La Pura Vida, Day 2 (Monday)
Despite going to bed early I slept poorly and the gorgeous sunrise coming through our picture window (at about 6am) was not as welcome as it might otherwise have been. I watched it for a bit then rolled over and fell back to sleep.
Breakfast was pancakes, fruit (fresh mango, papaya and pineapple), huevos rancheros, bacon and toast. After breakfast we met with Alan to hear about the tours that are available and decided on the zip-line for Tuesday and widlife park river float for Friday. (Sunday we met with Antonio who is in charge of boat activities and booked a beach tour for Wednesday morning. We’ll be going to three beaches – a monkey beach, a shell beach and a snorkeling beach.)
After meeting with Alan, the four of us (still sans Courtney) walked down the mountain to the beach. The sand on the beach was black rather than white because it came predominately from the volcanic rock of the area – very cool. It was low tide, so rather than play in the water, we walked around the bay to a large rocky area and explored the tidal pools. At first all we saw were barnacles and crabs, but after looking closer we found some anemones, sea urchin, little fish and – SEA SLUGS. The sea slugs have been the highlight of the trip so far.
After trekking back up the mountain we had just enough time for lunch (tacos, chicken salad and strawberry daquiris) before our massages. Towards the end of the massages, Courtney arrived! Then we all had drinks (some of us had a lot of them) and Mama taught us the “Buck Dance” which resembles an impromptu Irish step-dance with more liquor.
Dinner was chicken parm, salad, spaghetti and (there’s a pattern to meals here) rice and beans. Dessert was yellow cake with chocolate frosting.
I stayed up to read for a while, everyone else fell asleep. I had a minor panic attack around 8pm when the neighbors started shooting off fireworks. After I realized that it was not, in fact, Nicaraguans storming the beaches I decided it was bed time fopr me too.
