Vendido

Not a lot new to say about today. Another lather, rinse and repeat kind of day. I paddled the length of the bay and did a lot of hanging out on the lawn out front. Being a Friday, quite a few locals started trickling in and the town took on a livelier character. The vendors were out in force with my own personal paleta cart ringing his bell just feet from my door. A Canadian couple staying in Guayabitos parked next to Wilson for the day and chatted for a while.

The temperature hovered close to eighty and the ocean is about the same. Every so often, I would amble down to the water for a bit of body boarding that would leave me floundering in six inches of water at the end of the ride. For lunch, I wandered with Alan over to one of the beachfront palapa restaurants for a plate of shrimp. It provided the perfect perch for people watching.

The weekends are the time to fill the accounts for the week and vendors of all variety of goods and services were hawking hard to earn a peso. Jewelry, chotskes, oysters, henna tattoos, corn rows for your hair. It’s all there at a glance. But be careful with that glance because the merest of eye contact will earn you a session of hard selling that would make a time share salesman blush. I tried to be adventurous and order the shrimp a la cucaracha. You think I’d learn. They arrived complete with feet and shells. Not a big fan of unpeeled shrimp. Anyway, they were pretty tasty after I got my fingers good and greasy peeling them.

Musicians of all stripes were pitching their sounds as we called over the vendor with a tray of cocadas, those sticky shredded coconut balls for a bite of dessert. We whiled away some time enjoying the shade and ever changing landscape of colorful scenes on the beach.

Then it was back to the RV for more lounging, guitar strumming and swimming in the sea until the grackles came home to roost signaling the arrival of another beautiful sunset. The arrival of the weekend locals also means the arrival of large speakers, guaranteed to be loud but sound quality may take a back seat. We had a couple different soundtracks to choose from to accompany the setting sun depending upon which ear you tuned in with.

A few more food stands had opened for the weekend traffic. At a street side restaurant, I had a tamale and enchiladas. Mom’s home made fare. She was scolding her boys for leaving the cooler keeping the tamales warm open too long. “Les van a enfriar”! The best accouterment to the meal was Salsa Mike. I’m going to have hunt down a bottle of the picante sauce to add to my pantry. Chacala cools down really nicely at night requiring a long sleeved shirt to hang around outside. Great for sleeping.