We ended up walking down to the beach and found a restaurant with a generator last night. It was really interesting, it seemed like everybody just migrated from their houses to the street. Groups of people, pulled chairs into the street and the children played. SJDS really is “like Costa Rica was 30 years ago”.
Tide is low so going out at 9 this morning. It’s time to go explore town some more. When have you ever seen milk in cans and 5 gallon buckets being delivered by horse? This really is an absolutely amazing place!
Tom met us at 9 and we headed to the marina. The boys asked him about the stingrays that always seem to be leaping from the water. Tom reminded us to be sure to shuffle your feet when walking because you can’t see them. If you get stung by one, the only thing you can do is tough it out and get through it. “It will burn like hell” he said. “When you think it can’t possibly burn anymore, it will get hotter”. All you can do is rub it with sand and let it run its course.
Pretty tired and sore this morning. The waves are getting bigger and are growing day by day. Could it be the approaching full moon on August 5th?
Out on the porch of the hotel now and a loudspeaker pick-up truck is passing by. A Toyota pick-up truck with loud speakers mounted on the roof driving up and down the streets playing an undertone of music while somebody is saying something through the loudspeakers mounted on the roof. Might be an advertisement (maybe for Gaby’s laundry service and massage parlor which I found this morning) or might be political – not sure. My Spanish is really bad.
OK, back to today. Went back to Playa Hermosa and surfed to about four o’clock after a nice lunch, multiple cervezas and nap break on the boat. Remember the “hammer” sets I mentioned earlier? Well, they were even bigger today. If you were in (on the shore side of the breakers), you simply had to wait them out. Only one word describes trying to get through them with a long board - Violence. The only word can be violence. Got rolled under one today and it tore my watch of 10+ years off my arm. If you waited them out, then you could paddle out. The other thing that was interesting is there seemed to be a second wave that would consistently pass as you were under the first. When you came up from below, you would surface in the second “foam” swell which often left you sputtering.
At one point, I got a great ride on the long board (tried a shorter board earlier today, and had nothing. Yep, I’m much more comfortable on a long board. I’m riding a 9’0” and the boys are riding 6”2” and 7’6”). At the end of that ride, I stepped off in about two feet of water. Good time for a walk on the beach (and a rest).
Today’s gift on the beach? A purple, orange shell with calcified spikes on the edges of the bivalve shell. I put the shell in my pocket and started heading back to the boat. Shuffling my feet as I entered the water and there they were. Literally, a “flock” of sting rays. Seriously, I was in a foot of water and at least 12 came out of the sand and “flew” by my legs on both the right and left side. They were 12-18 inches across (not Steve Irwin size) and were beautiful flying by like a flock of birds underwater. Lesson? Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle!
Got back to the hotel, relaxed and then we walked around town again tonight. Stopped at Nica Designs and talked to the shop owner who recommended Maurisio’s for dinner. He is from Italy and makes incredible pizza and pasta just past the Chicken Momma’s house, she told us. Before that we stopped at “The Pier”, a beach bar, not a real pier, to watch the sunset. Once the sun set they started a bonfire on the beach. Very cool with the sun setting behind you to the west, bonfire on the beach and the full moon rising just above the palm trees in the east. Walked back to the hotel, talked with Tom (surf guide) and Mike (hotel owner) for a bit and then off to Maurisio’s. The food was great, incredibly simple, fresh and even made more enjoyable sitting in the street under the nearly full moon.
It’s hard to explain, but the simple-ness of everything here, the lack of all the things we take for granted, is so incredibly refreshing.
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