Travels with Anita: Sunday Muddy Sunday

Sunday, February 28th 2016 Canoa
Life in Canoa is about the same. I've decided to give up surfing. I was getting a little better each time out but my back was getting a little worse. It's not the riding in, it's the paddling out. You have to lay on your front with your back and neck arched. Not a great position if you've got a bit of mileage on your back like me. Oh well.
Last night we had dinner at the Surf Shak, an expat bar on the malecon that sells burgers and pizzas. We sat with a young Scandinavian couple. The woman had stepped on a stingray in the ocean that afternoon. It stung her ankle and she said it felt 100x worse than the worst wasp sting you've ever had. She went to a little clinic here, had the wound treated and got a cortisone shot. After an hour the pain subsided. It took the doctor 3 tries to hit a vein with the needle so she was bruised from that too. Not sure how dull the needle was but hopefully it was new at least. The key to co-existing with stingrays is to glide your feet when you walk in the ocean, not to lift high and step down. That gives the stingrays time to know you're there and get out of the way.

About every 3rd night, we eat at Cevicheria Saboreame #2 on the beach. It's not fancy but the food is great and cheap. Occasionally, you have to kick a dog off a chair but they always go quietly.

It seems that every building in Canoa has an in-ground cistern for household water. There are a number of trucks that deliver water. This one, made from an old bus, is delivering to our house. All drinking water is delivered by pickup trucks which drive up and down the roads beeping the horn. When you hear the horn, you run out with an empty 20 litre jug and, for one dollar, trade it for a full jug. It's sort of like the way we trade in empty propane tanks for our barbecues, except it's delivered. We bought a full jug at first for $7, when I think I should have paid $6 but at least then we had a jug to trade.