The weather has been interesting, it's gotten a bit cloudier and last Thursday we thought we felt a few raindrops, but the rain still hasn't come yet. One other sign that makes us think they'll be here soon is that the cicadas have stopped - yea! I would actually like to experience the rain just to see what it's like (and to justify our bringing rain jackets)
I was highly amused this week by some of the animals. Two of the monkeys have definitely become a couple and are really cute together. I tried to get a picture of them cuddling, but they weren't cooperating. The other two monkeys seem to be hanging out together more as well. It would be exciting if there were some baby monkey's here.
The other thing I was
amused by was one of the parrots. It kept trying to break out of the cage by picking the lock with it's beak. Paulette said that this was actually bad for it's beak and and they'll be putting a wooden box around it (the lock that is, not the beak)There were also these large bumblebees that loved this one flower near the dining table. They were there all morning, but we haven't seen them since.
Paulette also had someone bring a small, tame fox to her. It's around 6 months old and really cute. While it likes people, it doesn't like dogs so everytime I go to visit, she runs into her terracotta planter because the dogs run over to me. Paulette's plan is to get her well fed and then let go in the Chocoyero forest. She'l
l have the guides there keep an eye on it.At the end of the week, we went to La Boquita and Casares. La Boquita is a beach on the Pacific coast and Casares, the next town over is a fishing village. La Boquita is as lovely as the pictures indicated. We had a great time playing in the surf and watching the surfers. For those that didn't want as much wave action, there is a small, fresh water pool nearby.
After spending the day at La Boquita, our driver dropped J.B. and I off at the hotel in Casares. We were the only people st
aying there so we had the place pretty much to ourselves aside from the owner and staff. The hotel is right on the beach and our room overlooked the colorful fishing boats below.In the evening, we watched some fishermen go out for the night. The process was interesting. They keep the boats on the beach on these two large rollers. The engines have been removed.
When they're ready to go out, they roll the boat to the edge of the water, remove the rollers, put in the engine and then the boat takes off at full speed. The process is reversed when they get back from their trip. In the morning, the boats head out around 5:00am and the night fishermen return about 8:00am. When the boats return, the women go down to check the wares and take the freshest fish. We saw one woman, take a fish, sniff it, lo
ok at its gills and throw it back at the fisherman with a "no me gusta!".We had a nice meal Saturday night, with only one other couple as customers. The same was true in the morning, just us and another couple. The food was good both times and very filling.
We left mid-day and took three different buses before arriving home. It was the first time we spoke almost exclusively in Spanish and fortunately people could understand us!
We head into our final 3 days now. While I'm looking forward to going home, I will definitely be sad leaving here. The time has gone by very quickly and not only have we made progress with our Spanish, but we've also seen and experienced a good part of Nicaragua as well as met some interesting people. My next post will most likely be written from the U.S., so I'll sign off with Hasta Pronto!
