Mornings are pretty relaxed at El Encanto. Everybody is up pretty early in the morning because without television nobody stayed up too late the night before. And early mornings allow some time for getting to know each other. Here Christian and Giles chat while young Miles attentively observes.
Jim’s breakfasts are wonderful. And he always has some hardboiled eggs and a couple other things to eat out before he formally starts serving at 8:00. Lori appreciated that !
Lori was a new friend for this trip. She and Yvonne have known each other since junior high school. Oddly enough, she now lives only a few blocks from our old house in Long Beach. Definitely small world.
Speaking of things small, Miss Josephine make sure that we always knew where she was and what she was thinking at every moment. And when sheer volume was not enough, there was always the creative us of make up to create a presence at the table.
After breakfast, John and Sherry went off to San Blas to go shopping. Sherry wanted to cook one of the meals here and decided that given the local ingredients Shrimp Creole will be the perfect choice to bring a bit of Loo-ze-anna to Nayarit, Mexico.
Once John and Sherry came back, Jim piled us into a couple vans — Mike drove one — and we went off to the “secret beach.” It’s not a secret, of course, but it is far enough off the main road that we had it to ourselves even during this busiest beach week of the year. As you can see, it is a beautiful swath of golden sand.
Everybody wanted to get their feet wet as soon as we arrive.
John, always thinking about other people instead of himself, helped Jim to put up a big parachute for a beach palapa.
After everybody had been in swimming, we had a delicious lunch of ceviche on a huge avocado half.
Miles particularly enjoyed his meal. He is such a fantastic baby.
The waves were not the best for surfing, but Natasha brought her board along anyhow.
Weirdly enough, even though nobody else was on the beach, all of a sudden this pink car came driving down the sand … selling ice cream. Rats! The one time John did not have a single peso on him.
But after a few blissful hours it was time to pack up and go. Josephine hitched a ride.
But the rest of us just trudged sadly away from the lovely spot, wishing we could spend a few more hours there.
Later, after dinner, John and some of the ladies went into town to check out a local festival.
Tomorrow many of our party will leave to return to the United States. What a great time it has been!
