Thursday of our trip we woke up with plans to spend a while on the beach. Like other mornings, we had a filling breakfast and put on layers of sunscreen and our swimsuits. Heading out in the morning, it looked like it would be a nice day.
The flowers to Janie’s right were on bushes around the property. In the morning they were blooming and by evening the blooms had fallen off. At first we thought they had been trimmed (there was always someone doing yardwork) then we realized the plant kept blooming every night. Very pretty.
After getting our towels (trade in a card at start of day, swap back at end of day) by the pool, we paused on a bridge over part of it for a look back at the resort.
Down on the beach, this shows the resort in the distant background, with the pool dining area on the left and pool on the right.
There weren’t any umbrellas or gazebos on the beach, so we tried to find a good shade tree before setting up lounge chairs for some reading.
Once seated, we had a clear view of the water. It was quite relaxing sitting down there, listening to the lapping waves without the sound of music that regularly played at the pool.
This was a public beach, so locals could come and try and sell different goods or look for tourists interested in doing tours. One talkative person, trying his best to be friendly, had a little conversation with Tim. Later he returned and told Tim about an anteater in a tree along the beach, having seen us with cameras. A nice goodwill gesture.
After some reading, we decided to go down to the water for a little while. Another photographer was walking up the beach and we obliged his request for pictures. Bruno from Argentina took some excellent shots.
He asked Tim if he was strong. Tim’s response: what do you want? Oh yeah, he could do that, as long as a wave didn’t come right in the middle of picking Janie up.
“OK, now when I say ‘jump!’ I want you to jump in the air…”
“Now we are going to do a fun one. Tim you get on top of her and when I say ‘go!’ I want you to roll and look at me…”
“Keep rolling!”
“Ok, one more picture” (not the last time he had said that, but we didn’t mind)
(that one got a lot of positive comments on facebook). He took other pictures, but these were the ones we liked the best. We stayed in the water for a while, swimming and getting rid of the sand we had been rolling in.
Back near our chairs, Tim saw this lizard catching some rays. Many things at the resort had the ‘crown’ logo seen here, from all the dishware to the lounge chairs, which was the Riu’s logo.
While we stayed in the shade all morning, it was unfortunately not full shade. There were gaps in the tree leaves or they were moving around in the light breeze. While it was a very nice morning down at the beach, we realized we had gotten quite pink. Tim was burned on his back, from leaning forward while reading, while Janie was burned on her front as she was reclined. After lunch we decided to stay in the full shade by the pool and did a little bit of swimming. Eventually, evening came.
This is the main walkway from the beach up to the hotel.
Before another good buffet dinner, we watched the sun disappear.
These fountains in the Riu courtyard were running all the time, which attracted some birds like this duck.
After dinner we walked back to the shops. At a souvenir store, Tim bought a shirt while Janie got some jewelry and a magnet for the fridge. Next door we went into the photography store to review Bruno’s pictures from the beach. It was quite the ‘hip’ store with music blasting, large glossy pictures everywhere, large mac computer/monitors on the counters and artsy photographers working on selling pictures. Their plan was to have customers pick out the pictures taken of them they liked. Prints were available ($15 for 5×7, $25 for 8×10 and $35 for 13×19). Or if a customer picked out X number of pictures they liked, the salesperson would package of medium and/or large prints that totaled $15 times X, with the liked pictures burned to a cd to take home. We wanted a cd, so we got a package of 4 mediums from the beach, which are now nicely framed on our wall at home, and a large of the black & white on the beach which will need a custom frame. We figured, ‘what the heck, it is our honeymoon!’ 🙂 After a long, and slightly burnt day, we were tired.
The last thing before crashing was the long walk down our hallway to our room. Can you see Janie at the other end (probably not).
And with that, another fun day in the tropics had come to an end.