Travels with Hayley

So today started with a solo walk through town at about 6.45 which was lovely and quiet. Everyone else on the tour was planning to head to a restaurant for breakfast but time can’t be wasted sitting in restaurants when there is exploring to be done! So I grabbed a piece of banana bread from the bakery, a coke and then persuaded a lady opening up a smoothie stall for the day to sell me some sliced pineapple and I went and sat on a log on the beach, looking out over the Caribbean Sea. It was wonderful and I even had a little paddle in the sea! You aren’t supposed to swim in it as the currents are too strong but I can say I’ve been ‘in’ the Caribbean sea now 😜

Then I met the others at 8am for our canoe trip. The canoes were great, proper seats (with backs!) and I managed to snag the very front seat so the view was amazing. The scenery is just incredible, it’s so vast and green and lush — it’s almost too perfect, you sometimes feel like it’s a Disney ride or something, how can something look so amazing. For those who have watched Encanto, where the little cousin gets his gift and his room turns into the rainforest – it felt like that 😂 I’ve attached a 30 sec video at the end of part of the ride, just to give you an idea.

We didn’t seem tons of wildlife but there were some beautiful birds, butterflies, some iguanas and basilisks which are like bright green crested lizards. We also heard howler monkeys which are incredibly loud and quite intimidating – it was just the coolest thing. The weather swung from bright sunshine to torrential rain so that poncho paid for itself ten times over!

Once we got back I went back to the hotel and had a lovely swim and chatted for ages with a Canadian guy that was travelling on his own (not part of our group). He was in his seventies and had lived in London for a year in his early twenties so he had loads of great stories to tell – he even tracked me down in town later to give me his card if I ever wanted any help organising a trip in Canada 😂

I then went for a quick wander through town for water and it wasn’t until I was halfway in that I realised I only had my bikini and a shirt on – so I was basically walking through town in my pants! Everyone was very friendly funnily enough 😂😂 There was a huge party going on in the kids playground, they were having a ball but the music was hilarious, lots of reggae – some of the lyrics I caught were ‘we don’t need no government, ban the capitalists!’ Viva la revolution eh! 😂

I had a really long chat with the lady that runs the hotel, Miss Dorling (Dorling is her first name, I think the Miss is a respectful thing) who has lived in the area her whole life. She was lovely. She told me Yeran and Bastion, the kids from the pool (turns out Bastion is a boy actually, not a girl – she said they realised I thought he was a girl but ‘he has long hair, it’s a easy mistake to make don’t worry’ 😂) had told her all about the lady that gave them ice cream and plantain chips 😂 Then I told her her all about the ice cream seller kidnap drama – she told me there’s a big child snatching trade in CR for foreign adoptions and organ harvesting 😳 But she also said – imagine a very dismissive shrug here ‘uh, those people in town just like to gossip’ 😂

There’s also a bakery in town called Dorlings – turns out it’s another woman called Dorling who moved here from Nicuragua (imagine slight lip sneer from Miss Dorling here) – before that she thought she was the only person in the world to have that name, her grandma had read it in a book. I wondered out loud if maybe Dorling 2’s grandma had read the same book?! This was dismissed immediately and completely out of hand…😂

We talked a bit about the local church and she asked me where I went to church – I explained I didn’t and that part of my family was Jewish. She got super excited about that as apparently she loves Jewish food! I was slightly mystified by this (salt beef bagel anyone, gefilte fish…?) but suddenly realised what she meant was Middle Eastern food! She extolled the virtues of hummous and tabbuleh at length, you can’t buy it in CR anywhere but you can get most of the ingredients so she’s taught herself to make it. Such a lovely lady.

As an aside, forgot to tell you from the day before. The hotel is called Miss Junie’s – Dorling is Miss Junie’s daughter. Yesterday I went to the reception to ask for a hairdryer – there was no one there so I knocked on the door at the back which leads into their front room. An old, stooped lady was sitting on the sofa. I ‘hola’d’ and don’t get much response so I went in a parody of needing a hairdryer with wild gestures, grovelling that I didn’t speak Spanish etc. She let me carry on genuflecting for at least 30 seconds before declaring in perfect English ‘so you want a hairdryer then’ 😂 The shame. She knew exactly what she was doing, we had a nice chat afterwards 😂

Then Kristie, Kirsty and I went for a walk through the rainforest. At the start of the trail is a big sigh telling you what to do if you see a jaguar – so we had high hopes for the excitement levels! Sadly it transpires we are truly dreadful animal spotters as the best we did was spot a bird in flight and a million ants. Other people had gone in that day and spotted monkeys and all sorts so I think I was robbed!

But animal spotting was saved a a lovely local pointed out a sloth above our heads! We watched him for ages. Kirsty named him Patrick – we went back to try and visit him again later but he had gone 😣 Hasta luego Patrick! (See you later, Patrick! I think…I hope so otherwise lord knows what I’ve been cheerfully saying to the locals for days 😂)

Got back and ready for dinner which we went out for as a big group. We walked past the kids playground and the party was still absolutley buzzing! Kristie and I shared cerviche (delicious!) prawns in a creamyish sauce with pineapple rice – not bad, a bowl with rice, beans, salad, pork bits, avocado and tortilla chips – nice and fresh but I mainly just ate the salad, and patacones which are liked smashed pieces of plantain deep fried. They are nice enough and quite traditional but I like the classic plantains much more, these ones can be a bit dry.

After dinner I went straight back to the hotel as I was feeling a bit faded – I’d caught the sun on my shoulders on the boat as I’d sweated off my lotion under the poncho earlier on plus it had been a bit too hot to eat all day so I wasn’t 100% – I went back and read a bit in the hammock (sad news, looks like my kindle has died a death, thank goodness I have my books on my phone too!) and was in bed by 9. Slept really well and feel back to my bouncy self this morning, with covered up shoulders and heavier duty sun cream from the supermarket 😂

Hope you’re all well and next update as soon as possible. Feel free to ignore if they are too long or boring though 😂

Lots of love xxx