A New Idea

Since my department at work will be consolidated down to Florida at the end of the year, I've been having all sorts of wacky ideas about what to do with myself starting in January, especially since I get severance pay that will tide me over for a little bit.

My latest idea, that is growing more and more attractive to me, is to go to Colombia for 2 months and really immerse myself in Spanish! I've been studying with my Rocket Spanish mp3's and learning quite a lot, and I understand more and more each week, but I think total immersion would really get me pretty fluent pretty quickly. Plus I'd escape some of the worst part of Iowa winter. Wheeee! And being fluent in Spanish would be a good thing to put on my resume. Even if I don't get a job that requires it, I'll still use it. It would be nice to really talk with G's family.

We're going down for Thanksgiving, for Guri Guri's wedding, so that will be a good time for me to "feel it out" and make sure I'm really up for it. But really, when else in my life will I have the time to do this? It seems like a good idea. A little scary, but exciting!

We do what we can...

I thought I was going to have more time for this blog, but it turns out we were pretty non-stop doing stuff for most of the trip! It was probably really good for me to NOT be online every day! grin. I´m trying to upload at least a few pictures to flickr.com, but Í´m not sure if it´ll work out, this computer at G´s place is SOOOOOOO slow!!!

If it does work, it should be http://www.flickr.com/photos/hum97/ and when I get home I´ll try to integrate them into the blog directly...

Pretty Beach House

Woke up not feeling too great. Digestive problems… :P Also not looking forward to going back to the cold and a big pile of work. Just have to try to enjoy the time I have left.

We went to a beautiful house on the beach for the afternoon. It was the place where we almost had the wedding but someone got it before us. It was a nice afternoon with the aunts, uncle Negro and a few cousins. There was a beautiful half-round pool, but I didn’t swim, even though the little boys kept asking me to. I was still feeling pretty yuck, so I took a nap.

After my nap, I went down to the beach, with my mom and G and picked up shells. Ran into a cute couple, took their picture. The guy was from the US – Chicago area, had a sister who went to U of I! First person who actually had a good idea of where we were from.

G’s going out with friends tonight, but I’m still not feeling great, so I’m staying home. Gives me a good chance to catch up on the journals. I can’t believe tomorrow is our last real day!

Carnaval!!

Gilberto was feeling sick, probably from the oysters at the islands, so he couldn’t come. Made brought us instead. We got there early, and it was already pretty crazy. Some relatives saved us seats on the edge, so at least we have one “safe” side. It was several hours before the parade started, and Collin commented that it was the longest parade he’d never seen.  We heard later that it started later than usual because the queen was at some other parade.

Everybody wanted us to drink whiskey. The guy behind me offered me some, but I indicated that I didn’t have a cup. He gets me a cup, pours a little, puts some ice and offers me Coke to mix it with. I knew I shouldn’t take it, especially the ice but I thought maybe the alcohol in the whiskey would kill anything in the ice… who knows. I didn’t know how to explain I shouldn’t take it, and I didn’t want to put a damper on things. Sanchez ??? had plastic milk cups and kept telling us it was milk, or water, and wanted us to get drunk. We had to at least get the stuff to touch our lips to get him to leave us alone. It looked like his ice was bought, but I’m not sure about the stuff from the guy behind me.

A bunch of people were calling us “Cachacos” – and trying to get us to dance. Pao’s friend Paola tried to explain to them that we were actually Gringos. We didn’t find out till later that Cachaco refers to a person from Bogota – they have lighter skin and turn red when they come to the coast, from sunburn. When I did start dancing the all LOVED it and cheered for me and told all their friends to watch. “Baila, balia! You like Barranquilla!!!”

I have to admit I didn’t really like this parade as much as I liked La Guacherna last time. The floats were cool, but it wasn’t as well organized… big gaps in-between groups or floats. La Guacherna was more about the dancing, which I really like. And the unfortunate thing about the gaps where nothing was going on is that the people around us started spraying “Espuma” this wet foam/soapy type stuff, that more or less evaporates, unless you get creamed with it, in which case you get pretty wet. It tastes nasty, but apparently it’s better than the traditional corn starch and water routine. I saw people walking past us with grocery bags full of little boxes of corn starch, but they didn’t seem to end up sitting near us. Somehow we were “lucky” enough to end up with a group of people who loved this Espuma stuff and bought can after can. *insert rolling eyes here* I guess it’s all part of the fun, but I wasn’t too keen on it. We left before seeing the queen, but I think it was better that way, it would have been really nutso trying to leave with everyone else.

Pao and Luifer came over and hung out a little, we made a slideshow of both mine and Tommy’s carnaval pictures and watched it. After Pao and Luifer left, Collin, Tommy, Gilberto Made and I stayed up late trying tongue twisters in both languages and telling stupid jokes. Collin and I were pretty sunburned, so we put some Burt’s Bees salve on.

I went to bed feeling a bit icky. Had chills, so I put on a sweater and socks. The music across the street was so loud it was a bit hard to sleep, especially since I can’t seem to get myself to NOT move to this music. :P Even though I was desperately tired, my toes kept dancing!

Random notes for later.

five minutes left at internet cafe. Posting my notes for my future reference, and in case anyone wants to have fun figuring them out. will expand later!

Sunday: Getting hair done in the morning by gay guy in the house, makeup – SHAVED MY EYEBROWS – just a little, but yikes! Ended up looking rather Colombian Carnival dancer type makeup and hair. Thank goodness it was the second wedding and I was willing to go with whatever. :D It was pretty, but it wouldn’t have been my first choice… :D Can’t eat lunch because slightly nervous and don’t want to mess up the lipstick.

Drive with family and Dad to the castle, get whisked off to put on my veil and tiara, end up standing by the cake for quite a while. All the girl cousins come over and each gets a gerbera with pretty white ribbon streaming down. Not sure what’s supposed to happen, but sorta go with the flow. Service and mass a lot the same.

BEAUTIFUL decorations, flowers everywhere, a bow on every chair. Cake, champagne by guys in white gloves, videographer, photographer, photo for the newspaper! Dancing, our slide show – a ???? band! Lots of dancing. Sunset over the ocean.

Monday: Go to Cartagena after lunch. Check into same hotel as last time. Balcony room. Night on the town – huge sandwich! Tasty pasta, fruit juice. Carriage ride. Bought the shaker thing. Peruvian hippies – drum and digeridoo at the same time. Walked into Hotel Santa Clara?? Pretty. Crypt, nuns, girl with LONG hair.

Tuesday: Island! Swim, tour – manglar trees, little town. Pollo sin pluma blue crab.

Wednesday: Coconut drink – cut down just for me! In the pool. Aquarium, Isla de Berut, too many vendadores.

Thursday: Change money again, go buy souvenirs. Vegetarian restaurant lunch. Watched LOST. Went to visit Ilsy and baby. Watched beginning of Indigo, out to dinner at family’s Arabian restaurant. Come home hang out with the fams, Collin bought new clothes.

Friday: We were invited out to lunch with some relatives, to a really nice Italian restaurant. Went to visit Tia Jolanda(sp?) and then the family of the cousin who died – AMAZING house. Gardens inside. Tons of rooms.

To Barranquilla

We had to get up way early to go to the airport, which unfortunately meant we had to miss the included breakfast.

Our cab driver Leonardo was very nice. He has a with daughter in Santa Monica, and he spoke a little English. He would tell us things in both languages, it was much more fun and easy going than the way to the hotel the night before. Maybe also a little easier since we were more rested...

The flight was late, but of course we had no idea what was going on, so I sat there getting cold and hungry and desparately hoping I hadn't missed the announcement to get on the plane. Bogota is in the mountains, and much colder than Barranquilla, but I didn't know that, and had dressed for the coast. Lucky for me mom had her coat still in her carry-on.

The flight attendants had Carnaval aprons, and the inflight magazine had a Carnaval article. I was able to read a little bit of it. It might just be me, but it seems like it's gotten a bit more tourist centered in the past two years. Maybe sometime soon they'll have better explainations in English of all of the history and significance of the different characters and traditions.

It seemed like forever for our bags to come once we got to Barranquilla. I kept trying to see if G was outside waiting, but it wasn't until we actually got our bags and started going out that I saw him, with a nice haircut! He and his dad were both there. It was such a relief to see them both.

G's mom made us breakfast, and it was nice to see that my arepas (cornmeal cakes) aren't as far off as I thought. I think Collin was really happy to see us, he'd slept for most of 2 of the three days he'd been there already.

A family friend they call "Pochi" came by to do everyone's nails. She had a whole arsenal of tools for picking and poking at my fingers and toes. I was a little nervous because of all the things I've read where they say not to let people cut the cuticles because of risk of infection, not to mention it hurt! :( She seemed to know what she was doing though. I would have liked to get french tips, but my nails were too short since I was keeping them short for playing guitar, so I just went for white.

Pedicure, originally uploaded by Heather and Gilberto.

Marta is on the left, working on the masks.

G's family found a guitar for me to play, but it's horridly out of tune, and I'm no good at tuning by ear. Sigh.

It was nice to catch up with with G's fam, and see the new baby Julian David! What a cutie, with crazy hair that's always sticking up!

I had to keep reminding myself that the party was the very next day! G's mom and some of the other girls were making dozens of pretty little masks for people to wear at the party, since it was so close to carnaval time. yay!

First Night - Bogota

First night in Bogota was fine, although we couldn’t change Visa traveler checks in the airport, which was pretty much the only thing my mom had, besides about $60 in cash… I cashed enough for both of us though, and the little taxi guy had a nice printed out sign with my mom’s name on it, so that was easy. There were a bunch of other taxi guys, who would hold up a mini yellow plastic license plate type sign that said “TAXI” in the outside window when they could see you were changing money. It’s too bad, because I’m sure some of them are just trying to earn some cash, but I wonder who uses them?

Anyway, it was a little frustrating in the cab ride, I THINK our driver was trying to ask when our flight left in the morning, and I couldn’t figure out how to explain that the flight left at 7:30, and we needed to leave the hotel in time to get to the airport by 6:30, and he didn’t speak any English. :P Of course I thought of something I could have said like 5 or 10 minutes later, but I was way too shy to just bust out with it in the middle of nothing. Sigh. But I WAS able to communicate quite a lot.

The hotel was really nice, we got there and both the bellhop and the concierge (I think) came out to greet us and take our bags. We were a bit confused about when to pay the driver, because apparently we could roll the taxi price into the hotel bill, and they would pay him! Nice, because we didn’t have much cash. We asked the desk clerk if he spoke English, and he said, “Yes.” With full confidence, and my mom and I broke into nervous, relieved laughter. After the experience in the taxi, we weren’t sure how we’d do trying to get our hotel room.

Luckily Gilberto called the hotel just as we were in the process of checking in, so I was able to ask him some stuff, like about how much to tip and all, and it also meant I didn’t have to try and figure out the phones to let him know we were there! It was kind of weird though, the desk clerk took the phone from one of his co-workers and then handed it to us – “It’s for you.” Was this part of the check in process?? Nope, just good timing!

The hotel room was pretty nice, 2 double beds and a cot. Had Night Cafe and Irises on the walls, and one other painting I didn’t recognize, but seemed to be an Impressionist type one. (that’s what I get working for an art company, I always pay attention to hotel art now. :D ) Had a fax machine and stereo - I think it was considered an “executive” room. The bathroom was all marble and stone, and had a bathtub! Hooray! I took a little bath, which was nice to relax after all the stress of the traveling. It was rather late, we weren’t super hungry and it was too intimidating to try and find food to eat, so we just pooled together our airplane snacks and had a few of the pistachios I brought as a present to his mom. I bought $15 worth, so there were a few to spare. :D

Hotel Dann Norte - Bogota, originally uploaded by Heather and Gilberto.

This is pretty much how I felt by the end of the day...

Travel Day

Atlanta Airport
We’re about to board the flight to Bogota. I’m starting to get nervous. It’ll be fine though. I understood most of what the front desk guy was saying… of course he said it all in English first.. :P


It was amazing the start of the transition from known to unknown, as soon as we got on the escalator to the international terminal, I started hearing different languages. Always a little disorienting. But English is still primary.

They’re boarding…

On the plane
Turns out Jeffrey and Andrea Smith were on the same flight to Atlanta, and they had the about the same length of layover, so we had lunch together, and played some fun little word games – Jeffrey called it Fictionary, the precursor to Balderdash I suppose.  I had my Spanish-English dictionary to try and look up some weird words to use, but most of the word were easy ones, that a person would actually use, heh heh. Oh well.

The meal on the plane was really nice! Spinach ravioli with a creamy sun-dried tomato sauce and pine nuts. :O Tiny salad, bread roll, cheese and crackers and a brownie. Thank goodness they figured out that just because some one is vegetarian it doesn’t mean they only eat twigs and leaves.

I’m so bummed, they just changed the in-flight movie to The Legend of Zorro yesterday! When G and Collin came they got to see Walk the Line, which G told me “is a really good movie, you’ll really like it! We should get it on video!” Great. I was the one who really wanted to see it when it came to Fairfield, and he wanted to see Fun with Dick and Jane instead. Woof. I didn’t really like this Zorro movie in the theatres, it’s more cheesy than the last one, which I did like… :P I listened to it in Spanish for a while, so I guess it wasn’t a total loss, but I got bored of it already. Listened to one of my Spanish lessons on my iPod instead, now I’m listening to my Juanes/Shakira mix  I love noticing how many more words I understand now. It’s my only real measure of progress, since I’m not taking any class with grades or anything.

Both flights so far we’ve been on the back of the plane, unable to recline, boo. Luckily with some nice seat shuffling (so a few different people could sit next to their traveling companions), my mom and I are sharing a whole row, so we’re able to spread out a little bit.

Turbulence. Suck.

I’ve been reading “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”. Neat book. I liked the documentary, and this just expands on it. What a guy you know? Who just stuck to his path, trusted and really was provided for! Pretty amazing. And I love hearing about his different relationships with the different birds, and all their unique personalities. Animals are really so amazing, I miss having a pet. I’ve had several birds before, but it was also always so heart-wrenching when they died! They just aren’t meant to live as long as we do, and I go so attached… Ah well. Sometime again, I’m sure.

I’m really looking forward to the “interaction between the moms” when my mom and Gilberto’s mom try to talk to each other. They have a lot of similar qualities! Collin and G both laughed when I mentioned it on the phone to them the other night. Collin says being there is kind of like being IN Telemundo, one big soap opera in Spanish all the time. Heh heh. I’m sure it’s a bit more active and crazy there than normal because everyone is coming by to see G, but it probably really does feel like that for him.

Whoa. It’s really nice to just get to write and write for me, with no deadline, and no needing to go to bed or anything. I sort of forgot how much I used to do and like just writing, just because. Very therapeutic.

I should fill out my customs form. G said it was going to be all in Spanish, but he’s a liar!!! They have English versions - ha ha! Take that!

The Trip Has Officially Begun...

We made it to the airport, despite a scare of super icy Pleasant Plain roads. We had to go 35mph, and thought for sure we wouldn't make it in time. But once we got to Brighton it was smooth sailing. Phew.

The next big adventure will be getting through customs in Colombia and then to the hotel in Bogota. We have to say overnight there because we couldn't get a direct flight to B'quilla. boo. Tomorrow morning G will pick us up in Barranquilla, and then everything will be easy! His dad reserved us a taxi at the airport, so with all luck, we'll be guided through the whole process easily. At worst, I'll get to practice my Spanish, heh heh. Here's where I'm actually thankful that all the lessons I listened to were about going to hotels and such. And here I wanted to learn things for meaningful conversations! The lessons knew what I needed all along... sigh.

The plane is here, so I better get packed up.

Feel free to leave comments in the comment box, and share this blog with anyone who might be interested!

A New Look for a New Trip

Trying out some updates to the site in preparation for the trip. I want everything to be all shiny and new, but I'm terrible at html... sigh. I'll come up with something.

I AM AN AREQUIPE GODDESS!

Made like 4 huge carmel-y good cups full of it. Took forever, but I believe I've figured out some tricks

Ha ha! I have achieved arequipe! The easy way.... just put an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of boiling (simmering) water for 5 hours, let it cool, open. YUM! A bit stiffer than it might be if I had the control of watching and stirring, but I don't have to watch and stir for 5 hours.... trade offs.... sigh.

I asked G to remind me of all the names of the "weird" ;) foods I ate in Colombia, here's what he sent me plus my comments in italics:

>The first days:

- Granadilla: the fruit you didn't like :-( Ok, this fruit was really weird... it was like a sweet, almost mucus-y mass with lots of little black seeds that were apparently ok to swallow, but yeah... I just couldn't do it. the seeds were a little smaller than watermelon seeds, it looked kind of like it was going to peel like an orange, but then it cracked open somewhat like an egg...
- Sweets of corozo, níspero
- Curuba ice cream at Jackie's (Molli fruit??) Yeah, that was really yum! a bit tangy

juices of
- Corozo (red fruit with a seed in the middle)
- Maracuyá (fruit of passion)
- Zapote
- Níspero (brown fruit)
- Melón (water melon) Hey, I know this one!
- Guayaba (guava)
- Naranja y mandarina. (sweet juices) I know this one too, oranges and tangerines! :D
- Tomate de árbol (tamarillo??)

- Empanadas de queso (corn wrapped cheese) this was yummy, but I was only allowed to have it once :( pretty heavy actually, I think they deep fryed the stuff. It's a cornmeal dough around soft melted cheese. I had it before I was sick, so they thought maybe somehow it was connected.... I kind of doubt it, I'm still voting for water...
- Buñuelos (rounded corn brownish thing)
- Peto caliente (white corn and cheese in milk that my dad gave you, from the guy with the portable kitchen) was there cheese in this? it had cinnamon too, kind of like a hot cereal thing really



I'll put up more as I remember... maybe even my recipies...

From 12/13/04
Here we are in Cartegena. It's a beautiful old city. but since it's tourist-y there are a bunch of annoying people who try to sell you tours or change your money. Bugger off! Ah well. We're staying in a little place called "The 3 Flags". It's about $35-38 US per night on the gorund floor. only coffee included. Bummer. Jackie - the lady we had lunch with yesterday called them for us. She had wanted to get us another place that was cheaper & had breakfast included but they were full. bummer. This is still cheaper than the places his sister was finding, & it's very cute. A plant & palmtree filled courtyard on each side with a waterfall rock wall, plus one side has some birds.

*Tangent*
The other day we went to visit one of G's "Aunts". It was a BIG old house, that was probably very grand once, but it was bit old and falling apart and dirty. She had a nice courtyard full of plants, & a little white bunny, & a dog & a monkey & several birds. One little green parrot took quite a liking to me & spent quite a time on my finger & hand. Liked to gnaw on my ring. There was a grungy little boy who liked me too - led me by the hand around abouts - took me over to a chair to sit down. He had a bath in a plastic tub while we were there, but burbled up something on his shirt almost immediately afterwards. He really liked my sunglasses too. The aunt was a tiny woman with blue, blue eyes & white hair, and slightly grungy pink colloutes. It was probably the "poorest" place we'd been the whole trip & yesterday at Jackies penthouse type apartment was probably the most expensive. What a contrast... After lunch at Jackie's we went to her BF George's (also an old friend of G's, we met Jackie through him) for some aura cleansing & improvisational music making. George is 42 & lives with his parents. While in the states that would probably lead to comparisons to George Costanza a la Seinfield, it's quite normal and even expected for people to live with their parents until they get married & possibly even afterwards! Foreign concepts for me. totally different. I mean I guess it makes sense economically & all really.
*that was quite a spin! back to Cartagena!*

We ate at a Hare Krisna restaurant for lunch - good vegetarian food & pineapple/coconut juice! & then we cashed some travelers checks. They didn't charge commission because it was an American Express bank. pfft! Should have done that in B'quilla. Oh well. Tomorrow we go to some pretty islands. I just hope we can leave our stuff at the hotel, because toting it around all day will be not only a drag, but stressful to keep track of, worrying about stuff getting stolen the whole time... but check out is at 1:00, & the boat won't come back till 4 or so... grrr.

*note* not only did they let us keep our bags at the hotel, she let us shower in one of the new rooms that is being remodeled when we got back, and before calling us a taxi. I guess the new rooms are going to have to be cleaned anyway, so why not let us wash the salt off? on the ride home heard the "I smell deer" song, and it was SOOOOO cold! The A/C was up big time. finally we got him to turn it off when we got back to B'quilla, which took forever to get through because of some parades or something blocking the streets.

wow. I'm home. bit of a culture shock. Last night I tried to make a bunch of Colombian food for G (and me!). Did not meet with total sucess, but I suppose that is to be expected when it's the first time, and I'm sure I'll get better with practice. The coconut rice was tasty though, and the patacon was too, even though it all fell apart... Need to find some white cornflour for arepas, yellow isn't the same... we saw some in the store when we were buying candy, but decided against trying to bring home white powdered stuff on an airplane.....

I think I will probably add some more entries here as time allows to fill out bits and pieces I didn't have time for while logged in from internet cafes, but that will be later. Would be cool to even add pictures, but that would require hosting them somewhere....hrm.

my last full day here. prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I´m really going to miss it, I´ve had so much fun, and really gotten to relax. This morning I had some cooking lessons on how to make a few traditional foods, I´m sure it´s going to take a little experimenting when I get home, but most of them are pretty dang easy, in theory.... fun fun. and fun to try and do the lessons in Spanish, with gestures and interaction, because G had to go to his office and talk with the managers, I guess about his possible future return or not.... Haven´t talked with him yet about it....

ay yi yi.... now to try and find a ride home from the airport.... blech.... I hate this part. And trying to figure out packing, we don´t want to bring the big suitcase back, but won´t have enough room in the little ones for the presents/stuff we bought. It´s not too much, but the little ones were totally full of clothes... le sigh.

Some things that are pretty different than what I´m used to-

- street vendors- almost everything at your fingertips
-juice stands, fruit stands, both mobile and on almost every street corner
- no seat belts in the back seats of cars
- most of the cars are manual
- the taxis have a chirpy sound for horns. Whoever came up with that was brilliant, because they use them all the time, and a loud horn would be too too annoying....
- not really any lines in the roads, and for sure none that people follow. just sorta go where your car/bus/truck fits in...
- photocopier shops EVERYWHERE. Who needs that many photocopies?
- also everywhere - internet/phone cafe´s, liquor shops and tiendas-sort of like gas station stores...
-broken glass and bottles cemented into the tops of walls. Hey, I wouldn´t want to climb over that!
-bar and grates on all the windows and doors. Some of them very pretty and ornamental.
-coconut palms in the front yard (one of his aunts has mangos in her back yard, she made us mango juice - yum!)
-all the doorknobs are wooden... but the middle part for the lock is metal....
- the soap dispensers in the bathrooms- a lot of them are sort of like a glass apple with a little opening on top, and you tip it over towards you to get some soap. pretty cool.

The parades! We went to the parade called "La Guacherna" on Friday night with G´s friend Luis Javier (AKA "Guri-guri" after some small TV character. He´s short) and his girlfriend Magali. We had gotten wristbands ahead of time that let us into a little set of bleachers "above the madding crowd" We had quite a time actually getting there, the streets were PACKED. There was one place where it looked promising to get through and all the people there raised up their hands & shouted "Nooooooooo!" Anyway, we finally squeezed by & got to our little section. We were sitting next to a bunch of kids who had this spray foam-soap stuff that you spray in the air or on people at things like parades or soccer games. It evaporates fairly quickly if you just use a little, but these kids were really zapping each other, & we got a lot of the extra stuff. Right in the ear, not pleasant. Apparently it´s a huge step up from the cornstarch and flour of the old days.... still exists acutally, but not so much.
When the parade started - I don´t know if it was the full moon, or the fact that it was my first day out after being sick, but when the music started up for the parade & those little kids started dancing - I almost cried a couple of times. They were SO happy and excited, and they could really DANCE! It was such a weird thing - so sensual & fluid - sexy without being sexual. With the little ones that is. The innocence wasn´t so apparent for the other people, but the tiny ones... man. Good stuff. Lots of colors, good beats, and it just went on and on and on! Very very cool. We went to a bar afterwards (included in the price of the wristband) pretty crowded, kinda smokey, and I was getting a bit tired. I wish I´d been up to stay for longer, but my eyes were pretty tired by then. We went out and had french fries, and that was a little less overwhelming. :D yay. fun stuff.

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

from 2/7/04

Yay! We went to the beach! G, me, his parents & grandfather. Madi couldn´t come because Victor Manuel was sick. (apparently with the same thing I had? I didn´t think it was catching - prolly not, just the same symptoms.) Which meant that Paola & Luifer weren´t driving & there wasn´t enough room for anyone else in the car. It´s too bad, because I really like Madi, and it owuld be nice to get to know Paola better... Anyway! We went. The drive was really pretty - mountains, a few trees with flowers along the side of the road. Some of the hottest little tollbooth workers I have ever seen - cheez really, don´t take that the wrong way, it´s just almost comical ot me - usually toll booth workers seem fat or old or tired or something - in disgruntled uniforms or at least a crunkley saftely vest. But these were 2 young pretty girls in sharp little uniforms. It was almost Disney-esque, but not quite so smiley, more official.
When we pulled off the main highway this little guy started running next to our car - apparently telling us we should come to his house, and on the long and rocky drive to the beach it seemed more and more crazy that he would have wanted to run along side us the whole way had we taken hime up on it. But when we pulled onto the beach - ALL these little guys came running up to the car, waving their rags.
Now might be a good time to take a small tangent and explain about the "napkin wavers" - my own term. The self appointed car watchers wave their little (usually red I think) rags to guide people in & out of parking places & supposedly watch your car as well in exchange for a few coins. I´m not sure how much really, but apparently they can get grouchy if don´t pay. It kind of fascinates me, I don´t know how they decide to do it, but the sort of - This is what I do, so pay me for it -that I´m interpreting anyway, seems somehow noble or on the mark. Not that these guys seem to be making much, but I guess it´s enough... They´re still alive! I guess the fruit vendors have it best, at the end of the day if they don´t sell their stuff they can eat it!

(Gilberto just told me today that probably a lot of the young people probably live with their parents, and so they have a roof and food, but whatever they make can go for extra food. That makes me feel a little better, but still....)

Anyway back to the beach. So it seemed like there was a sort of desparation from these guys that I thought was a bit much for a car parker, but the longer we stayed the more I got it - they provide a whole day of service if you want it - chairs and table, hammock, meal, beer & soda - food on nice china, real forks and knives, a bowl of water & a little soap to wash hands & washing the sand off your feet before you put them in the car. The food, plus tip & parking etc. It´s much more than a few coins they are desperate for. (2/8/04 Nana´s birthday!) The water was warm and shallow, barely e ver 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.