July 13, 2015

6 am.  Dogs barking.  LOUDLY.  Joy of joys, but at the other place it was Howler Monkeys and some bird in agonizing pain, so really it was 6 half to a dozen <or whatever that phrase is>  By 8 I was up after another horrific dream.  The kids were out, so I went down stairs and…enjoyed coffee, enjoyed that the three big roaches were dead-ish (Ethan and I later kept a tabs on how many we would find dead the next morning).  At 10 Tiffany dropped of some towels for us and bought a cooler for our adventure-to-the beach-day.  She also drove us to get Boogie Boards for the kids.

By 10, Gilligan drove us to the beach in his cab.  We walked and I found a spot under a coconut tree – not too far away from the turtle hatchery.  The kids got right in the water and I, not trusting, stayed with our stuff.  I had heard too many stories about how things were stolen and I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.  Yet, within minutes, Maggie was racing up to me, a look on her face. I worried, fearful she’d been hurt, but she had lost her mask in the surf.  No big deal.

         

I shan’t lie – initially, lying there under the coconut tree, I was not very happy.  I had spent thousands of dollars on this first exotic vacation in six years and it was not going as I had wished – angry seas, gray skies, rain …. So I walked, I walked down the beach a bit and came upon a heart rock and some shells.  Universe was talking to me, so I moved the kids to that part of the beach.  Soon, it was much more fun – body surfing, boogie boarding, finding hermit crabs and sea snails.  Maggie was boogie boarding and looked to her right to see a sting ray, happily “smiling” as it rode the wave with her, two feet away.  I watched her rush out of the water and sit down for a good 5 minutes, processing what she had just experienced, before she walked back to where Ethan and I sat and told us what she’d just seen.

The kids and I slowly started walking back to the where we were to meet our taxi, suddenly finding many sand dollars.  Ethan found beautiful pink and orange shells and Mags found a beautiful purplish-white shell.  Erick arrived in his truck to take us home where we showered.  Sand was hidden in all sorts of places on me, I found.  Boogie boards were due by 6, so we walked back into town and walked across to a Place called Coco’s for food.  They had the most amazing 80s rock playing – I was in heaven. 

Because we were on the Pacific side, we walked around freely at night, with no fear.  We walked uphill to the market and then home, to another fun game of Farkle where I almost lost it laughing so hard.  Something about a potato joke Ethan made and I answered “that’s hilarious” with no emotion.  I dunno, it doesn’t take much.  It didn’t take long again before the kids needed to bid me goodnight instead of the other way around.  This vacation business wears me out.



 Pictures: The beach scene - Matapalo; Ethan's self-made omelet; the L.A. streets of the sea snail; boogie boards collected; a bus watches her owner surf; The kids play with the Dominical police dogs - a small white and a black puppy; These guys are rad.