Yesterday was such a long day and such a slog on so little sleep that we both collapsed into bed right after dinner.  It was 10:30 (Central Time) when I turned out the light and an early squawker (which turned out to be some kind of black bird) roused me about eight hours later.  We got up slowly, pottered around a bit, and went for our included breakfast: eggs, tortillas, rice and beans for me, yoghurt and granola for Isabel.  We both had a plate of fruit, watermelon, papaya, mango.  Isabel thought she didn’t like papaya, but found out she did.

Click any picture to enlarge.

These photos are our view at breakfast.  When we sat down, there were a couple of guys digging a giant hole on the beach.  I could not figure out why.  It seemed completely nonsensical.  It turns out they were burying seaweed.  There is a lot of seaweed that washes up on the beach, all along the coast.  When you go into the ocean, you have to walk over a swath a couple of feet wide and 6″ to a foot deep.  It’s a little weird, but not at all a problem, but I guess the hotel wanted to clear a path to the water right in front of the hotel.  They only did this the first day.  I think they realized it was a losing battle.  But it provided breakfast-time entertainment at least.

It is really great here, the room is right on the beach, so when I got hot on one of our two allotted beach chaises, I came up to the porch and read at the table for a while and then the hammock.    The first picture is the view from our porch.  The two chaises under the rightmost umbrella are our chaises, reserved for our cabana, just a few steps from our door.  The next two pictures are looking  left and right from our chaises.

We hung out most of the day, pina coladas mid-morning (Isabel opted for virgin, I did not) but we still had no pesos, so around 3:00, not having had lunch, we went to the supermarket, which is only a mile or two away.  (I am sooooo glad I got a car!  We would be taking dozens of taxi rides and be so restricted if I hadn’t.)  It has several ATMs and the one we used charged us a whopping $2.00 per transaction.  I suspect there might be conversion charges as well, but it’s only Isabel who’s adding up every penny.  She started tallying how much we’ve spent so far and I made her keep it to herself.  I mean, dinner tonight was $30.00 before tip.

The grocery store had a tiny gluten-free shelf and we spent quite a bit of time at the candy area, of course.  We had a very odd collection of stuff in our cart!  They had an amazing pepper selection, of course, but we didn’t buy any, just admired.

Then we went to dinner at a place called Mateo’s that we had noticed had a good crowd when we went up and down the beach road yesterday.  My fish tacos were amazingly good.  Isabel got vegetarian fajitas, which was mostly peppers, so I didn’t have any of that.  We ate tomatoes (non-peeled vegetables) and had drinks with ice.  We did ask, and they said everything was washed with and the ice made with purified water.  It’s a little freaky always wondering if things are OK, but I look around and see other Americans eating and drinking in these places and figure life’s too short to restrict ourselves from eating anything.  So far so good….

We went souvenir shopping across the street from the little restaurant and picked up a few things.  Then, because I forgot to bring my hat (doh!) we stopped at another souvenir place and we bought some more things.  (One of the devil-skeletons is for Jane because I immediately thought of her when I saw them.)  I think we’re done with the souvenirs. :-)  Then back to the supermarket for more pesos!

When we got back, this was the towel animal.   A pig?  No, maybe a dog because of the ears.