12/21
We are settling into a routine. We are hitting the beach
twice a day once in the morning and once in the evening to avoid the strongest
sun. Then we have reading, writing and home work time in the mid day to avoid
the heat. It has not been to hot yet but we are certainly not used to any heat
We are doing our best to avoid lots of mindless screen time
which is made easier with a slow limited internet. We are however reading lot
of books on our devices. Last night Cael and I worked on his book report for
Ender’s Game.
Today we walked into town and looked up the places for
Spanish and surf lessons and will return tomorrow when they are open. All the
locals were out getting ready to watch the final Ecuadorian fútbal match. Lots
of people were wearing their blue or yellow jerseys. There was a local match
taking place on a concrete pad and lots of old men were watching. Walking into
town by way of the road is much less attractive than by the beach. The road
side is littered with trash. There are many messy construction projects.
All that said this place is beautiful. We are at the south
end of an 8 mile beach. Coconut palms and palmettos are the primary plants.
There are also occasional trees with bright flowers from purple to yellow. Each
end has a reddish brown rock hill trust out into the sea. Less than a mile to
the south the rock has a church and an orphanage. The hills to the side and
behind us are covered in dry brushy plants with occasional cactus and palm
trees. While it has remained mostly over cast it is still very bright and last
night the clouds cleared for a vivid orange, pink and purple sunset. At night
you can see 20-30 little lights bobbing out in the ocean, fishing boats. The beach
is 100 feet from the back of our house and the surf is always pounding. Follow
the link to the right for my Flickr page where you can see lots of pictures.
One mile to the north is our town of Olón. The beach front
has lots of little restaurants all serving the same seafood fare from ceviche
to, pasts to fried fish. All the seafood is very fresh and yummy. So far we
have tried the fish, skinny and white and the shrimp, plump and fresh. The
beers are large, cold and crisp. The town is a few streets wide and deep and
mostly tiny shops and hotels. The expats report that this town is much calmer
than the next town immediately on the other side of the hill to the south.
Motanita, Sodom and Gomorra as it is called, is a bigger surfing town and we
have not explored it yet. We have been told to avoid it at night.
We have seen lots of birds. There are pelicans, sand pipers,
are little white cranes. We glimpsed a bright yellow bird but I was not able to
get the camera in time. There are lots of little brown lizards and we saw one
pretty good sized green iguana.
12/22/14
Surf is up. Today is the most beautiful day yet. The sun is
shining, the water is turquoise and it is hot. And we all slept well. Today on
my morning constitutional I noticed little red crabs that pop back into their
little holes when you get close to them.
We went back into town and had lunch at the le playa (beach)
at one of the little hut restaurants. These folks were Peruvian and had
slightly different faire including a couple of fish curries. We watched two
Coca-Cola reps nail their signs up on every hut.
The language is not sticking in my head unsurprisingly the
children are picking it up quickly. We went to the language school and signed
up for family lessons three days a week starting after Christmas. It does not
feel like Christmas down here.
Went to the fruit stand and got a number of things that you
will find familiar. The carrots are huge. We also got a couple of fruits that
you have never seen before. We will taste at dinner and report back. See the
Flickr site for a photo of our fruit bowl.
We made more connections with expats and have been invited to the local orphanages xmas performance. I will let you know how it goes.
It is now night and the wind has picked up but it is still
warm and we can hear the surf. I hope everyone is well back home. Sleep tight
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