Meat Market, Ramadas and High Tides

I'm finding it difficult to fill blog posts, and with the heat wave that has been upon us (summer) we have been finding it hard to get motivated. Where the weather isn't all that different from what we have lived in before (82-88F), we don't have AC in our little beach house, and we've noticed the difference. I also noticed that the sun has been situated in a different point in the sky, and our little bit of shade on the side has been even smaller.  We tied a bed sheet up one day for shade, and that worked, now we bought a tarp and have a bigger section of shade, so our shell area is ready for some crafts, but today I'll share some old pictures.

Charapoto Meat Market

I mentioned not long ago the Meat section of the market, well the other Sunday we went with a neighbor who shops there regularly and we got a tour. She knew right where the pork was, vs the beef, and we got quite an experience. We didn't buy anything here, I wouldn't know what to ask for, but I did find beautiful ground beef in town at the Mini Mart, so lean and pretty, probably 3-4% grasa (fat) found bacon at the same time and we had bacon cheeseburgers...slice of heaven from the States.

Ramadas

These are privately built shade structures, or Ramadas. The families who built them keep them up and use them during the day for shade while fixing fishing nets, or to wait for the fishermen. On the weekends the wood structures are used as kitchens, and the women sell empanadas or ceviche out of them. These caught my eye when they got fresh new paint for Carnavale, some of the people who live across the street from them don't like them, they'd rather have unobstructed views, but I kinda like them. Every couple of years, the city, or province will send crews in to tear them all down, especially if they've been neglected, but I'd say these are in good shape and staying awhile.

High Tide

Mike finds this tide chart, and posts it on the Resident Facebook page every week, it's a very nice way to quickly glance and know what time the daily walk will be. This week it's been with morning coffee, last week it was with Happy hour and sunset. There have been some rumblings about the high tide, and just how high they are supposed to be this weekend, from the chart I can see that the high tide will be higher than sea level by 2.6 meters (slightly over 8ft). Now that's not wave height, we aren't calling for big waves, that's just water lapping on the shore coming up the beach 8ft more than usual. The fishermen have moved their boats to higher ground, but no one has given us any warnings, and yesterday we fared just fine, so we are not worried.

This is our friend Keith and Beckys house, two years ago when there was an extremely high tide. Usually they park their car in here, and let fishermen use the shade for fixing nets, on this day it was a piscina (swimming pool).

And this is when they not only had high tides, but big waves, 12 foot tall this wave, glad I don't live this close to the ocean! Half the day, everyday this house is over the water, only at low tide is there any beach in front of this house. The fishermen jokingly tell Keith they will install two outboard motors if he doesn't feel safe...everyone here is living their own adventure!

High tides or not, it's another beautiful day on the coast of Ecuador, today will be shell sorting and crafting under our new shade, and probably Happy hour and sunset with friends. Life does NOT suck, so stay tuned...our adventure continues!