Day 4 – 30 March 2011

Alexis waking up at 1:00 didn't get things off on the right foot. She's been biting at her own new teeth coming in and chewing on her pacifier, fingers, and anything else she can (including our shoulders when she feels like it). We figured this is probably just bad timing and she's going to have new teeth coming in for a while. The only troublesome part is that she doesn't go back to sleep very easily after waking up. Even giving her a bottle and some infant ibuprofen, it sometimes takes us having to put her in bed with us and still takes an hour to get back to sleep. This time was really no exception and Nicole did most of the tending to Alexis in the middle of the night. The pattern seems to be where Nicole does it in the middle of the night and I do it early in the morning. Alexis then woke up again at 5:15 and was not having any part of going back to sleep at this point. This meant it was time for me to get up as well.

We saw the sun rise again, but was sheltered by the mountains to the east of the resort so we never got to really see it. I don't think I've ever been on a vacation where I was awake for so many sunrises, and the unfortunate part was that they were all blocked by the terrain of the land. We traveled around the resort looking for interesting things and I got my daily exercise. We could hear howler monkeys in the trees but they were so far away and deep in the trees that there was no chance of seeing them. We eventually went back to get Nicole up and went to get some breakfast. Alexis's rash was still there and we kept her pretty much without clothes while we could, assuming it was still heat rash. At this point we started getting the feeling that maybe it really was an allergic reaction and made sure we knew information about the doctor that was on site (see, and you thought I was kidding when I took note and pointed it out on the first few days).

In mid-morning, I departed for my mini trip to do a canopy tour (essentially zip lining from tree to tree) in the local mountains/forest. Since it's close and doesn't last too long, I'd be able to get back and spend more time with my family while still getting to experience a canopy tour. We went with such a large group that it made things difficult. There were a few other groups to go before us and the preparation time took a while. On each of the nine zip lines, we had to help pull ourselves up so they could hook our harness onto the line. This didn't seem too difficult at the beginning, but soon got tiresome. We all know I'm not the strongest person in the world. I took the Flip Video with me to try to catch some action shots on the line, but it was not easy operating the camera and keeping myself from spinning uncontrollably between the trees – so that footage isn't very usable. On about the fourth zip line, I was waiting for my turn (as some of the platforms got crowded due to our large group) and saw a small family of howler monkeys. There were taking naps in the trees, so they weren't very exciting but it's still fun to see them. Some of the cables between the trees were hardly worth the effort of getting up and down, but overall it was a fun experience. I wasn't really nervous at all and it's definitely something I'd be interested in doing again. I met a couple that was staying at our hotel on their honeymoon and I'd seen them around a few times. Their names were Rob & Christina, and they were from Toronto (soon to be moving to Edmonton). By the time everyone went through the gift shop and slowly made their way back to the bus, we got back to the resort about a half hour after we were scheduled to. Nicole was going to wait in the lobby for me to return, but she'd gone back to the room by the time we got back.

When I met up with them, we went to lunch and then got dressed for an afternoon swim. Since the rash hadn't gone away yet, we planned to go to the doctor after the swim. She was in a really good mood as usual and whatever the rash was didn't seem to be bothering her. She splashed, and played, and stood on the wall; making new friends everywhere she went.

Luckily, I remembered to grab our passports before we went out to the street with the doctor because we did need hers. We got there and it was just a receptionist and a doctor. The receptionist spoke very little English, and the doctor spoke even less and needed the receptionist to translate for him. We described what was wrong and within a few seconds of looking at it and taking a normal temperature reading, he diagnosed that it was indeed an allergic reaction to something. They gave us a tube of cream (like Benadryl) and only charged us for the medication. We probably could have gotten the cream cheaper somewhere else, but it was nice to have the doctor look at it for us. We started the cream immediately on her that evening. The only thing we could think of that was new and she'd eaten was papaya. She probably had an entire papaya or two in the first few days we were there – no more of that.

Our evening was much like the usual. We ate dinner, with Alexis not interested in eating too much or staying too long without getting fussy so we made the best of it and ate what we could while taking some dessert to go and eat later. She fell asleep in her stroller and we were in the lobby on the Internet and eating our dessert. The show tonight was Grease, and as it started and we heard the beginning it really didn't have much to do with Grease. It played some of the same type of music in the Grease time era, but didn't follow the plot of the movie/play at all. We're not quite getting the theme of these shows. Bed time for us.