Charapoto 480 years young

Back several weeks ago our go to guy in San Jacinto, Jeffrey (Heffrey) the owner of the ferreteria (hardware store) told us of a festival in Charapoto. He wanted us to go with him, he had told us what day, but we had forgotten. We had planned to go to Charapoto with Jim and Marty to the Sunday market, and as we were sitting in the square waiting for the guys, we saw Jeffrey, he told us he was going to the festival and were we still going to go? Just then the guys showed up, and Marty speaks the best spanish, found out there was no mercado today, because the foods of Manabi festival was going on, but they would go to the festival instead. The buses were incredibly full, so we all jumped in a $5 taxi and took off. Even with limited spanish, we had a fun time with Jeffrey, he went around to all the booths finding us the most authentic things to try. We tried something that tasted like pumpkin spice soup, a fermented drink of some kind, very salty cheese and the gelatinous bread pudding dessert thing we've had once before. 

We saw the parade it was the same parade we'd seen before, the cheerleaders and marching bands being the bulk of it, so no pictures, except Jeffrey insisted we get my picture with this cowboy, so glad he smiled...we continued to walk the booths, and finally left the crowd to find a quieter place for lunch. After lunch we walked a little more, but Charapoto is only about 4 x 6 blocks, so we had really seen it all, and were ready to get back to the beach. Said adios to Jeffrey and looked for a bus. Here's some pictures from one of our local gringos, John and Mary MacDonald taken of Charapoto.

This is what the Sunday mercado usually looks like. The festival wasn't much different, but there were kitchens set up instead of vendors.

The gastric festival is a big deal, the Ecuadoreans really like their food, and like to share. But this banner says the festival was really to celebrate 480 years since being founded, wow, that's a long time. A good time was had by all.

We are really enjoying our new friends Jim and Marty, we had Saturday brunch at their house, and plan to do Charapoto market proxima semana (next week). Marty is still working, (from home) so while he gets in the swing of things, we're keeping our outings to the weekend, Jim is busy too, they have two guest suites downstairs that he is painting and getting set up for rentals. I have a girls day out planned tomorrow with Lyndell, we'll go to the big fabric store in PortoViejo and do some other shopping. It'll be nice to catch up, and have some girl time.

Bad news on the container, it seems that it has been declared total abandon, which means they could sell the contents "at any time"...we need a lawyer, and one of our local gringas gave me her attorneys email last night to touch base with (no charge), so I better get busy. Hope is not lost, but as I look at the picture above, it brings me back to things are just things, and everything that is REALLY important to me, Mike and the pups, are here safe and sound with me...will keep you posted, but I'm not holding my breath. 

Today is rainy, the first rainy day we've had since arriving in June, but, the powers on, and we have a comfy couch, we're fine. That's all for today, stay tuned, the adventure continues...tomorrow with girls loose in Portoviejo! Watch out!