Monday, December 22, 2014

Two days

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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