Puerto Escondido (day 2)

Hardly slept at all Thursday night. There was a stupid Christmas tree with lights and one of those electronic gizmos playing Christmas music all night set up near the motorhome. It would repeat itself over and over. The music played all night long and pretty much drove me nuts. Found out in the morning that all I had to do was to get up and unplug it…at least tonight should be better. However there’s also lots of other music and dogs barking. Not the most peaceful setting, but we will stay here for a few more days to be with our friends.

An uncle of the family owns a cabana and restaurant on famous surfing beach Playa Zicatela which is only a couple of kms away. We had parked there for a few days last time we were here and we will be heading there next providing the invitation is open. Last time he wouldn’t accept any money, but we would gladly pay because it’s a beautiful spot.

When we got up, Mary had already taken a collectivo (cheaper than a taxi, it costs 4 pesos, 33 cents, to go the 7 kms into town) to get some food. They had “breakfast” ready for us around 10:00am…they are constantly feeding us! We had tortillas toasted with cheese and sauce on them. Stuffed…didn’t need any lunch.

Then Mary took Nataly, Alex, Ruth and I into town. We stopped at a market where Alex and I each bought a new pair of sandals…total of 160 pesos ($13.30) for the two pairs. We then went to the Bodega (owned by Walmart) store and did some groceries. It was a zoo on the day before Christmas!

Nataly having some fun in town!

Managed to figure out how to put some money on our internet account while at the Bodega. So we now have enough credit to be able to get another months worth of service, but for whatever reason, our prior month is still working! The text message I received from them specifically says that month was to expire on December 22, so who knows what’s happening. At least if it stops we should be able to restart without problems.

We got back to Sherman around 3:00pm and I had a nap. While I was doing that, Alex had some internet time, and Ruth was helping Mary and Sylvia get dinner ready. At 5:30 or so, we had a nice chicken and rice dinner.

Christmas Eve, and we were invited to a local village where the tradition is a short church service followed by more food and the breaking of the pinatas. This was a lot of fun, and the children go crazy. There were a total of 12 pinatas to be broken, and both Ruth and I had a turn at being blindfolded and swinging the stick! It was funny. After they blindfold you, they give you an idea of where the pinata is, but they have it on a rope and they move it up and down so you don’t know where it is…and the children yell at you telling you where to hit it. And then when you break it, the children scramble for the candies.

Ruth having a go at the pinata

All the children scrambling for the candies!

Kevin having a go at the pinata!

Then, they brought us to a different party where they were supposed to have fireworks. There were a few, but not many. It was a late night though and we didn’t get back to Sherman until 1:00am. I definitely have sore throat now and a bit of a cough and stuffy nose and the lack of a good sleep isn’t helping things.

Not sure what happened, but when we got back to Sherman we noticed that Whiskey’s left rear paw was bleeding. On closer inspection, it seems that she lost a claw somewhere along the way. So Ruth bandaged her up and we will decide what to do about it in the morning. It was bleeding quite badly, so we’re a little worried about it, and as I said we can’t figure out how (or when) it happened. There was a little blood on the carpet, but not enough to suggest it happened in the motorhome. Very strange!

Merry Christmas to all of our readers and their families!