Today was a a no tours day. You need that on a trip.
At breakfast they brought us coffee and bowls of white granules. Without checking, John mixed a spoonful in his coffee. It was salt.
We walked to the main docks from our hotel (about 1 km) and down a side trail to Concha de Perla. Just ahead of us a grunting sea lion hoisted himself up onto the boardwalk and across our path. We were both a little concerned to step over him but alas he only gave a few grunts and nobody was bitten.
By 9:30am we were snorkelling in waters of this small cove encircled by volcanic rocks except for a small opening to the sea. There is no beach here, just a platform from which you get into the water. Reviews said that you could often swim with sea lions, penguins and sea turtles there. Today none of the above made an appearance. There were a lot of fish and we even saw a star fish. We spent over an hour and a half snorkelling around before heading to a nearby beach.
The beach had many benches all filled with sea lions. A few sea lions were also in the water. We hung with the sea lions and Marine iguanas before heading back to our hostel for a quick change of clothes.
We ate lunch at a restaurant near our place that a lot of locals frequent. I am not sure what we ordered but we got some kind of soup with a ball of something in it, then grilled chicken, rice, salad and a glass of juice; all for $9 for both of us. It was really good.
We rented bikes again and this time rode along a trail by the shoreline stopping to check out the beaches and trails along the way. We finally decided to share one beach that actually had sea lion free shaded benches with a pack of basking marine iguanas nearby. We relaxed on our benches and read our books to the hypnotizing sound of the crashing surf. Every now and and then one of the iguanas would projectile snort the salt from their lungs. They only moved to follow the sun a few feet. Overhead bright yellow warblers flitted through the trees and the odd shore bird passed through our line of vision. Pure bliss.
After returning the bikes, we picked up a couple of beer and went to our favourite spot on the beach to watch the sunset.