Ola!

You know that scene in Jurassic Park, when the paleontologists are arriving at the island in the helicopter, and they see the island rising out of the ocean, a towering mass covered in tropical shrubbery, and he spots a flock of large birds flying off the shore, and then realises those aren’t birds, but in fact pterodactyls?

That’s what it’s like being here. The land on either side of the bay comes up out of the sea, and it is covered in rough-looking shrubs and cacti. Everywhere you look on the horizon, there are pelicans in your view. And they are fantastic. My previous experience of pelicans is limited to those in Finding Nemo, so excuse my prior perception of them as being dumb ugly birds. They are gorgeous. And graceful. Today I swam up to one and just watched it, as it floated on the waves, its long beak pressed against its tall neck. They fly back and forth across the water, watching for fish. When they dive for prey it is so sudden, and they look so cool doing it. Their wings bend into V’s and they just take a sharp turn downwards and pounce on the water. And it all looks so effortless. I am in love with pelicans and am happy to watch them all day. They are such beautiful birds.

We are having a lovely time here. Our days consist of eating, drinking, walking the beach and building sand castles. Leif and Al play soccer all day on the beach, and Hannah does nothing but boogie board in the surf. Ivy, well, she eats sand and sits in sand and gets sand in every orifice possible before lunchtime. Then we do it all over again.

The temperature and weather is perfect. Sunny, windy, cool. La Manzanilla is my kind of place. Everyone you see on the beach is most often tanned like leather, and is wearing whatever bathing suit they took a liking too. Rolls are not hidden, nor is that excess skin that creeps up on you as you age. All around us are glorious older people who look like they are enjoying life on their own terms thank you very much. My 3-kids body fits in just fine here.

The local dining fare is varied, and tasty. Okay a few places really sucked, but honestly, only a white person would ever offer Asian/Dutch fusion in a Mexican Fishing village. I mean really. There is an issue of the bugs when we eat. The restaurant staff try to convince us it’s mosquitos, but I’m sorry, we do not buy it. We are only bitten at dinner, only from the knee down, and mainly all around our ankles. I’ve only seen like 2 mosquitos since we got here, and the rest of my body looks as it should. But my ankles, I kid you not, look like I have swabbed them in some type of flesh-eating bio-terrorism toxin. They look horrid, and itch like fuck. As long as you don’t give I and scratch them, you’re fine.

La Manzanilla is a town of dust, and barefoot children playing in the back of pickup trucks. It is every car radio CRANKED as it drives past, and every small businessman advertising his wares on the speakers strapped to hood of his dusty, rusted car. The gas guy, the bottled water guy, some other guy we’ve yet to identify has a distinct horn that echoes through our apartment. But none of it is annoying. If it were in English, yeah it’d suck. For us though, it’s that cultural background. It’s some Latin singer literally BLARING from a family’s home last night at 10pm, so loud we actually went out in the street to see if there was a great fiesta going on. And there was none, it was just their stereo. But it didn’t bother us one bit. Not even when we realised the CD was stuck on repeat and we heard that same song over and over and over.

Our Spanish is pretty sad. We’ve read the phrase books and tutored each other, but in a pinch I revert to French and by the time Kit’s got a sentence together in his head, they’ve already presumed he only speaks English and so have spoken to him in his mother tongue. We did have occasion to all learn “Soy alerjico a las neuthes”, which means “I’m allergic to nuts”, so that next time we can help Al avoid further unpleasant breathing restrictions when he orders the local fish. Luckily for all I brought Benadryl with us, so disaster was averted.

Other than that everyone is well and healthy. I will admit to a sudden, now chronic gas issue. Since yesterday I can produce such an odour as to cause others to start looking for the dirty diaper in the room. I have no shame, I cannot help it, it was something I ate. Luckily for all of us, it’s mostly been a hilarious reality, and I pray it will abate most quickly.

It might have been the chicken. Or the pie. Or the pina coladas . . .

I confess another birding affair of mine. We were on a long walk along the beach and I spotted a cool-looking bird fishing in the surf. It was an egret. It had white feathers, and his overall style was that of the windswept head feathers, with a sleek long neck. Kind of like Billy Idol, if he were a bird. Their sad backwards-knee design makes it hard for them to escape my advances too quickly, so I get lots of close-up views.

Between digging for treasure and getting our accents just right when we request “una cervesa por favor”, Kit and I have found the evolutionary link between fish and birds. It must be in the fossil record already, as we opted not to pick up the rotting body we found on the beach. It’s a long fish, like an eel, with a long sharp bird-like beak, huge eyes and sad fins. Perhaps a barracuda? Ugly yes, scary, YES. Makes me keep an extra close eye on my surf child Hannah, as her confidence pushes her further and further out to sea each day.


One week down, one more to go. Ivy turned 1 yesterday, Leif turns 7 in 3 days. If I can post again before our return I will. If not, just read this one again next week, it’ll likely be the same activities on our end. Minus the gas, hopefully.

Adios.

C