think I'm done with the cynicism for now.
It was a joy seeing the boys get comfortable in the water, both the pool and the ocean. They both had a couple of boogie board rides with C's help, and R did his first real swimming in the pool.
Probably the best part of the the trip for me was being immersed enough in another culture and language, at least when we were out and about so that, by the end of the trip, I was just getting confidant enough with speaking Spanish again to really use it regularly. It was incredible to experience once again how quickly a language comes back to you when you hear it all around you and have the opportunity to use it for practical purposes (ordering good food). It certainly helped to counteract my own feeling of being the careless, helpless American tourista. Both R and E learned quite a bit and grew comfortable enough to say the basics including "hola", "gracias", and "por favor". R learned to ask for a meal, usually "quesadillas" and "agua" in a restaurant with a bit of help. They both learned to count to ten in Spanish while they jumped on the hotel beds. Shh! Don't tell! And the whole way home on the airplane, they sang/chanted over and over and over again: "Vamanos a la playa! Vamanos a la playa!"
Now, we just have to keep up the learning at home.
Knitting content tomorrow... I promise.
