Postcard from El Yaque 16 February 2010
Posted by Sarah Reynolds on Friday, February 26, 2010
Under: El Yaque
Well this is the end of our second week in El Yaque and we are still having a fantastic time.
Dave's foot is slowly but surely recovering - mostly due to the use of Aloe Vera - courtesy of a broken off piece of Aloe plant from the garden of the girl next door!! Dave had been given some the first time we came here by one of the cleaning ladies at the hotel we were staying at who took pity on him when she saw cuts on his shins were not healing. She went away and broke off a piece of plant and dabbed it one for him!!! And amazingly it worked really well. So he has been dabbing it on every day and now the scab on his ankle is only about the size of a 5p piece and is healing. It really was only a graze to start with but the salt water here plays havoc with things healing.
As for the windsurfing - it is all good. The wind has been phenomenal - in fact too much sometimes. Suffice it to say that today I was on the smallest board and sail (84L and 4m) I have ever windsurfed on going faster than I have ever gone and I had to come in after a couple of hours because even with that kit I felt I was going too fast to be safe!! And I certainly wasn't the only one. I was out with a nice chap from Argentina - and we both decided we should go in for the sake of our safety!!! (Dave had already gone in - he has more sense than me - sometimes!)
We took a day out last Friday to do a trek into the forest on the hillside.
The guide is a lovely chap who we met 4 years ago when we went on the same trek - well, the same route - as obviously each trek is different as the wildlife choose whether or not to appear. This time we saw a tarantula, several snakes, lots of butterflies, lizards... I felt one of the snakes which was fine, but drew the line at stroking the tarantula!! Me and Dave, both, the others did - more fool them!! See attached picture - and yes the spider is spinning silk for a web whilst the guy held him...
The guide also climbed a mango tree and shook the branches so we had fresh mango to eat there and then - still warm from the sun - fantastic. And he found a just dropped coconut and opened that - again lovely. Then at the end of the trek (about 3 hours or so) we ended up back outside his Mom's house and she had made lunch - Arepas - which are a thick corn pancake which gets split and filled - in this case with spicy shredded chicken and fried aubergine - delicious - and very, very filling. Whilst we were eating this his dog patiently lay there, fluttering his eyelashes at everyone! and making big puppy eyes. Needless to say when everyone had eaten as much as they could the dog got the leftovers. He was very good though - didn't move a muscle until we had all finished eating then came to me and got loads of fuss, went round everyone else picking up their leftovers, and back to me for another scratch behind the ears :0)
As for the frog saga - well, it continues....
We sat out one eveing to eat our tea and left the door to our room open to let it stay cool. We came back in after tea and Dave went into the bathroom and found a frog - in the shower!! So once again, I had to catch and remove said frog - this time Dave was busy... drying his hands!!! any excuse :0)
Breakfast continues to be a highlight of our day - there really is something rather lovely about eating outside and because we are (sort of) self catering it is really nice to be presented with fruit, yoghurt, pancakes, bacon, smoothies etc, etc. If only we could have something similar at home - a bowl of frosties in front of the TV is just not the same.
We ate out last night too, as we need to make another shopping trip to stock up. We had a lovely meal of Margaritan 'Surf and Turf' at the Hotel California, which turned out to be strips of steak, chicken and lamb with prawn, calamari, mussels and some little chaps in shells that we decided not to bother with!!! All served on a bed of.... chips!! Not much to help with the 5 a day fruit and veg quota - but certainly topped up our protein which we need to repair all our stretched and aching muscles :0)
So, that's all our news, I think. Two weeks of wind and sunshine and windsurfing. And we are still enjoying ourselves. No time yet to be bored. I haven't even read a page of my book since we got here. We have watched a couple of DVDs - well Dave has watched them to the end, I fell asleep part way through!! He said I didn't miss much. The third DVD was great - but broke down half way through so neither of us saw the end - we'll have to look for that one when we get home!!!!
We are taking it easy this morning as yesterday was such a full on day - but I guess we should put in an appearance at the beach soon - as we will get a black mark for arriving late. No, that's not true - no-one expects us to arrive much before 11am, in fact they are shocked if we do. That way there is always someone out on the water to have tested the wind before we go out - ideal :0)
Ciao for now
Sarah
Dave's foot is slowly but surely recovering - mostly due to the use of Aloe Vera - courtesy of a broken off piece of Aloe plant from the garden of the girl next door!! Dave had been given some the first time we came here by one of the cleaning ladies at the hotel we were staying at who took pity on him when she saw cuts on his shins were not healing. She went away and broke off a piece of plant and dabbed it one for him!!! And amazingly it worked really well. So he has been dabbing it on every day and now the scab on his ankle is only about the size of a 5p piece and is healing. It really was only a graze to start with but the salt water here plays havoc with things healing.
As for the windsurfing - it is all good. The wind has been phenomenal - in fact too much sometimes. Suffice it to say that today I was on the smallest board and sail (84L and 4m) I have ever windsurfed on going faster than I have ever gone and I had to come in after a couple of hours because even with that kit I felt I was going too fast to be safe!! And I certainly wasn't the only one. I was out with a nice chap from Argentina - and we both decided we should go in for the sake of our safety!!! (Dave had already gone in - he has more sense than me - sometimes!)
We took a day out last Friday to do a trek into the forest on the hillside.
The guide is a lovely chap who we met 4 years ago when we went on the same trek - well, the same route - as obviously each trek is different as the wildlife choose whether or not to appear. This time we saw a tarantula, several snakes, lots of butterflies, lizards... I felt one of the snakes which was fine, but drew the line at stroking the tarantula!! Me and Dave, both, the others did - more fool them!! See attached picture - and yes the spider is spinning silk for a web whilst the guy held him...
The guide also climbed a mango tree and shook the branches so we had fresh mango to eat there and then - still warm from the sun - fantastic. And he found a just dropped coconut and opened that - again lovely. Then at the end of the trek (about 3 hours or so) we ended up back outside his Mom's house and she had made lunch - Arepas - which are a thick corn pancake which gets split and filled - in this case with spicy shredded chicken and fried aubergine - delicious - and very, very filling. Whilst we were eating this his dog patiently lay there, fluttering his eyelashes at everyone! and making big puppy eyes. Needless to say when everyone had eaten as much as they could the dog got the leftovers. He was very good though - didn't move a muscle until we had all finished eating then came to me and got loads of fuss, went round everyone else picking up their leftovers, and back to me for another scratch behind the ears :0)
As for the frog saga - well, it continues....
We sat out one eveing to eat our tea and left the door to our room open to let it stay cool. We came back in after tea and Dave went into the bathroom and found a frog - in the shower!! So once again, I had to catch and remove said frog - this time Dave was busy... drying his hands!!! any excuse :0)
Breakfast continues to be a highlight of our day - there really is something rather lovely about eating outside and because we are (sort of) self catering it is really nice to be presented with fruit, yoghurt, pancakes, bacon, smoothies etc, etc. If only we could have something similar at home - a bowl of frosties in front of the TV is just not the same.
We ate out last night too, as we need to make another shopping trip to stock up. We had a lovely meal of Margaritan 'Surf and Turf' at the Hotel California, which turned out to be strips of steak, chicken and lamb with prawn, calamari, mussels and some little chaps in shells that we decided not to bother with!!! All served on a bed of.... chips!! Not much to help with the 5 a day fruit and veg quota - but certainly topped up our protein which we need to repair all our stretched and aching muscles :0)
So, that's all our news, I think. Two weeks of wind and sunshine and windsurfing. And we are still enjoying ourselves. No time yet to be bored. I haven't even read a page of my book since we got here. We have watched a couple of DVDs - well Dave has watched them to the end, I fell asleep part way through!! He said I didn't miss much. The third DVD was great - but broke down half way through so neither of us saw the end - we'll have to look for that one when we get home!!!!
We are taking it easy this morning as yesterday was such a full on day - but I guess we should put in an appearance at the beach soon - as we will get a black mark for arriving late. No, that's not true - no-one expects us to arrive much before 11am, in fact they are shocked if we do. That way there is always someone out on the water to have tested the wind before we go out - ideal :0)
Ciao for now
Sarah
In : El Yaque