Back home in my little pueblo...

I´ve settled back into things this week in my pueblo. My first day back to work on Tuesday, one of the guys went and bought a bottle of whiskey and soda water and just kept filling cups with shots and passing them around. Don´t ask me if the last house is a little crooked :) I only took one tiny shot - I wouldn´t want to be rude! That brought me right back to my coastal roots.

It´s good to be back in the house as well. We have been mostly hanging around at night listening to some Cat Stevens I bought because the oldest brother plays guitar and he knows It´s a Wild World...good old singalongs.

Yesterday afternoon I went out to take a stroll on the beach with Miguel and we ended up on an adventure - why would I have expected less? First he took me on a walk to a hostal that has 3 adorable little monkeys, 1 bigger monkey, 2 black labs and a bunch of birds. The caretaker let us into the grounds and the little monkeys were crawling all over me - adorable. The bigger monkey stayed with the caretaker and kept trying to hold his hand - so humanlike it´s uncanny. The best part was that the dogs and monkeys all play together. The little monkeys jump on the dogs´backs and the dogs try to wrestle them off. Very cute. We hung out for a while and petted and played with the little guys and the dogs. The bigger monkey was more shy. I´ll probably be wandering by there again to say hello. I did take pics but I can´t upload them here because the internet is too slow...soon!

Next we wandered back to the beach and walked back past the road to our house to some huge rock cliffs. Miguel told me that there was a pretty secluded beach on the other side of the cliff and we could climb over to it but it was a little dangerous. I figured I was up for an adventure...halfway up I wasn´t so sure. There was very little sure footing along the loosely named ´path´. I think I lost 10 pounds in sweat just out of fear I was gonna slip and fall to my death or at least break some bones. Once we finally made it to the top it was a beautiful view. I didn´t get to enjoy it for very long before Miguel was bounding down the other side. I wasn´t so sure I wanted to go down to the beach because I knew I´d have to climb back up but of course I followed.(Note that as we climbed up the rocks and then went down the more woodsy side complete with cactus, Miguel was barefoot and I had on sneakers.) I basically slid down on my butt to get to the beach while Miguel ran..whatever it takes I guess. The beach was tiny and protected on both sides by huge rocky cliffs. At high tide there is no beach, but it was low tide so we were able to walk along the rocks. We hung out for a while and enjoyed the views.

I was getting nervous about the time because I didn´t want to climb down the original cliff in the dark. Luckily, Miguel has university at night so we headed back up. Getting up was easy - probably because I was freaking out about the final descent. I had no idea how I was going to get down without breaking my neck. Turns out that Miguel basically had to climb before me and put my feet in place and hold them as I climbed down. Once again I tried not to look down. I obviously survived because I am writing this :) but I could not have been happier to get my feet back on the beach. I was filthy and sweaty and I have a picture of that too. But I was happy to have had an adventure with Miguel - hopefully he´ll take me on more since I survived. Of course to him I´m not sure it was such a big adventure. He kindly informed me that there is a much more difficult path and the one we took women of 40 and 50 years do :)

This is really my first whole weekend at the house and the guys I work with told me there is a dance in the outdoor bar near where we work so I´m hoping to get Anna-Lee and maybe some of the family to come with me tomorrow night for some dancing. I´ll keep you posted...