And the Heavens Opened Up

Here's my second attempt at writing this post. I wrote the whole post and was just editing when I pressed select all and then hit a button on my key board! All my work was gone! How sad! Anyways, here we go:

I didn't sleep that well the second night. It had been stormy in the evening and then it really started to rain in the middle of the night. To avoid getting wet, I had to stand up, my tangled sleep sack around my legs and zip the flap up over the screen. After a little while, I woke as the tent was getting muggy. Since the rain had stopped, I unzipped the tent flap to let the air back in. This went on several times throughout the night. Every time the flap was open, I was subconsciously waiting for the rain to come in. At 5 am the power went off and took the fan with it. Once that was done, I slept fitfully as that's also around the time the sun rises. At about 7, my bed became too warm to sleep in so I got up and got ready for the day. Thankkfully, it looked like the storm had passed for now, though there were still many clouds in the sky, and we were able to eat our crepe breakfast on our deck. We had decided to rent a scooter that morning to tour the other side of the island. 

We walked down our "little hill" to catch a taxi, when the sky opened up and started dumping buckets on us. We ran under the shelter of a palm tree; I'm not sure if you've ever tried that, especially with one beside the ocean. It didn't offer much protection. Soon enough, a taxi came along and we were driving along in the rain. When we arrived at Picnic Centre, it was still raining quite hard, so we ran into a restaurant which was a large, circular, open building with a thatched roof. 

They had wifi and drinks so we were good for the little while we had to wait out the storm.

Once the rain stopped, we decided that we didn't need a scooter as we had seen, in the cab ride, that there wasn't much to visit.  We decided to walk a bit to see the "downtown" of the island. There are so many contradictions, from shacks to kids on computers. 

There are so many buildings that are abandoned and falling down or just walls or stairs standing. I'm not sure f there was a boom and they didn't have money to finish but it lends an air of ghostliness to the place. At one point, as we were walking, we saw a small shack building, about the size of a bus shelter, that had thin boards nailed up haphazardly as walls. Big, gaping holes made it easy to see right through the place, not to mention, the walls only went half way down to the road. As  we passed the doorway, without a door, we saw a man with a cleaver chopping up big hunks of meat. On the ceiling, a rack of ribs, and various other cuts of meet were hanging. No fridge, no sink, not even a fan. I just laughed, what else can you do, and thanked god that I had only been eating seafood! I poked Jan too, knowing she'd be cringing at the sight. I wish I had gotten a picture of it for you! We passed shops at the front of peoples home where clothing and snacks hung in front of windows, on porches and in doorways. Don't picture touristy shops, these they were not. After passing through this main part of the city, we decided to take a taxi. But of course couldn't find one. I didn't mind the walk so much as there was so much to look at. Which is a good thing, because a taxi never did stop to pick us up.

By the time we had made it back to Big Fish, where we had eaten a Lobster dinner the night before, it was passed lunch time and we had been walking over an hour and a half, more than 6 km. It was pretty hot and muggy as it had been raining all night and that morning. We stopped and sat, looking out at the beautiful view, and enjoying the breeze coming off the water. 

We ordered chicken fajitas with came with a huge mound of chicken and veggies and one and a half tortillas. It was so delicious. As we watched, a little crab fell to the ground near our table, plunk, and was skittering across the patio. Look at his little face!

We wanted to go for a swim so we headed over to Dos Tiburones Dive shop, where we had spent most of the day before, snorkling. It is so relaxing and the view so pretty.

Not long afte we arrived, it started to down pour and we were stuck for hours waiting it out. Good thing they have wifi so we could entertain ourselves!

We figured, if worst came to worst, we could walk home in our bathing suits to avoid getting too wet. But luckily, we caught a break in the rain and made it back to Los Escapondos, our "hotel" before it started up again.

Jan really wanted to return to Big Fish for dinner, but since it had been raining off and on, I wanted to stay closer to home. We checked out a recommended resturant just a few minutes from where we were staying and decided to eat there. I ordered garlic shrimp and Jan, the white fish in caribbean sauce. The lady first brought a consumeé to the table, which was pretty good considering I don't really like brothy soups. Next, she brought salads. In most third world countries, they tell you not to eat any fruit or veggies that you can't peel. You definitely can't eat lettuce as the water used to grow and wash it is usually contaminated. I wasn't too concerned, but Jan had been worried about her tummy and decided not to risk it. She felt so bad wasting the food and leaving it on the table, so much to my amusement, she scooped it up in her napkin and shoved it in the pocket of her jacket. I was crying, I was laughing so hard! We were served our main dishes, which weren't that great...oh Big Fish, we should have eaten your lobster special! We left soon after and as we walked along the curvy, dark, beach road, Jan emptied her napkin into the bushes. We laughed the rest of the way home! Although the lights were off and we were ready for bed before 10pm, we ended up staying up until past 11pm laughing about our adventures so far. One night left to sleep to the sounds of the night!