I Lift My Eyes Up, Up To The Mountains I pursue Him who first pursued me: the One who spread out the clouds as a curtain, who fashioned the earth by hand, the One who makes the clouds a chariot and walks on the wings of the wind. -Psalm 104

Up at 7 a.m.  Made coffee.  Pulled a lounge chair over next to the plunge pool.  Grabbed coffee mug and Bible for a warm round of morning reading.  Later, trekked out to beach and perused the sands.  Roused the group for a shot at the complimentary morning breakfast.  Back to Xandari restaurant.  Took down a Tower of Health—mounds of yogurt, granola, and fresh fruit; started on tray of fresh muffins—more like cupcakes; and ended with a mango smoothie—not milky, icy, completely refreshing.
Decided next to work on a sunburn.  Succeeded.  Strung together a bit of soccer, wavage, and running.  Cooled off in the water.   As much as one can cool off in bath water.   Chased a few crabs about the sands.  Cornered one.  Got pinched.  Go figure.  Found a lonely lounge chair; gave the chair some company; read a bit.  Plunged into the plunge pool to cool down.  Again, bath water.  Everything at the playa the same temp:  wind, water, rain, air, earth:  bath water warm.  Always.

Headed to Jaco for an evening on the town.  Jaco.  Offered great views driving into the city from the South.  But once in town, neither a cheap nor clean locale.  Seemed designed to extract money (and possibly health) from tourists.  If seedy were a desirable option, cheap could be secured; if acceptable to decent were the plan, it required paying prices approaching unreasonable.  A Costa Rican friend referred to it as a hell-hole.  But it served up a nice evening.  Dined at the Wishbone.  Mexican-style dishes, large and tasty, but not entirely cheap.  Wondered up and down the Jaco strip, a strip populated largely by Americans, but French, German, and Dutch were heard.  Surf store upon surf store stacked horizontally down the main street, interrupted here and there by locals hustling mostly Cuban cigars. Stocked up on goods for the lunch and dinner as well as goods for the beach.  Although items used by the locals were cheap, items like sun block and Snickers were going for $15-20.

Headed back to the resort.  Evening entailed a plunge pool and texas hold em.  Dueled into the night.  Improvised on chips.  Used Costa Rican coins, Colones.  And won some; lost a few.