December 2, 2016
We had no plans for today. Our intention was to sit in front of our place, read in our hammocks, and get up every once in a while to eat or swim or don more sunscreen. We got up lateish, with power on, and readied ourselves for breakfast. We really enjoyed our french toast from yesterday, but there is a French-owned creperie that had superb reviews so we were going to give it a shot. In typical French fashion, it was not open when we arrived. Not sure how France became an industrialized nation, what with everything closed all the time, but that is commentary from a previous trip.
Being after 8, we said au revoir, and hit Hotel Pacifico for the french toast again. Being a good wife and all, I suggested to Nathan that I was fine relaxing all day as we had planned, but maybe we should check in at one tour agency (or two, but not to force it if it doesn’t work out easily) to see if they will take us on a 1/2 day snorkel trip. We checked in with Johnny, our guide from the other day, and he was more than happy to suggest either the Isla Salango tour (with others) or we could hire a boat just for us to take us to the same place. Being our last day, we felt like splurging and doing the rich, American thing, at budget prices.
So Johnny walked us and a huge group headed for Isla de la Plata down to the wharf. Our boat was Rosita, our captain was Alex and the sailor was Fabian, brothers to each other and cousins to Johnny.
Originally, we sat down below but Fabian had us sit on the front of the boat for our picturesque ride to Isla Salango.
They were good, tourist-oriented fellows, and Alex would slow down for us to take pictures and Fabian told us the names of the rocks. One seriously looked like King Kong, and that was its name.
We snorkeled at one location off the island where we both got stung by jellies – another first for us! Fabian got stung pretty badly, so I didn’t feel like a super huge gaper. If he couldn’t avoid it, how could we? The fish were pretty amazing. We saw blue and yellow pufferfish, a huge lobster, large schools of fish, blue starfish, and lots more. I got stung first, so I was the first out of the water. Nathan was in and out of the water for snacks before he was stung. We said adios to that spot right as the ginormous tour group arrived. Fabian suggested we go to another spot, so we did. This one was choppier, but no jellies! More, different and larger fish were seen here. Eventually, we got back into the boat and they drove us to a little playa on Isla Salango. We frolicked in the water and on the beach for a bit before we had the brothers take us back to town.
By now it was 1:30, so we stopped at a locals fish shack for lunch. A whole corvina frito, arroz y patacones for each and a grande local Pilsner for $11.50.
We caught a tuk tuk, our 5th!, back to the hotel and our hammocks, where we spent the rest of the afternoon.
We finished off the day with a snack at the local chocolate shop and dinner at our hotel. Now to pack and get ready for our long journey home.
