We have a sort of special cooling canopy over our bed that uses some sort of witchcraft to pull air from under the bed and then dehumidify it and slightly cool it before directing that air down at the bed. You don’t actually feel cool air blowing like you would from an air conditioning unit, nor does it cool anything other than the bed, but it does provide a small amount of relief from the otherwise very hot days.
Accompanied by the black cat you see above, we attempted to beat the heat by exploring some of the surrounding trails in hopes of seeing some wildlife. For a while, all we saw was the cat — which inexplicably kept following us deeper and deeper into the jungle. I guess it was bored. Eventually, however, we saw some howler monkeys making their way through the trees.
We could hear others howling in the distance, but we never actually caught any of them in the act of howling. Maybe they got embarrassed in front of Bricole, everyone’s favorite celebrity couple. One of them also had a youth hitchhiking on her back. We had received a trail map from the front desk, but it seemed not to scale or accurate in any way, so at one point, we simply reversed our direction to the disappointed meows of Señora Wiskersanchez.
We managed to find our way back to an active breakfast room. I had banana pancakes instead of the Nica desayuno today as I wanted something with a bit more flavor than beans and rice.With the sun and heat in full force, we lounged outside our room in the swinging bed for a spell. I perpetually feel like I need a nap here.
With nowhere to go that isn’t hot, we did a lot of lounging for the day – eventually working our way down to the beach. We asked for a couple of cans of cold beverages which were promptly guzzled. Then I attempted to find the paddle board with the fin and head back out. There was a substantial cobweb on aforementioned fin, so I don’t think it had been successfully used in some time. It is a long trek from the equipment area down to the water’s edge and there’s no dedicated worker that oversees any of this stuff. No lifeguard either, hence why Nicole had to sign a bunch of waivers when we checked in.
While the presence of the fin helped me paddle without going in circles, the actual currents were a challenge. The incoming waves posed their own dilemma, but once I passed them, I began exploring the bay. When I was ready to come back in, it became clear that there was a rip current or something weird going on. Every couple minutes, I would get a blast of wind and current that made me feel like I was going nowhere—and maybe even backwards. I could see people walking on the beach and they weren’t getting closer at the rate I would expect. I could sense the current calming down in between sets and I would try and paddle with purpose to try and make some headway. Through the use of patience and my rippling muscles, I made it back to the shore after maybe 15 minutes of trying. Back at our habitación, you could get a better view of the waves appearing to go backward and could better explain why it was such a challenge.
On the journey back to the room, I saw this lil guy climbing a tree and eating tree stuff. Our afternoon entailed a lot of lazing around. I read my trashy beach read and fell asleep intermittently. Nicole got deep into her trashy ski lodge read. She said it was at least more appropriate than her book about Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. We watched the sun set once last time from the Morgan’s Rock eco-lodge and had our last dinner at their restaurant instead of deal with driving into San Juan del Sur again.
Tomorrow we have a sort of tentative reservation on Ometepe island in Lago Cocibolca, also known as Lake Nicaragua. The problem is that being a Sunday (and apparently Palm Sunday to boot), I couldn’t get a hold of any of the ferry operators and neither could our host. That could be a problem, but we will cross that bridge (or ferry) when we get to it.
passports & pepto bismol 