We took a last-minute trip to Lago Azul (Blue Lake) in Santo Cristo to celebrate the New Year. Someone had mentioned the place to Kevin and he found one room available at their hotel for the night before New Year's Eve. We hadn't planned to travel much because of how far along I am in the pregnancy, but this place is only an hour from where we live. We had so much fun and Emma loved the water! There's one big "lake" on the property along with two other pools, a kiddie pool and a normal swimming pool. The "lake" is more like a massive pool. It has a concrete bottom and the owners clean it and try to filter out most of the gross stuff. You could fit hundreds of people in the lake, so it probably wasn't as clean as we thought. There were four different giant slides (with an interesting jumble of stairs to get to the top), an island, and a couple of bridges. One of the bridges was an old, creaky, wooden bridge that people were trying to cross. As they crossed, someone with a powerful watergun was shooting at them to knock them off the bridge. I only saw one person make it across without falling into the lake. The attempts were comical though. Kevin didn't attempt to cross the bridge, but he did go down a couple of the slides, injuring his hand in the process. I had fun relaxing in the water. Emma loves to swim by herself now, with her floaties. She's getting more and more confident, but still hasn't mastered swimming. We went from the lake to the kiddie pool and back to the lake, swimming all afternoon. Kevin and I are a little bummed that we just found this place. It's somewhere I'd go once a week during the summer! We had snacks and ice cream and just enjoyed the warm weather. We're pretty sure we won't be experiencing a summer December again for a really long time!
After a few hours of swimming, we decided to explore the area around the pools. One of my favorite finds during the exploration was this old slide in the woods. We're not sure, but we're guessing Lago Azul began with this very first slide. It's not being used anymore, but I think it would be awesome to go down! Imagine sliding down with the trees flying by!!
We found this giant teeter-totter next to one of the pools. Emma and I sat on one side while Kevin climbed the ladder on the other side to join us. Our weight didn't even out so we didn't play on it for long. Still, it was a pretty creative idea.
Then we found the Valley of the Dinosaurs. Concrete dinosaurs were hidden (and not so hidden) around one area of the park. We had fun finding them and climbing on them.
The angle of this slide is a little off. Kevin actually helped Emma so she wouldn't hit the sand so hard. We're always amazed at the playground equipment here. Safety doesn't seem to be a major concern for the builders.
