July 21: Mellow in La Manga

This was a chill day, with no major outings or agenda, other than resting, eating, swimming, and playing. The AirBnB we rented is in a tourist resort area called La Manga, which is a narrow strip of land that cordons off the sea water near the city of Cartagena into a lovely bay. Our particular condo is close to a large golf course, but we did not make any effort to book a tee time.

Faith and I drove to the nearest grocery store to get some ingredients for meals over the next 24 hours, so we didn’t have to eat out. Food prices here are comparable to back home, I find. The best deal we got was for local pineapple and cherries.

The weird thing that happened today was apparently the hot water heater of the unit was found to be making water too hot, so the resort operator decided to book maintenance workers to replace the boiler today. A minor inconvenience, but still weird.

After our grocery run, Faith, Luke and I jumped into the resort pool. Refreshing, but I should have applied some sunscreen first…

We enjoyed empanadas (a kind of meat pie) for lunch. Each of us had some alone time after that: kids on screens, Beth journaling and napping, I caught up on blog entries.

By late afternoon we were ready to find a beach. About 7 km away was Playa de Mar de Cristal. Not too busy, the water was shallow and probably the warmest sea water I’ve ever touched. Like bath water. Great outing to play ball catch in the water and connect with each other, build Faith into a sand mermaid, then build an actual sand mermaid!

A late dinner of chicken, salmon, nachos and homemade pineapple salsa/salad. Washing and hanging loads of laundry, some hot chocolate and a couple of chapters of Lily before bed.

Some days are like this on vacation…. More about being than doing.