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Melissa & Dave - Adventures at Sea

Day 5 - Visiting Los Arroyos Verdes 6 Years Later To The Day

Melissa awoke to find Joyce had roped Bob and Dave into helping her shell and devein the 4 lbs of shrimp we bought.  It took them an hour.  Meanwhile, Melissa cooked up some frittata with ham and veggies for breakfast.

After breakfast we opened presents.  Theme was “favorite useful tools”.  So Bob got Dave’s favorite flashlight, his favorite lighter, and favorite magnifying glass.  Joyce got Melissa’s favorite avocado cutter, citrus squeezer, micro plane grater, and onion glasses.

Then we headed out to Los Arroyos Verdes.  We had been there twice before.  Once for Christmas 2013 when we hung by their gorgeous pool, and again for a disastrous New Years Eve party where the ceiling collapsed and the food was burned.  They had offered us a free night stay and free bottle of champagne as compensation for the crazy evening.  The office was closed though so no way to redeem our coupon for the free champagne.  Plus they said that the “day pass” didn’t include beach towels and we didn’t bring any.  But they lent us towels anyway.  None the less we had a nice time hanging by the pool and sipping white wine and eating nachos and ceviche.

On the way home we stopped for sea salt at our favorite road side stand.  Same family has been there for years.  We wanted two bags - 1 kg each.  So did Joyce and Bob.  But price was three for the price of two.  $50 pesos for three bags.  So we bought 6 kgs total for $100 pesos - $5 USD.  Crazy!

When we got home, we cooked up a feast.  Albiet maybe not a traditional Christmas dinner.

First Joyce took the leftover Mahi Mahi and made a nice appetizer served on slices of radish.

Then we cooked up the shrimp and had a giant shrimp feed.  As much as you could eat.  We made our way through about 2/3rds.  As everyone wanted cocktail sauce, we had gone on a hunt.  Alas they don’t sell horseradish or cocktail sauce down here.  So Melissa attempted 4 different versions.  One was simply a jalapeno ketchup they sell here. One was made by grating up a red radish that the store clerk swore was their version of horseradish (albiet through Melissa’s broken Spanish – so this was a bit iffy to begin with). One homemade with jalapeno and garlic blended with ketchup.  And one with wasabi mixed with ketchup.  The one with wasabi was the clear winner, though the one made from fresh jalapeno a close second.  Turns out that the green wasabi you buy at the store is most often made from dried ground horseradish died green.  So no surprise that this combo tasted exactly like cocktail sauce.

Afterwards we watched the new animated version of “the Grinch” before heading to bed.

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