Trip into San Juan del Sur

 We were out of bread again, and so Tia, Kai, and I went into San Juan del Sur "por los mandatos". I said to Jeff before we came, that I wanted to be like the little ladies I saw on my mission -going around to the butcher's, the baker's, and the greengrocer's every day to get fresh, good quality food. I didn't realize at the time that it would be an hour into town each way! It really isn't far distance-wise, about 12 miles, but with the rutted dirt road, it takes a while. By taxi I'm always worried that the car will shake to pieces before we get home.

 

Anyway, we don't go every day, only about twice a week. Ari wouldn't come with us yesterday, but I talked the other kids into it. Tia has her list of "101 things to do in San Juan del Sur", and was hoping to check some things off.   We went down to the beach area, because gelato was one of Kai's things to check off (I got "Dutch Orange" which was orange with chocolate -pretty yummy!), and saw this sand sculpture done of The Virgin and Child.

 

 Tia didn't believe me that the Christ statue was just off the San Juan beach, but we saw it this time. We're waiting to climb the hill until Jeff can go with us.

 

 One of the things on Tia's list was to go to El Gato Negro, a lending library/coffee shop.
 

 It's pretty nice inside, tons of books, hippies, even a couple of dogs.
 

 I love the bright colors. We ordered a coconut water, and hoped it would come in a coconut, but it came in a plain, metal cup. Kai hated it, but Tia and I gulped it down. It was hot outside! 

We found the little pulperia -small store-- our American friends had told us about, and I actually found cocoa powder. I felt like I'd won the lottery! I drank my pinole  with actual cocoa added today instead of crappy hot chocolate mix and it was wonderful.

 We hit our bakery, and then walked up to the Pali'. We passed this tree for the hundredth time, and once again I wondered what kind of fruit this was. It's so strange how the fruit grows right off the branches. Not citrus, not mangos, I don' know what it is.

Remember that taxi driver who's car broke down last time? He drove down the hill while we were walking up, and beeped his horn. We waved, then when we were checking out of the Pali', he appeared to drive us home. He asked us what religion we were, and put on a Christian station (and I discovered I dislike Christian rock in any language, but he was trying to be nice), and spoke of schooling in Nicaragua, and chicken farms we passed, and meatball soup. Yes we made it home fine mom.

We wanted to all go swimming that night for Family Home Evening, but not only was it raining, but lightening-ing. So we stayed in and watched the last ten minutes of Lion King in Spanish, and read our books. A cicada visited on our back porch, and clicked at us.

Here's a question for you guys, do geckos make noise? I'm convinced that the cheeping-chittering sound we hear only at night in our house is the geckos talking to each other. The rest of the family thinks I'm crazy. But it's coming from inside the house for sure, and there are not even air ducts that something could be hiding in where I hear the sound coming from sometimes. It's a nice sound, kind of like a squirrel. We thought it was squirrels for a while. I think the rest of the family still thinks it squirrels. Or rats. 

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