La Playa

The other day we were driving to La Penita on the main highway and came across a Ford F350 carrying a trailer full of tigers. It was very strange. It pulled over to a large tent filled with elephants, camels, zebras, etc, so we realized that the circus was in town. We are hoping to check it out sometime this week.

Last night we had a little storm. The clouds rolled in for the first time in weeks and it got really windy and even rained for a bit.

Today Luke went on a mission into La Penita to find the concrete and wood anchors needed for hanging hammocks to sell in Hala's Hammock shop. None of the stores carried the type of wood lag bolts he needed. I guess they don't use wood much around here. One interesting thing we are finding out is that Mexicans NEVER say no. Of the 4 ferraterias he went to, each one thought the other shop would carry it. Same goes for water and gas deliveries. They say they will deliver on a certain day or time, but never do, and they are too polite to say no. It is actually very annoying!

So after Luke spent several hours in town working on that project and chit-chatting with people in La Penita, we took the collectivo over to the Los Ayala, the next beach down. First we stopped at the cutest little posada/coffee shop that my friend Anne told me about. It is called Posada Las Flores and has fresh roasted coffee (a rarity outside of the major cities) and rooms seem nice, have kitchenettes, and are reasonably priced if you stay a week or more. We then walked over to Playa Los Ayala and immediately headed for some solitude at the next beach, Playa del Beso, via a little hillside jungle path. Along the trail there were some great views of Jaltemba Bay. We relaxed for a few minutes when we got to the beach, until it looked like it was going to rain. We raced back to catch the collectivo before it started raining and on the way back, we saw an animal in the road that looked kind of like a monkey, but we didn't get a great look at it. We may go back tomorrow to investigate...

When we returned home, the friendly neighbor kids Chuy, Alex, y Carolina were terrorizing Emily's poor mother (well not exactly terrorizing) so Emily and Luke grabbed their attention so Mom could rest. Luke played with Chuy, while Emily, Alex, and Carolina reviewed the Berlitz Spanish/English lessons on the computer.

Tonight we headed over to Jeanie and Dennis' to help get Jeanie's blog going. On the way back, we stopped and had one of Luke's favorites, pelliscada. Luke had carne asada y adobada pelliscada, y Emily had vegetarian style, solamente queso y frijoles!