A perfect weekend day today, quite delightful. We left earlier in the morning than usual, since it is Saturday and market day, and as usual kept an eye out for the sloth that lives in a cluster of trees halfway between our shack and the main road. The GF spotted it at once, it was slowly, busily making its way along a branch until it found a spot of sun (it had been a rainy nice) and started slowly but vigorously grooming itself, hanging by one limb to use the other three. After about ten minutes of this, it went on the move again, clearly trying to take a shortcut to the next tree without having to come onto the ground. Slowly, methodically but without pause, it went to the end of one branch, found to way to get across, went back to the last fork, tried the next branch, failed, and repeated this several times. At one point it seemed to get tired and stopped and hung by one arm to, well, groom itself I suppose, as one shouldn’t anthropomorphise.
We walked on, along the sea. It was a perfect sunny day and the black and gold sand glittered, with shadowy curved outlines traced and overlapped by the waves like Chinese water colours of distant hills.
The market was as bountiful as last weekend, and we have returned with a vast haul. We went to Cafe Rico, which had reopened after the owners had returned from a week away, for brunch in their garden where we saw a really immense iguana with a very noble and colourful face, as well as several orange dart frogs. There was a loud rustling and tumult in the treetop, then a much svelter green iguana appeared, clearly chased away by the bigger on. The green iguana scurried onto the telephone wire and found itself in trouble, but eventually slithered across, slipping and sliding, while the big iguana watched balefully to make sure it had gone.
After an excellent brunch we returned to the shack from where our surf instructor collected us. We returned to Playa Cocles which was busy but in a very low key and pleasant way, lots of relaxed people, surfers, beach volleyball, etc. I managed a few attempts before my arm gave way while the GF continued with his more advanced lessons and I watched from the sand. The waves were much bigger, but his final attempt was excellent as he caught the wave and glided to the shore. Other, more expert surfers and bodyboarders, bounced around joyously like arctic terns.
Instead of getting dropped back to our shack we elected to stay for an early dinner at the jerk stall on the beach and I had my first ever proper Caribbean jerk chicken, here served with rice and beans and an unidentified vegetable. Very tasty indeed, and quite idyllic to sit in a little rasta shack, eating our lunch overlooking the sea and with some excellent reggae playing around us. It suddenly occurred to me, our young surf instructor is absurdly good looking, so it really did feel a cliched beach day.
After this we walked back to Puerto Viejo via the beach path, which goes through the remnants of jungle along the beach, with beautiful views of the rocky island remnant off Playa Cocles, and then corally little coves. I stepped in some mud here, more than ankle deep, but fortunately was wearing my hiking sandles and could wash them off in the next cove. The trees were not very dense here but were very tall, with ropy vines and green light filtering through. At one point an agouti crossed the path ahead of us, looking very red indeed against the green.
In Puerto Viejo we went to Bread and Chocolate and collected some dessert for later – a coconut cream pie and a chocolate cake, and then returned along the black beach to our shack. I could certainly get used to this lifestyle.