A Day Trip to The Decameron

Last Saturday Eduardo won a FREE family pass to The Decameron All-Inclusive Resort for Sunday.  He just happened to stop at the gas station for a fill up and a woman came to the car (as they always do) with a scratch-off for him to do.  He reluctantly did it and was glad he did.  We have wanted to visit this resort since we got to El Salvador, but we've always wanted to go alone and have never been quite ready to leave Liliana alone for even one night so we haven't gone.  It's an all-inclusive resort, which means it includes all the food and drinks, including alcohol.  It's quite a large place on 1 km of beach front.  Eduardo joked that they must have brought the sand in from somewhere because it's not that nice anywhere else in El Salvador!  

Check-in for the day was at 9am.  The pass included 2 adults and 3 kids.  Unfortunately we had just Maynor and Daniela back home on Friday, but we went ahead and picked them up Saturday night for the trip on Sunday.  The nice thing about the resort is that it's only about 1/2 hour from our house.  I had a feeling there was going to be a catch to the whole "free pass" thing and I was right.  We spent the first 2 hours of the day listening to a woman try and convince us to buy a "membership" to all the various resorts they have.  After taking a tour of the place, we found it to be really super nice, but not the place for us.  It's hard to put my finger on why we weren't feeling it.  The resort was beautiful and had everything to be desired, but both Eduardo and I agreed it wasn't somewhere we would take an extended vacation.  I think we prefer somewhere a little less kid-friendly and more serene.  I've looked up family-friendly resorts and have seen the ones that have adult-only areas and I think we would prefer something along those lines for a family vacation. Anyway, the woman who was showing us around didn't take rejection very well when we told her we weren't interested.  She actually got quite rude and Eduardo ended up complaining to the management about her!  Crazy things always seem to happen to us and I swear we are super nice people!  Well once that drama was over, we got to relax by the one pool we were allowed to visit and the small section of beach we were allowed on.  I shouldn't complain cause it was great, just not as friendly of a place as I had hoped.  

The best part of the day was when we convinced Liliana to go in the pool.  She hasn't liked the beach up until now and we even got her to play in the sand!  There was an awesome baby pool that Liliana could walk around in and she thought that was the coolest thing ever and it was!  We took along our niece, Diana as well as Eduardo's mom and his uncle Lalo too.  Everyone had a great time and we were all sun burned by the end of the day!  It was a wonderful way to spend Easter after all the Semana Santa festivities throughout the week, which I still need to blog about.  Here are some pics to sum up our day at the beach:

Trip to the Beach

Liliana ready for the beach!

Our Uncle Lalo from across the street came over last night and invited us to the beach today.  He offered to pay for the food and we just pay for gas and extras.  How could we resist such an invitation?!  So we got ready and left this morning at 9am hoping to get there in time to get a cabana right at the front overlooking the ocean.  Well that certainly was not a problem and turned out there were far less people than the last time we went on a weekend.  We went to Playa Metalio just off the highway to Guatemala and only about 30 minutes from us.  There are several restaurants to choose from, but we opted for The Blue Mary.  You pay $1 to get in and it was $5 for the cabana.  We took our own hammock so we didn't need to pay for that.  We also took drinks and snacks for the all-day excursion.  It was a great day.  We all indulged in the fish of the day, a platter that included the whole fried fish, salad, potato salad, rice and tortillas.  All for $5 a plate!  It was delicious.

This beach happens to be the nicest I have experienced in San Salvador.  The other ones I have been to have black sand that's not even soft enough to play in and lots and lots of rocks.  Not much fun I would say.  This beach is wonderful.  Palm trees line the beach for miles and the sand is just what you would hope for.  And no rocks!  

The only disappointment is that Liliana still doesn't like the ocean.  She absolutely LOVES water.  She will play outside at the house in the water for hours.  She's always loved baths and showers and likes going to the pool or the nearby rivers to swim.  But the ocean, that's a whole other level of water loving for her and she hasn't quite gotten there yet.  I can imagine how immense it must feel to one so little.  And the waves going in and out and making such noise must be a little overwhelming.  I am hoping one day soon she will begin to love it as much as her mami does so we can take long walks on the beach, collecting seashells and walking in the water.  Not to mention playing in the sand, which she absolutely hates as well!  She won't even walk barefoot in it, let alone play in it.  I'm not a fan of sand stuck all over me, but running my feet through it and playing in it is fun.  Like I said, someday soon she will hopefully beg me to take her to the beach.  She loves going now, just won't go in the water or near the sand ;)

Days like today make me grateful to live in El Salvador and not be in Indiana during this winter season!