Our AirBnB hostess was kind enough to stock our kitchen with the basics for our first breakfast. Coffee, milk, juice, bread, and eggs. It was a huge relief last night to land and know that we didn’t need to rush out to the grocery store.
This morning we got up long past the chickens. We had our coffee and made a leisurely breakfast. We have a few things on the agenda, namely local EC currency and a grocery store run.
Honestly, I have no idea what we filled our morning with, but we left our house at 10:40. First stop was the ATM. It was easy to find and dispensed cash with no trouble, so I was pleased.
Next stop was the grocery store. There’s one right across the street from the ATM, but being Sunday, that one was closed. A little bit farther towards the beach was another grocery store, and I can confirm that while people should be in church on Sunday was, in fact, the busiest time to shop.
Not sure how long we spent at the grocery store, but at noon, we were leaving the grocery store with everything but eggs and jam. It was a big store too, but eggs were no where to be found. Nathan even asked somebody. Not sure if there’s a story there or not, but we left, knowing that 5 minutes from our place was a rather tiny convenience store that sold both eggs and the jam we wanted.
On the walk home, we passed a roadside stand selling food. Not a food truck, but more or less a few tables set up under a tent with metal serving dishes holding food. We stopped to talk with them, and walked home with lunch. Local juice, fried fish, provision, macaroni bake, and coconut bread. They serve lambi (conch) on Fridays, so we’ll be back.
By 12:40, we made it home with all of our groceries and the impromptu lunch we picked up. We put away the groceries, ate our lunch, and went back out in the other direction to pick up the eggs and jam.
Once that was finally done and put away, we were ready to head to the beach. We packed our beach backpacks, and walked roughly 30 minutes to Grooms Beach.
And what a disappointment that was! Its been sunny and hot, I have still not showered, or quite frankly, put on deodorant, since Friday morning. All we wanted to do was take a dip in the water. We trundled down the road under the hot, blazing sun to find a beautiful, isolated beach, with waves far larger and more turbulent than I dared to go into. Damn. Its 3 pm now, and we so just wanted to get into the water and spend the rest of the day relaxing.
Our hostess had told us about another close beach, so we picked up, and walked there and still, the waves were enormous.
Feeling dejected, we walked back up to the main highway. Do we give up, go back to our place, shower and have cocktails before dinner? Or do we walk towards the popular town beach and take a chance on the local bus?
Not one to say no to an adventure, or give up on the day, we decided to try for the bus. Thankfully, taxis and buses are rather plentiful, and all you need to do is look like a tourist for them to toot their horn and attempt to pick you up. Not hard for us since we are November white with fins sticking up out of our backpacks. We caught a bus ride down to the Grand Anse beach for the whopping price of 7 EC, or $2.50.
I think we missed giving the local signal to the bus driver to get off, because sort of as an afterthought, he pulled over in the road, let us off, and pointed us to the beach. Nathan paid the man, and off we went. So easy. More bus rides will be in our future.
We dropped our bags immediately, and I went into the water. The beach is huge, with lots of people out and about, and the waves are just right.
By the time we got to the beach, it was basically 4 PM. We spent the next hour soaking the multi day sweat and grime off, but to be fair, Nathan showered this morning, and I had not. Not sure why, but my personal hygiene takes a nose dive during these tropical vacations. If I’m getting in the ocean or sea at some point during the day, and usually we are doing morning dives, it makes no sense to get all put together to just to get in the water and undo it all. So there you have it.
By 5 PM it was starting to get dark, so we walked down to the far end of the beach to scope out the dive shop, and head home. We were hoping to catch a bus, but we were not successful. There might be a trick to being able to catch a bus back towards home that we need to figure out. The sidewalk favors the ‘going into town’ direction.
Once we got onto the busy main road, I just happened to look across the street at a shipping container food court. We could either get take away, or we could sit and eat quick before heading home. Still in our beach attire, and me unshowered for days, we ate at Little Havana, had Cuban food, mojitos and Cuba Libre. This modest food court food stall will be hard to beat – Nathan says it rivals the home cooking of the Czech Republic.
After dinner, we walked home, and I showered before bed. At last.