2013 February 21 Off to Our Desert Isle

So, we were all sitting around one day and Bob mentioned that a buddy of his said that you could rent a boat in Punta Perula and they'd take you out to some really good snorkling.  One thing led to another, and pretty soon Deb and Jacquie and Bob and I were in Bob's car headed for Punta Perula!

 

 

Another busy day on the beach at Punta Perula

Punta Perula is a big hour north of Melaque, and about 2 hours south of Puerto Vallarta.  We were there last month with Kelly and Cheryl to visit our friends Rich and Evelyn, who have their 5th-wheeler pulled up beside a huge palapa right beside the beach.  Of course we had to stop off for beers and an extended chat, and then it was off to find The Boat Guy.  You may imagine that this would be easy, but in small-town Mexico often not so much.  First, we went to where all the boats were, but of course there was nobody around as the typical Mexican fisherman, when he is not actually in his boat on the water, is eating, sleeping, playing with his kids, fixing his truck, or some combination of these.  Then we tried stopping someone on the street, and this actually showed some promise as we got an acknowledgement that the islands existed, boats went there, and they could be rented at 'a place' roughly described as 'over there'.  After stopping and chatting with two more groups of people we eventually zeroed in on what could loosely be described as a beach-side restaurant, which in this case was an adobe shack with a dirt-floored palapa and a couple chairs.  And there was a panga out front!  The two women sitting in it were sharing the roles of chef de cuisine and maitre de, and of course spoke not one word of English.  After much waving of arms and tap-dancing in place, accompanied by Steve's limited Spanish, we were able to sort out that yes this was the place, yes the boat owner would be happy to take us out, but it would be a few minutes as he was fixing his truck (!).  About 20 minutes later our skipper showed up, and he also of course spoke no English.  Nevertheless we negotiated a trip, a time, and a price, and then all that was left was getting the 1000 lb boat over 100 feet of dry sand and into the water.  This turned out to be remarkably easy with a jeep, a rope, and 1 litre pop bottles full of water (rollers!).

 

Jacqie, our skipper, Deb and Steve enroute

 

Steaming by one of the islands

 

Coming into our beach with Silent Bob in the foreground

 

There are a half-dozen islands out in the bay, perhaps 5-10 miles from the beach.  The run out was lovely, as it was a beautiful Mexican morning and sea conditions were gentle.  The trip out entailed zooming quite close by a couple other islands, which provided viewing opportunities for birds, rocks, and desert vegetation growing beside the ocean.  As we rounded the third island, a beautiful pocket beach of blinding white sand surrounded by headlands appeared; this was our destination!  There was a significant swell right onto the beach, so offloading was carried out fairly gingerly, but eventually we were all standing on the sand and the boat was pulling out.  This would have been great, except that I had a niggling feeling about the agreed arrangements; we thought the skipper was coming back in 3 hours (1 pm) but we had also been discussing 4 hours, and the skipper had been making Spanish noises that sounded suspiciously like 3 pm.....  so while there was much nodding of heads and general approval, I wasn't sure we were in agreement on Anything, least of all the pickup time.  This was starting to look a lot like Gilligan's Island, and if Bob looks a lot like the skipper....  on the other hand, there was a palapa on the beach so we could get out of the sun, we weren't going to starve to death anytime soon, and there was a whole island to explore!

 

First off, it was time to explore a bit.  Our beach is perhaps 400 yards in total, from rocks and bluffs on the left to what looks like a second passage out of the bay on the right.  The second passage turns out to be landlocked, but it a very interesting almost-passage with a very strong surge.  There's also an underwater passage that fills and empties with the swell.  And the rocks on the headland have thunder eggs filled with calcite and common opal.  Deb and I also got side-tracked on picking up seashells, which is always fun.  Overall an interesting spot!

 

The almost-passage.  While pretty, it's not a place to go wading!

 

Chair? Check!  Umbrella? Check!  Sun? Check!  Sand? Check!  Ginger Ale!?  WTF?

I suspect the swell coming into the bay is fairly rare, as it faces east.  However, today it's about 3-4 feet with a glassy surface, which is great for swimming (Bob likes to bob).  Sadly, it's also happening right over the snorkling-area, and over the years I've developed a severe allergy to being disembowelled by coral and rocks, so the fins and masks stay in the bags. The undergrowth behind the beach is quite thick, and after an extremely brief discussion we all agreed that we didn't know enough about the local fauna to explore much inland.  Soaking up the sun and the sights it is, then.  Eventually we got hungry and retired to the palapa for comida, and whilst breaking out the beers we hear an engine approaching.  Could we have been THAT mistaken, and our skipper is returning already?  Nope, it's another panga with 5 Mexican tourists and a guide.  Turns out that folks come here fairly often to check out the birds, turtles, plants, etc.  Off they go up a 'hidden' path at the back of the palapa, and 30 minutes later they are back, into the panga and off to the next sight.  All is good, and after an appropriate interval filled by swimming, snoozing, sunbathing, and fossicking our skipper shows up right on time!  Apparently the mind-meld worked.... Reloading was tricky, but we eventually managed to crawl over the gunnels between waves and we're off!  On the way back, we took a short detour to view a bufadora, which is an underwater sea-cave with a surface blow-hole that looks like a geyser when the swell is right.

 

La Bufadora.  20'-30' high, for perspective.

So we're back on the beach at Punta Perula, having cheated death one more time.  A leisurely drive home and we're in the pool cooling off at 4 pm.  Not a bad day-trip!

2013 January 31 Guadalajara Three

After our first 2 days here it was pretty apparent that we weren't going to even be able to skim the surface of this place in 3 days, so we extended our stay for another day in order to take a walking tour of the historical section.  But first, it's Shopping Day!  Wait a minute, wasn't that yesterday?  Cancel that thought, EVERY day in Guadalajara is Shopping Day!  Off we went on a shopping tour of Tonala and Tlaquepacque.  (That's "toe-naw-LAW and t-lacky-PACK-y").  These are nearby towns that have been eaten by Guadalajara and now form part of the city, but they are still cultural and artisan centres in their own right.

 

Tonala is definitely an experience, it's basically a sidewalk under-the-tarps market on the side of a very busy main thoroughfare, but all of the business places behind it are in on the action and the whole thing is I don't know how big.  Our tour bus was a double-decker so of course we rode in the open top which was very nice.  The bus rendezvous was 2 hours, which we missed and picked up the next tour bus after 4 hours; in that time we made it about 5 blocks up the street on one side and back on the other side, and I'd be astonished if we saw half of it.  Debbi fell in love with a wall-fountain which is a wood frame with 3 clay pots and a glass fish tank.  Hang on wall, fill up tank with water, insert fish, start pump, and there you have it!  Looks like a racoon-trap to me....

 

Basking in the sunshine

Bingo Ball curtain-management devices....

Tlaquepacque was quite different, no tarps, everything is inside shops and little malls, much more upscale and with lots of real artisan-stuff.  We only had an hour or so here, which is a shame.  We'll need to go back to this one, as it deserves a full day to itself.  It's a very pretty street scene with lots of unique and authentic things.  Like most things, once you've taken the city tour you realize you don't need it to get there.  A city bus will take you there for 1 buck, or a taxi for 10 bucks.  Take the city bus, it's more fun!   After 2 days of constant walking and shopping, it's definitely time for a quiet evening in our room, particularly as we have an early start for our walking tour tomorrow!

 

I could drag this out, but the walking tour was a gong show.  The operator showed up over an hour late, and then we were put on the wrong tour!  After much discussion, we eventually ended up on a driving tour of the city sites and a 2-hour walking tour with an excellent guide who did his best to retrieve the situation.  I would confidently book future tours with this operator, as it appears we just fell into a crack; the company gave us a complete refund and a full apology without hesitation. 

 

Having said all of that, here's what we saw:

Our guide, Pablo, started by driving us around the city showing us a number of monuments and works of art pertaining to the history of the city and the country.  Most of the intersections of major arteries are huge roundabouts, and the city government has used these to very good purpose.  There are war memorials, monuments to exceptional individuals, and just plain works of art.

 

This is called 'The Stampede'. 
Metal sculpture on the side of a busy intersection!

Pablo then took us through the 'consular district', which is an older part of the city with massive Edwardian, Georgian, and Art Deco private homes.  Few people can afford to live in them anymore, so they are leased out to foreign nations as embassies.  It looks a lot like the back streets of Shaugnessy in Vancouver..  Then it was time for a quick bite to eat beside the oldest church in the city, which other than being really really old is noteworthy as it has a clockwork display where Jesus and the Apostles put in an appearance every time the bell bongs.  Clearly they must have had Germans or Swiss build it, as it's still working!

 

Yet another church, but at THIS one
Jesus and The Apostles trot out every hour.

Then it was time for the historical section.  We only went inside a few buildings; sadly, the Opera House was in full rehearsal for that evening so the inside was barred to the public.  That's a shame as it is a stunning building, but I guess we have something to see for next time!  Trotting around through all the buildings would take about 3 days, but we got a look at all the main squares and monuments, and we went inside the cathedral and a couple of the historic government buildings.

 

Don't know how a sculptor makes copper look like it's
blowing in the wind....

The original legislative building is a real treat as it is pretty much a working museum, and also as it houses two monumental murals by Miguel Orozco.  The main staircase is dominated by an enormous mural painted in 1936, which depicts all of the ways that mankind has found to enslave itself (church, army, fascism, communism, capitalism), and is dominated by Miguel Hidalgo, the father of the Mexican Revolution, waving the torch of freedom over all.  Awesome.  And all done on the ceiling and very high walls by an old guy who was afraid of heights!

 

This is a VERY small part of a truly massive mural by
Miguel Orozco in the original legislature.

 

Sr. Hidalgo lighting the way - or burning the place down;
there's a difference of opinion.  These murals were done
10 years before the Holocaust.

The cathedral was a great place to end the tour, as it is quiet, peaceful, and beautiful with a wonderful ambience.  The stained glass is stunning, and somehow the architect managed to take a gigantic pile of rock and turn it into light and space.

 

The central arcade in the Guadalajara Cathedral. 
A gorgeous building, worth the trip all by itself.

Despite all the initial hiccups and the short time we had, the tour was great.  Guadalajara historico is pretty awesome for history, art, and architecture.  There are museums and art galleries to keep you busy for another 2-3 days if you are so inclined.  Put it on your bucket list!

2013 February 17 Not Dead Yet

Hi, I'm back.  That was an interesting 2-week hiatus.

 

My fancy-shmancy Nexus 7 woke up dead the morning we went to Guadalajara, which is about 2-3 weeks ago.  I thought it might be in a coma, but now I'm pretty sure it's stone dead.  Either the charging-thing inside the machine is hooped, or all the magic drained out of one of the slots overnight.  That puts us down to one machine, and Deb is hooked on a new game.....  grrr.  The Nexus is still on warranty, so no worries.  It quickly became apparent that I was going to have to call (on the telephone) to get anything started on a replacement.  That's always fun for me, but with just one hearing aid it's absolute bliss.  Eventually I got Omar from Iran, who is the warranty guy for the Chinese tablet sold by an American company to a hapless Canadian.  After I finished explaining my situation to Omar he said 'no worries, just give me the serial number off the box that the tablet was shipped in.'  Hmnnn.  Apparently this guy thinks I pack my shipping boxes along when I go to Mexico!  Maybe they do that in Iran, or else the boxes get stolen....  Once that option was discarded, he came back with 'OK then, just turn the machine on and go to "settings".....  Double hmnnn.  Omar, if I could turn the freaking thing on, I wouldn't be talking to you!  Much discussion ensued, and at the end Omar assured me that Asus would be happy to fix it off warranty for me.  In other words, drop dead you infidel.  The good news; I'm pretty sure I HAVE the box at home as I am profoundly suspicious of anything that runs on magic, and it will still be on warranty until July.  So I'll just have to drag it along with me until we get home.

 

Deb had mentioned to me back in December that our friend Dorothy in Manzanillo had just purchased a new Asus Transformer, which is a really cool machine.  I had actually been lobbying to buy Deb one for this trip, but being the cheap little thing that she is (I love that in a woman) she declined and we went with our two existing machines.  The Transformer is a 10" Android tablet with good guts and good software, it runs 10 hours on a charge.  It has a high-quality detachable keyboard that makes it into a netbook, and the keyboard gives the tablet an extra 5 hours of battery life.  Very cool machine.  Apparently the Asus was giving Dorothy worms as she's not an Android Person and the whole experience was just different than she was used to, so we dropped in for a visit a few days after returning from Guadalajara, and I'm now the proud owner of a shiny new (to me) Transformer!  After the mandatory 2 days of mutual butt-sniffing we are good to go, so I thought it was time to get back working on the blog.  The Posterous folks, bless their little souls, haven't got around to porting their site for Android.  Rats!  That means I'm back to Deb's machine for blogging, and here I am.

 

Many things have taken place over the past 2 weeks.  The hearing aid got fixed, I bussed to-and-from Guadalajara to pick it up, it works perfectly, and I am now marginally aware of people yelling at me and large vehicles bearing down on me.  But that's all for later.  I'll start my next post where I left off, on our trip to Guadalajara.  Love you all.

2013 January 30 Guadalajara Two

Some general notes about the city for those who haven't been here.  Guadalajara is Mexico's second-largest city, located in the Central Valley which is in the mountains at 5,200 feet.  This gives it a terrific climate, with 9 months of the year in the mid-20s and 3 months around 30; overnight lows vary from 10-15 degrees.  In other words, it's spring/summer pretty much all year.   It was founded just under 500 years ago, and has a magnificent historical section and is loaded to the gunnels with art and culture, which of course is pretty much wasted on me.  But the buildings are cool.

 

The scale of this place is also pretty daunting.  If you took all of the people living in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Yukon, the NWT, and Nunavut, you could put them into Guadalajara and have room left over.  Of course you'd have to take all the Mexicans out first, but you get what I mean.  It's big.

 

Today was Shopping Day, as Deb had heard from many of her friends that Guadalajara has an enormous market that just absolutely can't be missed.  So after finding it we didn't miss it.  No, that's not right....  Anyway, we're about 5 blocks from the centre of Centro, which is the historical centre of town, and the market is about 5 blocks on the other side, so the 10-block walk was a good leg-stretcher to start out the day.  The market turns out to be a 3-floor behemoth that is at least 500 yards long and 2-300 yards wide, and then of course there are a couple of ancillary markets as well.  At 50 square feet per vendor, that makes - let me see....... a shitload of booths.  There are at least 3 floor-to-ceiling atriums (atria?) housing a ginormous food floor and a vegetable market, amongst other things.  And of course you can buy pretty much anything except the Ikea Monkey there, although he may be there and we just missed  him.  Can't figure out how, though.... Deb pretty much covered the whole thing.

Looking down on the green-grocers

This pig appears to be surfacing out of the other pig-parts.

The food floor is at least 5 acres.  Good too!

 

After that, with throbbing feet and absolutely no purchases (this was a catch-and-release outing) we spotted a four-floor shopping centre that kind of looked like a Sears of something, but it was completely crammed with jewellers, watch-makers, bling-slingers, makeup sellers, and DIY accessory shops.  All the doors are guarded by steely-eyed security guards with pump shotguns, so I guess it's the safest place in town other than under my bed back in the hotel.

This is a parking garage, with plants in the outside walls. 
Go figure.

By now, our feet are REALLY throbbing, so we tottered off back to the cathedral square where Deb spotted a second-floor restaurant that looked out directly on the cathedral and had a bathroom.  Up we went and shared a plate of cecino, which is thin-sliced meat fried crisp and served with guacamole and refried beans and taco chips.  Pretty interesting, and washed down with 4 beers to ensure it stayed down.  Then it was off to the hotel for a serious nap (we're seniors) with only about 30 stops for photo opportunities and further shopping spurts.

Deb resting her feet in front of the municipal hall - I think...
They're starting to all look the same!

The cathedral from our restaurant table

Evening eventually showed up, and we wandered back down to the Cathedral Square as it's got a pretty nice sidewalk restaurant where you can listen to live music and soak up the ambiance along with some beers.  Caught the obligatory Nighttime Shot Of The Cathedral, and it was time for the walk home and we're bunked in for the night.

Mandatory evening shot of the cathedral and fountain

Tomorrow is Tour Day; we're going to Tonala for shopping (yay!) and a bus tour of the city centre.  Should be fun.

2013 January 29 Guadalajara One

Well, the last week has been extremely eventful and not without its stresses.

 

Last Monday night I was off with my buddy Bob playing Texas Holdem with 9 other like-minded snowbirds.  Bob won, again, but that's another story.  Whilst I was there my left hearing aid started acting up, with the sound cutting in and out.  By Tuesday morning it was completely verlumpt.  This is bad, as I have a tough enough time with TWO hearing aids, so getting it fixed became the immediate priority.  No problem, I thought; I'll just get someone in Manzanillo to fix it.  Not!  OK, how about Puerto Vallarta, which is a mere 4 hours away by bus.  After a day or so of searching, it turns out that there are two places there and they both send their stuff out of town to be fixed.  OK, how about Colima, which is 2.5 hours out past Manzanillo?  I found a guy, but he sends his stuff out of town too.  So, where do these folks all send their stuff to?  A little shop called Salamanca, which is in Guadalajara about 5 hours away by bus.  I found someone there who can speak English!  She asked me to put everything into an email explaining the problem, and the technician would get back to me if it could be fixed in-house or not.  Naturally, the email system went down for 3 days.  Faced with the choice of waiting for my head to explode or just going to Guadalajara, I bought 2 bus tickets for me and my trusty sidekick and here we are!

 

To get to Guadalajara, we could take a Primera Plus (1st-class) bus from downtown Melaque where we live, or an ETN (executive-class) bus from downtown Barra de Navidad.  The ETN bus is very cushy, a bit more expensive, and only goes once a day quite early in the morning.  The PP is still very nice (aircon, wifi, in-flight movies, free lunch) and there are way more trips and it leaves right from town, so PP it was.  I think the 5-hour trip was $20 each.  Good trip, but it takes one of the secondary highways through the mountains rather than the autopista that ETN uses.  Very pretty and scenic, but don't do it if you're prone to motion-sickness!  It's pretty wind-y in places.

 

The bus station in Guadalajara is VERY cool, like an international airport.  As buses are the major form of travel for the middle-class here, I guess that shouldn't be a surprise.  Probably 100+ bays for buses like ours, plus another station 200 metres away for all the second- and third-class buses, plus a big station just outside for all the city buses, plus an enormous cab-stand if you're completely lost like we were.

 

The cab ride into downtown was great, the hotel is just fine, and the weather is great here.  I'll give you more of the straight poop on all of that over the next few days.  The bottom line is we still had time to walk the 14 blocks from the hotel to the repair shop (completely voluntary, just sniffing out the ambiance).  The nice lady immediately recognized us (I guess we still don't quite look like locals) and dragged the technician out of the back, who immediately advised us that this brand of hearing aid would have to go to Mexico City for repair, and it would take 2-3 weeks.  Of course if the email had been working we could have saved ourselves a trip and just couriered it out.  And yes, the email is working now.  Sigh.  So I bit the bullet and the little fella is in a box on his way to Mexico City.  The good news is we get to explore Guadalajara for at least the next 2 days, as I booked us in for 3 nights.  We're already liking it, as we found a bar-restaurant called Hamsterville.  Doesn't get much better than that!

 

 

Gotta go, as we're sharing a computer and Deb is champing at the bitt.  That's because my shiny new Nexus 7 tablet just blew up this morning, looks like a catastrophic fail (beyond even duct tape).  Sigh.  On the other hand, what a perfect excuse to check out that new Asus Transformers!

2013 January 16 In The Trenches

Humanitarian aid is a pretty big deal amongst the long-stay snowbirds (is that a redundancy?) in most places, and that's certainly the case here!  Our friends Cheryl and Kelly have been doing work down here for 3-4 years, and this year Deb and I brought down 3 - 50 lb bags of food, clothing, shoes, etc whilst Cheryl brought down 10 bags!  The target for all this largesse is the Indios, the Mexican first nations.  They are truly a breed apart down here; the adults are often under 5' tall, they are very poorly educated, and their only employment options are stoop labour in the fields and perhaps selling trinkets on the street or the beach.  With the ongoing lack of education, future generations are pretty much screwed as well.

 

Our friend Chuck, who is from Indio, California (rather droll, don't you think?  From Indio, working with the Indios?  Sigh.  Never mind then.), is a Rotary Person and he raised a bunch of money up north and brought it down here for specific humanitarian projects.  He has formed a Melaque Rotary chapter, which is composed entirely of snowbirds.  There is another Rotary Chapter in Barra de Navidad, and while I haven't personally met them I have been told that they are essentially demons from the pits of hell.  In other words, the clubs aren't getting along really well.  Kelly and Cheryl are completely disgusted with both sides, and just work independantly.  In addition there is Doctor Rosa, a local physician who has taken a personal interest in one group of Indios in a nearby community; her and her husband are running what is essentially a mission for them including a school, kitchens, washrooms and showers, laundry facilities, and a few residences.  She is a saint, and works with anyone who has money and time to spare.  Overall it's a pretty complicated situation, but things are getting done.

 

Of the men living at our villa, four of us (Howard, Bob, Joe, and myself) are operating as hired guns available to the lowest bidder, which has so far turned out to mean we work for free.  Everyone of course has some level of skills from our previous lives, so as a group we're a pretty handy bunch.  The project for the past couple weeks has been putting a sewer system into a 10-room school in the nearby community of El Ranchito.  Notice I don't say "putting a NEW sewer system....".  This school is getting pretty long in the tooth, it definitely needs a lot of TLC, and it will be a LONG time before the government gets around to doing anything about it as Indios are at the bottom of the food chain here.  So, Chuck has $3800 from Rotary to 'invest' in the property, there is an expectation of volunteer labour from the locals, and us old guys are the Rented Mules.

 

Once we determine where the trenches need to go, and the volunteers dig the trenches, this should be a 1-2 day job.  In Mexico, that means it's gonna take about a month.  First you show them where to dig the trenches and go away for a couple days.  Then you come back and find out that they've dug half of them in the wrong place, so you instruct them to do it properly and go away for a couple days.  Then there is a big rainstorm and the trenches are pretty much all filled in.  Then everything appears to be ready to go, and there is a frenzy of pipe cutting and laying until you get around to the back side of the school and you find out that all the tree roots crossing the trenches have not been cut as the guy digging the trench felt bad about hurting the trees.  So you instruct them to cut the fracking roots off and go away for a few days.  Then you come back and all the pipe is locked into a schoolroom and the only guy with the key is in Manzanillo for the day, so you go away for a few days.  And eventually all the stars align and you get all the pipe in the ground.  This is not a comedy of errors, this is pretty much business as usual and you just have to adjust to it or you'll get an aneurism.

 

Joe and Howard engaged in precision work.

Lots of existing stuff to work around and under!

This puppy goes straight down 8' and under a retaining wall

Bob basking in the afterglow of a job well done

 

We had a lot of fun doing it, I only pulled one muscle in my back, Bob recovered from heat stroke quite quickly, lots of beer was drunk, and the school now has a proper sewer system tied into the municipal system, with 400 feet of new pipe and cleanouts and everything!

 

So what did Chuck get for his $3800?  We figured that the complete cost for the new sewer system was $400.  In addition, a number of roofs were repaired or refurbished (a big deal when they are made out of tile or concrete), the school was repainted inside and out, the washrooms were completely redone, and showers were added as most of the children have no opportunity to take showers at home.  Not bad for under four grand!

 

Pouring a new skin on the roof (one 5-gallon pail at a time!)

The local women scraping, painting, and cleaning.

Opening day.

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

2013 January 12 La Manzanilla

Deb and I were muttering to each other a few days ago that we were long overdue for an adventure.  We were chatting idly about taking a bus to La Manzanilla, which is a pretty little town about 30 minutes up the coast, when our friends Cheryl and Kelly overheard us and said 'hey, we haven't been there for a while either!'  So of course next morning Cheryl and Kelly showed up in their trusty jeep, and of we went to La Manzanilla.

 

One would be tempted to think that it's just another Mexican beach resort with cheap food, cold beer, and miles of pristine beach.  Well, yeah, it has those too.... (perhaps the best beach in Mexico!) but La Manzanilla has crocodiles!  When we were here 8 years ago there was a bayou (river that is turned into a lake because of a sand bar at the beach) that was just full of honking big crocodiles and caymans.  There was a 3-foot chainlink fence keeping them off the street, but they could still wander onto the beach and spoil your afternoon if you didn't keep a sharpish lookout.  Now the fence has been extended to block off the beach, so in theory this is no longer an issue.  (Note to self: these are wild crocs, and they are fenced on 3 sides; the upstream end is wide open)  Even better, some entrepeneur has built an elevated walkway (2 feet above the water) that goes about 200 yards through the mangroves and you can go for a really cool stroll for 10 pesos (75 cents).

 

There were definitely a ton of slavering killer lizards out there, but also birds, crabs, iguanas and all kinds of other neat things. Up until last year there were a couple of 16-footers which probably weighed a ton apiece; they aren't in evidence so must have been converted into handbags or headed for other parts or something.  Nevertheless, there were still lots of big boys and girls on hand for our edification.

Not a telephoto shot....

Steve on the walkway

A whopper out for a cruise

After checking to ensure that Molly was still in one piece and on the end of the leash, we headed off downtown and parked at Kelly and Cheryl's favourite spot on the beach.  Not hard to figure out why; they have free tables/chairs/umbrellas on the beach, and they bring you food and beer for as long as you can continue to raise your arm.

 

After a couple of beers and some truly great fish and chips to fortify us, Deb and I headed down the beach for a bit of a walk.  The beach here is marvelously flat, the sand is very nice, and the water is very calm.  Three for three!  (Steve is very careful with beaches, as it turns out he is allergic to being swept out to sea.)  One still has to be careful though, as the beach is at least 5 miles long and if you get too far from the beers you might not make it back!  Fortunately we had the sense to turn back after a mile, so other than the usual mild sunburn we arrived back safe and sound.

 

This beach goes on forever! 
Taken from the beach chair.



Good snorkeling out here (I am told). 
Taken from the beach chair.

Sadly, the same couldn't be said for our beach bag.  It is woven plastic stuff, and Steve left it on the sand beside his chair.  In our absence, the cafe owner's German Shepherd wandered over, gave it the mandatory sniff-test, and very helpfully marked it for us.  Cheryl, after recovering from her initial horror, quickly poured a couple litres of fresh water inside the bag to wash/dilute the dog piss off everything.  That certainly seemed to work for my cellphone, which was hidden in the bottom of the bag; I couldn't smell any dog piss at all once I got all the water out of it.  Usual drill; rip apart, yank out battery, wipe off, leave naked in sun to dry out.  I'm talking about the cellphone, not the dog :/  Miraculously, it survived without a scratch.  I'm talking about the cellphone, not the dog. :)

 

All good things must peter out eventually, so it was then back into the jeep for a leisurely drive back to our villa.  All in all, an excellent day out!