2/8/04 Nana´s (birthday!) The water was warm and shallow, barely ever got up to my waist, and some places were warmer than othes. The beach was a bit dirty, but G said it was actually clean. People don´t have the same respect for not littering here. I was totally shocked after we left the bar, Magali peeled off her entrance bracelet & threw it in the parking lot! Come on, what are pockets for, if you can´t stand to drive home with it on your wrist? It´s just funny to me how utterly oblivious people are to it. I´m having this "Clean up Barranqilla" idea, but maybe more on that later...

So yeah, beach - I guess there isn´t that much more to say. We walked over to some rocks a couple of times. The first time there were lots of little crabs! The second time we kept going past to a rocky little cove. It was really neat to see the layers of sand/rock with different things like shells in the m. On our way back (to the cute little palm frond sun shelters) we saw this weird clear with brown specks ginormous booger thing blarbing in the sand. It probably would have been the size of a lime (big lime, not key lime) if it wasn´t blobbly. We poked at it with a stick a little, and a boy with his windsurp board (what are those called?!) came up and G asked him what it was. He told some story involving perhaps one of them stuck to his chest. ( I gathered this through gestures and a few words I understood) Then he speared it and flung it up to the rocks. So now I´m coming up with all these great stories about giant alien boogers who suckle the life out of you. Apparently it was a kind of jellyfish & the boy had had a run in with one that sent him to the hospital... I think they call them "medusa" although this one didn´t have any tenticles, the name makes sense.

G's grandpa is so funny - Victor (and his dad is Manuel - thus Victor Manuel for his nephew). He´s really old and has a cathetar (sp?). Seems a bit embarassing to have to walk around with a bag of your own pee attached to you, but I guess it´s less embarassing than wetting your pants all the time. Anyway, that´s not why he´s funny. He laughs at everything! When I took off my sunglasses he got all happy and excited and pointed to the blue part of the drink cooler we had on the table. I guess his wife had the same color eyes. He was great - laughing at almost everything - when I was able to say a few words in Spanish, when we had to keep shooing aways the scrawny dogs that lurked around, balls & dugs & all, hoping for a scrap. They really jumped away scared if you raised a hand to them, but they never actually left untll the guy came to take away the plates, & then they followed him!
Everyone was really protective of my skin, making sure I had sunscreen, & hats & shirts to wear while I walked in the sun. The beach was pretty empty... but a few little sunhouses away a family pulled up with an SUV that had HUGE speakers - so music we had- although apparently it wasn´t "poopy". I´ve seen the ads for Hush Puppies & tried on some HP sandals, but they were about $30, and some other ones I liked better $15