It's a hard life

Looking at the calendar this morning, I'm reminded that it's been a couple days since I last posted. So I replay the weekend in my mind, and checked my phone for pictures and realize it was pretty boring. The tide is such that it's at its lowest at the heat of the day, so we didn't go for any lengthy walks, but we did sit out and work with shells.

Our new friend, Jose brings us these big shells and has brought us a couple sea horses too. Mike is planning driftwood wall plaques with the sea horses, and he drilled holes in this big shell to hang strands from, turned out nicely. One day Jose asked for a $1, the next day he didn't, but then yesterday when he brought us three big shells I said, "uno momento" but he said no, we were amigos, (that means no money needed.) His job is to sort thru the nets after the fishermen get back to shore, and so he finds the good stuff, and knows we like that sort of thing. We showed him some of the stuff we are working on and he liked it all very much.

Getting a trip planned into PV to do some groceries and get our Astro turf, so little we really need in the big city. We've been going to the Friday fruit truck in town, and there are plenty of veggies at the tiendas to get us thru the week. My Sunday market buddy got home last night from a business trip to the States, and maybe brought me some goodies. Hard to find stuff, like Dill weed was on the list this time. But a guilty pleasure, Nutella is cheaper at the Supermaxi, than at Walmart, go figure. Anyway, may have an adventure going into the big city...

Another shell project I finished this weekend...

We've been painting these mussel (?) shells in rainbow for a week, and after I got one string strung, realized both sides really needed to be painted. I didn't want to unstring what I'd done, nor did I really want to go back and paint them all again, since I only have 5 colors of paint, and everything else is mixed by hand...so I kept going and strung a couple more, when they are blowing in the wind and hung very close, you don't notice so much that only one side is painted, but since I have nothing but time, I'll paint the rest and do my original project another time.

I think we need to make this sign for our house. Things can be a little frustrating, like if you're planning something and the power goes out, or you have a ride scheduled, and they flake, but the weather's great and time rolls by easily. We take time out for the sunset and enjoy the little things, life is good. Hope you are all taking time to enjoy the little things, life in the BIG world can be so busy, but it only takes a moment to stop and notice something. Thanks for spending time with us here on our adventure, it's going to continue, you can bet on that! Stay tuned!

Hodge Podge

This post will  be a compilation of things from the past few weeks, cleaning out the camera roll and some last tidbits of info.

We saw another Christmas tree in Charapoto while at the weekend market, looks like in the past they've done the string of plastic bottles, but this year did something different on the tree form. It's Astro Turf, they call is cesped (cess-pay, the d is silent) we've just ordered some for our courtyard space, our friends at the Boca have it and it's lovely.

Charapoto is a very nice little town, I've said before it's about 4 blocks by approx 6blocks and a good outlet for items one can't get here in the "village". It's approx 5 miles from here, and a quick trip on the bus, usually .40 cents.

I don't even remember the circumstances of this picture, (it was taken way back on the 11th of December) and so much has happened since then, but I do love the juxtaposition of the old world and the new. If I'm seeing this correctly, the burro is tied to the four wheeler, yes?! Love it, certainly know I'm not in The States anymore...

Another shell project completed, this one is more of a wind chime than wall hanging, the shells clink against the bottles and make a nice sound, I'm thinking of adding a couple more bottles so it makes a bit more noise. The fishermen like our crafty side and brought us a present yesterday, Mike has an idea of something to do with our new treasures from the sea...

They shrank a little in the drying process, but very cool none the less. Looking forward to what else the pescadaro's bring us. We've got a standing order for a pound of fresh fish fillets on Tuesdays for $5, we used to pay $6, and I swear this pound is double the size what we used to get. 

Here's a funny one taken at dinner one night. Notice how the three cars are all parked different, the black one is parked diagonally, the next one is parallel parked and then Gino the bread man's truck... That's Ecuador for ya! No Rules!

Our new water pump leaked, and we've been rationing water the past couple days hoping the city would refill, but they are off schedule because of the holiday and it didn't fill last night, so we're calling on a water truck, it'll cost us $15 but worth it. Also waiting on a carpenter, need to have a fence built to keep the street dogs out of the courtyard, wanting an outdoor table to do our crafts on, and maybe some sort of shade structure. The hiccups here are getting smaller, and the new house is still great, we've survived the first 6 months, and they say they are the hardest...no kidding, but it does look like it's smooth sailing ahead. So Stay tuned, the adventure continues!