The beach, Cubans, and Mulan

Sky and beach at Playa Hermosa

What a perfect last day in Playa del Coco. I woke up nice and early and went shopping around the town to get a few gifts with Brandon. We had planned to shop for a little bit, come back to the hotel to meet up with everyone, and then all go to a different beach that was farther away... but when Brandon and I got back from shopping, there was NOBODY at our hotel besides Dr. Brannstrom. Thankfully all of our friends thought ahead and told him to tell us that they went to Playa Hermosa... a beach that is about 10 minutes down the road. Brandon and I caught a taxi and thankfully were able to find them in Hermosa. I have no clue how we met up with them, but we did! We spent a few hours on that beach and it wasn't too too different than the others. Definitely not as pretty as the beach we went to yesterday (Ocotal... or something like that) but still fun. Except there were tons of little jelly fish that kept stinging all of us! We all felt like we were getting bit by little ants because we all had parts of our body that were stinging. Everyone thought that it was just our mosquito bites that were burning, but Eric got one stuck inside his swimsuit, and after we saw the sting mark that it left on his leg, we figured out that we were getting attacked by stupid jelly fish. The sun tried to poke out today, but we didn't have much luck. It started to pour down rain right when we left the beach, and basically hasn't stopped raining at all until just now (at 1 in the morning).



Sarah and I on top of rocks at Ocotal



When we got back from the beach, we just hung out in our hotel rooms and did a little bit of homework... and I got to skype with Borg!!!!! :) That made my day. I walked around the shops some more because I got tired of sitting in my room. I'm sure the people working thought that I was crazy because I walked into all of the shops about 3 times each. Then the confusion began... there is one restaurant here that had a buffet on Wednesday night for pizza. The sign outside doesn't specify that it is only on Wednesday, so we tried to get everyone to go there tonight. Just to make sure that there was a buffet today, we made sure to ask someone this morning and they told us that yes, there was a buffet there tonight. So we all roll up to the restaurant for our pizza buffet... and they tell us there is no buffet! We were so mad. I ended up leaving the restaurant all together and eating somewhere else. The USA vs Mexico soccer game was on so a few of us stayed at the other restaurant/bar and watched the game... even though we lost.



Yesterday, Ocotal

But this is when my favorite part of the day happened. Once we got back from dinner/watching the game, Jessica, Sarah, Eric, and I went up to Sarah and Jessica's room on the 2nd floor balcony to play spades. Eric and I took this as the perfect time to smoke our CUBAN CIGARS that we had bought yesterday. It was one of those things that we couldn't resist. I had never smoked a cigar before, but I knew that I probably wouldn't get too many chances to smoke a Cuban, so we both got some to cross it off our bucket lists. As we enjoyed our cigars, Eric and I lost to the girls in spades (it's ok... we played last night also and we won), but since we were playing on the covered balcony, we were able to enjoy the rain as well as listen to fun music. Afterwards, we watched Mulan to kinda just relax after a long last few days. It was the perfect night and was so much fun.

This city has easily been my favorite so far. Being so close to the beach, not having hardly any school work to do here, the nice hotel, and the chill atmosphere has made everyone enjoy this city so much more. On a more sad note, I feel like I really got to experience this city's culture these last few days. I guess it was on Thursday (when a few of us went to the hookah bar), we talked to a local who was telling us about a young boy who was attacked by a shark when he was surfing and he passed away. I had kinda forgot about that conversation until yesterday... when taking the taxi home last night from Ocotal beach, there were hundreds of people leaving their houses and walking on the street. That's when I used my Spanish to ask the taxi driver what everyone was doing and where they were going. He told me that there was a boy who had just passed away from a shark attack... obviously being the same boy that I had heard about the day before at the bar. It really got me thinking because it seemed like the entire town was leaving to go to a memorial or something like that that evening. It didn't stop there. This morning when Brandon, Eric, and I were shopping, we saw a huge parade of people walking down the main street in Coco. We stopped to see what was going on, and as they got closer, we noticed that this was the funeral procession. Hundreds of people were walking in the street. In the front were some younger boys (I'm guessing friends of the poor boy who passed away) carrying a surfboard as well as boogey-boards. Right behind them were a few men carrying the coffin of the young boy. The many other people followed them... everyone was dressed in their everyday clothes. Most of the kids were wearing their t-shirts and swim suits like they always wear. It was very sombering to see this occurring right in front of us. Of course the 3 of us all felt terrible and were very sad for the entire city, since everyone seemed to be affected. It was very cool (for lack of a better word) to see how the ENTIRE city came together for this boy and his family. The town wasn't shut down, but it might as well have been. The street was completely full, and so was the church when they finally got there. The church is right next to our hotel, so throughout the afternoon we witnessed all of the people that were there. There wasn't enough room in the large church for everyone to fit, so the street was still full then. It was such a humbling experience to witness all of this happen, and see how it all came together over the last few days. It really showed me, once again, how this country and city are all so close to each other and are basically one big family. It's something that I will never forget.

A few more random things that I keep forgetting to write about... the mosquitoes here are awful. I have sooooo many bites all over me. Some of them are huge and they won't go away. I hate it. And also, lots of places here are under pretty tight security. The convenience store right next to our hotel (the store happens to be attached to a different hotel) has a guard standing in front of the door holding a shotgun at all times. Definitely creeped us out on the first day that we were here! As tempted as I was to take a picture with him, it also scared me, so I just always walk by really fast. There is also a guard that patrols the gate into our hotel. He gets here every evening when the owner leaves, and I'm guessing that the guard stays up all night long making sure that nothing happens. I have felt like this is a safe city, but who knows. Something that I need to look more into... the other day, when Eric was going into the grocery store, a local yelled "Hey!" and then simply stuck his toungue out at Eric and made the farting-ish noise that you make with your tongue. We have no clue why he did this, but it has become a joke among all of us.

Tomorrow we are heading to our last city :( We are going to Limon, which is literally all the way across the country on the Caribbean coast. Our bus ride is probably going to take all day long. I can't believe we have less than a week left. We're just going to have to soak it all up and get no sleep! Sorry this one is so long. I actually felt like writing a lot, unlike the last few days. Pura vida!