February 11, 2017
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| The Palapa at Agave Azul |
I woke up early, but lay in bed and dozed off a couple of
times before getting up and taking a shower.
I had no groceries, so I walked up the street to the market to buy
coffee supplies, bread, and fruit. Sarah
and Alfredo were tired and took their time, so I had a chance to play a little
guitar and do some writing.
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| The Ante Room of the Palapa |
Sarah and Alfredo showed up around 2:00 and we went over to the Eva Mandarina Beach Club and had drinks and enjoyed the view. We walked along the breakwater and eventually headed to the plaza where there was a fundraiser to help build a library for the local primary school. The event was supposed to begin at 6:00, but there wasn’t much going on. We sat in the park and played with an adorable puppy until the band started up just before 7:00.
We managed to get fried tacos for dinner, but the real food
didn’t come out until long after we had given up and called it a night. We were all exhausted.
February 12, 2017
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| Sarah and Alfredo at the La Cruz Market |
Sarah and Alfredo arrived about 11:00 to go to the Sunday
market. We strolled through all the
stalls so they could see the market. We
stopped for glasses of cucumber, kiwi, lime juice and I bought
some
strawberries for later use. When we
stopped at Agave Azul to put the berries in the refrigerator, Ulla the
innkeeper suggested we go for brunch at Las Palapas. Since we were planning to go to the beach after
breakfast, anyway, that seemed like a good idea.
We walked through town as far as we could and then completed
the journey along the beach the last couple of hundred yards. Las Palapas had a nice buffet brunch for a
reasonable price and there was live music.
I had an omelet made to order with beans and chilaquiles. Sarah and Alfredo had Mexican food. Sarah and I had micheladas made with just
lime, salt, and ice. The upended the
beer bottles into the glasses and one couldn’t remove the beer bottle without
causing a flood. We had to raise the
bottles and gradually ease the beer into the glass. They looked cool, but were a real nuisance to
drink.
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| Alfredo Clowning at Las Palapas |
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| Sarah on the Beach |
We spent a long time over brunch and then walked the rest of
the way down the beach to La Manzanilla.
On our way back, we stopped at one of the actual palapas on the sand at
Las Palapas. We had only planned to have
a drink, but then Alfredo ordered fish and we ended up spending the entire
afternoon lounging in the shade on the beach.
Sarah fell in love with a brightly painted fish mobile, but couldn’t
bargain the price down to what she had in her pocket. The vendor came back while she was in the
bathroom and I bought the mobile for her for the price she had been able to
negotiate. It was only 140 pesos (about
$7.)
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| Playa La Manzanilla |
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| Gypsy Rumba |
The former Philo’s had new owners and a new, Country and
Western theme. The menu was much reduced
and much less expensive than before. I
was disappointed to see that the show was not sold out, as Luna Rumba had
always been. While many of the old
groupies (like myself) were there, Geo’s fans were absent. Geo had been replaced with a violinist and a
guitarist who, while talented, just didn’t have the spine-tingling delivery
that Geo had. Cheko was still wonderful,
energetic, and passionate and put on a good show. Sarah was very impressed and cornered Cheko
and talked to him about her son, Steven, who was a songwriter. He seemed pleased that I was still a loyal
fan and had brought my family. Sarah and
Alfredo were ready to move to La Cruz by the end of the show.
February 13, 2017
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| Sunrise at the La Cruz Marina |
Monday morning was my first day completely at leisure in La
Cruz. I got up and ran a couple of miles
around the marina as the sun was rising.
I had never seen a sunrise as beautiful as the ones in La Cruz, where
the sun rose from behind range after range of mountains and glistened on the
water, making the boats into dark silhouettes.
Every day was different and I had posted a hundred photographs of the
dawn over the years.
After my run, I showered, dressed and made breakfast and
coffee. Unfortunately, my handheld radio
did not receive the morning net, so I had no idea what was happening. I needed to go to the grocery store and
wanted to buy some warmer clothes, as the temperature in La Cruz was
unseasonably cold once the sun went down.
Unfortunately, I was chained to my telephone because I had only two days
to correct an error I had made in paying for my health insurance before I would
be cut off. I had talked to them on
Saturday and managed to reinstate the account, but the payment department had
been closed that day. They were supposed
to call me Monday. When they hadn’t
called by noon, I asked Scott to call them and have them call me. Unfortunately, he didn’t look at his phone
until he was done with work for the day.
I spent the day practicing the guitar, writing, napping, and reading,
never leaving my phone for a moment. I
was very annoyed.
By 7:00, I figured it was too late to get anything done, so
Betty and I headed up to Enrique’s for fish tacos. The tacos were not on the menu, but they were
25 pesos each and two of them made a fine meal.
We were just paying the bill when Blue Shield called me. I couldn’t hear anything in the restaurant,
so left Betty to handle the bill and went out on the street to talk with
them. The woman claimed my account has
just been reinstated, but she couldn’t take my payment over the phone. I would have to pay it online. When I got back to Agave Azul, the Blue
Shield website was down for maintenance.
I lay on my bed and listened to the music from the bar across the street
until it was time to go to sleep.
February 14, 2017
I woke up early and, after several attempts and detours, finally managed to pay for my health insurance. I set it up to be paid automatically so that
I wouldn’t need to worry about it again.
Betty lent me her handheld radio so that I could listen to the net, but
there was nothing too exciting. I made
breakfast and drank my coffee while chatting with another of the
residents. Then I practiced the guitar
for a couple of hours. It was best to do
that in the morning before the music cranked up across the street and I could
no longer hear myself play.
About 1:00, I headed out to go to the store. Betty decided to come with me as far as
Bucerias. Our first stop was the Octopus’
Garden, where we bought tickets to see Duende, the other half of Luna Rumba,
the following Saturday night. Then we
took a combi to the Little Bee, a bulk food store, where we bought nuts and
semi-sweet chocolate, which is called semi-bitter chocolate in Spanish. It was far sweeter than any chocolate I ever
bought in the United States, but I had had no chocolate for weeks and it was
quite welcome. A new Chedraui
supermarket had opened in Bucerias and we walked up there, but they had very
little in the way of women’s clothes and nothing for cool weather, so I decided
to continue on to the Mega. Betty left
me and headed back to La Cruz.
I decided to walk to the Mega after waiting unsuccessfully
for a combi for several minutes. It was
a bit of a hike, but had been made easier by our stop at Chedraui. I managed to find a long-sleeved T-shirt and
a couple of pairs of cute leggings at the Mega, as well as picking up the few
food items and toiletries I was lacking.
Betty needed a cable to link her telephone to a remote speaker and I
managed to find that, as well.
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| The Closed Torta Ahogada Shop |
For several days, I had been craving a torta ahogada
(drowned sandwich,) which was a pork sandwich on a roll, slathered with a thin
tomato broth. There was a shop on the
far side of Bucerias and I stopped there, only to find that it was closed. I was ravenous and broke into the box of Oreos
I had purchased at the Mega. One should
never go grocery shopping when hungry. I
waited several minutes for a combi but, when it came, it stopped at the back of
the line so I ended up being left behind.
I had to take one of the big buses back to La Cruz.
It was late afternoon when I returned and, after a short
visit to deliver Betty’s cable, I spent the rest of the afternoon reading and
writing.
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| Romantic Lighting for Valentine's Day |
Being Valentine's Day, the marina had organized a concert in the amphitheater. The Kids' Club had made luminaria to decorate the stage and the lighting was quite effective. Sonny played guitar along with his CD. He had a nice voice and the CD was well produced, but it was a little too New Age for my taste. Betty and I left just before the encore.
February 15 -17, 2017
Not much happened for the rest of the week. I got up, ran, breakfasted, practiced the
guitar, wrote, read, and studied Italian.
Sometimes I went out for dinner.
La Cruz seemed dead to me, but it was probably just the lack of familiar
people. With the Gecko Rojo closed,
there was nowhere I could just drop in when I felt like socializing and I
missed that. I had often stopped in
there for happy hour or to play darts or dominoes. Happy hour would sometimes lead to dinner and
that formed the basis of my social life when I was in town without a boat. This year, I was at a bit of a loss.
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| The Courtyard at the Octopus' Garden |
Wednesday night, a group of us from Agave Azul went to the Octopus' Garden for dinner. They had all you could eat ribs, but none of us wanted to eat that much.
Thursday, there was a meeting of Women Who Sail at the
Octopus’ Garden. The speakers were Dani
Peters, Eugenie Russell and Tamiko Willie.
I really wanted to hear Dani’s presentation on having been shipwrecked
on the big island of Hawaii. I had heard
Eugenie and Tamiko speak previously.
Dani’s presentation was emotional.
Knowing both her and the owner of the boat, John, a blind skipper, I
could imagine how difficult it must have been for them to abandon ship and
attempt to swim over the reefs to shore, tethered together so that John would
not become lost.
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| Dani Speaking at the Women Who Sail Gathering |
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| Tamiko |
Tamiko’s story of her first Coast Guard rescue was also
engrossing and different than the first time I had heard her speak. They had ventured out in towering surf to
rescue some Navy Seals who had capsized their boat during a training mission and
found themselves in the water. All were
recovered and the Coast Guard then went back out through waves taller than the
boat was long to retrieve the broken Navy inflatable boat. Sometimes the Coast Guard is truly heroic.
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