Wife and friend pick an absolute winner- Costa Rica Day 6

The previous post on this series is here..

On Day 6 we started at Monta Verde and drove to Coco Mar beach resort. This was a road out of Monta Verde that was well paved and in a different direction. It was an almost 5 hour trip. We did have our animal of the day sighting at El Bosque in just before leaving.. this Capybara cousin is called an Agouti.

There were many scenic spots on the drive and our driver stopped twice for photo ops. 

We drove past Caldera which was beautiful..

We had a 30 minute stop at a place called Tarcoles where the Fresh water crocs gather on the river banks and we can see them by walking across the bridge. It is also a rest stop area on that route and there are a lot of stores selling stuff (including made in India beach towels with chakras elephants and what not..). You can bargain in these stores just like in desi markets. The banana chips in these stores is also fresh and out of the world. We bought chips and they were finished by the time we made it to the bridge and back.

Then we were off to Coco Mar. This was a small resort with two buildings but a practically private beach. As soon as we checked in, we had a late lunch. I went to my local staple of quesadillas and cilantro rice..it was also my dinner.

It was pretty hot and humid and the weather change from Monta Verde where it is cold to the beach is something that takes a few hours to get used to. In 10 minutes my T-shirt was drenched.. We decided it was better to just go to the beach even though we had just finished the lunch. It was a good move!

There was only our families at the beach for the first two hours. Then another two families were visible. We saw a glorious sunset and were hanging around for a good 20 minutes till it got dark and came to our rooms. Then it started pouring for a good hour! We had a really lucky and good day. 

me in my Yoga uniform.. 

it is not a good idea to go into the water on a full stomach.. but somehow it did not bother me or anyone else that day.. in three hours we were all hungry and ready to eat again!

we did a little photoshoot of the entire group for our New Year social media card, just as the sun was setting..thanks to another family that had just showed up at the beach..

A video of the days adventures..

This was my first time using a boogie board. My friend Padma gave me a 10 minute "crash" course on how to use it and time my jump before a double wave. It took me a few tries but I got the hang of it and enjoyed it thoroughly. Really didn't want to come out of the water when it got dark. The water was so warm and pleasant and you could see the sand through the water.. it was that clear! Amazing beaches in Costa Rica!

Would definitely recommend the Coco Mar resort if you are eventually going to Manuel Antonio state park as the next stop. It is closer to the park compared to Jaco (which is also beautiful and more commercial.. we stopped there on Day 7) and there is no one on the beaches.

Almost managed to finish all the blog posts before work catches up tomorrow. . . 

Great grandma visits and binge eating..

On our 5 day India trip, we managed to visit all great grandparents, thanks to some efficient auto rickshaws..

my maternal grandma is 90+ and her mind is very active. She is unable ot walk and she no longer asks me "when will my time come". she has been asking me that since my grandpa passed away almost 10 years ago. She has come to realize that no one knows.. and is now reading books to pass her time. She blessed us with all her heart!

San's grandparents are also pushing 90 and they are doing okay given their age. Walkers, hearing aids, etc. A slow methodical life and an approach of taking it one day at a time. Some lessons for San and me there.. Grandpa told me that till a few years ago he was doing yoga regularly including Nauli but now he is not able to. He is still active given his age and is a role model for all of us.

The best part was that they were the couple honored during my fathers sadhabhishgam as part of the "dhambati pooja" and given I was doing the pooja in proxy for my dad who could not bend down, it was a great honor! Will write a separate post on the function and what we did as part of it.. 

Then there was the eating in three places..

We went to watch Toy Story movie at the mall in 3D.. it has been some time since I saw anything in 3D given the massive headaches I get for days after watching any 3D movie.. but the kids wanted to go together somewhere and an Air conditioned theater was a good idea! After the movie the kids decided based on reviews that the best place that would accomodate everyones menu requests was Haven Sampoorna right near Phoenix mall in Velachery. It was an interesting place. I got my butter naan and side dishes and the kids who wanted pasta, got their pasta.. food was good. service was good. ambience was funny.. 

 Here is PIchchai Sundar with Sundar PIchchai... (kid you not, this was the photo right behind my chair)

you have no idea how many jokes I have to put up with ever since this guy became Google CEO. We are both the same age, went to similar schools and the same IIT coaching class in Chennai, think he also studied metallurgy, went to work for semi conductor companies ... I stayed in Semi and am traveling back and forth to Asia.. he moved to software and management..and probably has a lot of things going for him that I simply don't have or want.. but the jokes, they keep on coming.. So it was only fitting that I ended up below that photo! 

The sceond place we ate was Amethyst.. again nice ambience, relatively quiet and excellent food.. we went for evening coffee/ tea with San's cousin and brother's family who also happened to be visiting and ended up eating a lot of stuff..

The last place we went to was in Matsya in Adayar.. on a previous trip we had gone to another Matsya branch.. this was closer to where we stayed. It was also a nice place (we didnt take pictures). It was raining in Chennai that evening and we were all not our best when we got there. The funny thing with Ola/ Auto etc. is that they drop you off at the location but on the opposite side of the street and there is no way to cross over for a good kilometer either way! So we walked around a flyover for 25 minutes to get to the place. The dinner was great though. They had an amazing variety of dosas and cricket matches playing on 4 different TV's.. so I got to watch cricket and eat dosas.. 

That was pretty much all the activities we did outside of the function. 

Still waiting for photos from the function itself...

Missing San's maternal grandma who passed away recently as I write this post. We would always make a visit to see her as well. She passed away three months ago. 

Great grandparents are precious.. the way things are going, not a lot of kids get to see their great grandparents! 

Best of both worlds.. but...

Recently I felt like eating Rava dosai after coming home late at night after a yoga class.. given time constraint, decided to make upma and smear the upma around the Chatti to get a dense rava dosai roast on the vessel..

that came out pretty good.

Today I did a double at BYSJ. My MIL who is visiting joined me for the first class. When she came out, she asked me "do you want me to make you some upma or something ? I will be able to make it for you by the time you come home!"

I told her "no, it is okay.. I feel like eating Maggi noodles after class".. Nothing beats some carbs and spices after back to back yoga class for me!

Somehow in the middle of the second class, I started remembering all types of Upmas.. every upma I had ever remembered over the years etc.. it was like my brain had issued a grep command inside the memory for "upma" and presented the massive result base scroll through my wide open eyes and nose.. 

Came home and saw that MIL had kept a small cup (to tell me she would also like some Maggi)! Told her that she should not have reminded me of upma between two yoga classes.. so Plan change! Upma for dinner.

Instead of making the usual Rava Upma, decided to do this dosa-upma thing again and show her.. 

there are two issues with this.

1. I put jeera (cumin) in the upma to make the dosa come out good.

2. it does not scale very well.. Remember surface area and volume do not scale the same.. so the upma per MIL became the consistancy of Karudaththu maavu.. Felt bad.. we still ate the upma.. It was okay for my standard but did not get any thumbs up from her..

the roast on the other hand was really really good!

Lifting the roast from the chatti was... priceless! 

I have to improve on scaling the proportions and use less or no Jeeragam on the next try...