It was nice to wake up in “our house.” Even if none of our stuff is here and it is all loaner furniture. I really cannot wait for all our household goods to arrive, I’m dying to set up me new furniture! I’m also dying to get internet at the house…we arranged for service to be set up, and I believe the text I received from the company said that on the 26th between 3-5 they would be coming to install it. The text was all in Portuguese, so that is what I think it said. My Portuguese is seriously lacking, it sounds like a combination of Spanish, Italian and Russian to me, it’s very confusing. Their written words have a ton of letters but only one or two seem to actually be pronounced or enunciated. I thought being fluent in Spanish would give me an edge, clearly not!
After our cinnamon rolls we cleaned up and headed for another drive. Yesterday we covered about 1/3 of the island and today we went the other direction to see what we could find. The northern coast of the island is much more rural and less populated than the eastern and southern sides. There is the occasional pretty house, but most of the houses are very old and weathered. It’s a pretty poor place and the more we drive around the more you feel as though you are visiting a third world country. Today we walked out to a point at the far end of the island and discovered a family’s home. It was nothing more than some tarps in a makeshift cave of rocks and trees protecting them from the elements. There was a man, a woman and two or three kids. We nodded and waved as we walked by and I didn’t want to stare long enough to count the children. They were sitting around a fire and eating lunch. There was only an old worn out bicycle propped up against a nearby rock, and it’s a long way into town. The back road we were driving on was simply rocks, busted old tile, and trash with asphalt poured on top and smoothed down. Here you can see under the road to see what it is made of:
The flowers however, are amazing. There are hydrangea bushes ALL OVER the place, they grow wild and everywhere. There are also a lot of calla lilies growing and a couple other types of flowers I do not know the names of yet. We drove on the Via Rapida, which is the only highway on the island and it runs for maybe 10 miles, tops. The speed limit on it is 100 kmh, which is about 55 mph, LOL Very different from our German autobahn experience.
Today while driving we stumbled through an old town and on the steps of the church there were many people dressed up. Being Sunday and all we didn’t think too much of it. Up the hill and just around the curve we hit the brakes to slow down as we passed a parade of people all in traditional dress walking down the road towards the church. My guess is a wedding and I am so mad I didn’t have my camera out and ready to snap a picture. The dresses were very pretty and there was a man in old clothes carrying a yoke with wooden pails on the end. I hope we get to see another one in our time on the island, I want pictures! We also passed an old man, riding sideways on the back of a donkey up the road and strapped to the donkey was an old, metal milk can. We’ve seen several of those metal milk cans around here, in the backs of trucks, being delivered and such. It the States it’s an antique and here they use it on a daily basis. I’m so sorry I did not get to snap a picture of him riding the donkey, by the time I had the camera out we were right up on him with the car and I didn’t want to embarrass or offend him taking his picture.
We found a few scenic pullouts and then stopped at a beach to do some walking. There are not really any sandy beaches here, and if there are they are manmade. The ends of the island are pretty jagged and tall and drop off as cliffs into the ocean. The beach we discovered today you went down several stairs to some cemented areas that serve as sitting room. There is a network of stairs and rocks that create tide pools and places to get wet and play on the rocks.
The weather was lousy today so the beach was empty and we pretty much had it all to ourselves to explore. Colin had a blast throwing stones in the water and picking snails off the rocks to throw in the water and feed the fish we could see in the tide pools. We saw crabs, shrimp, barnacle snails and lots of fish, I can only imagine all you’d see on a good sunny day with plenty of light to see down deeper.
On the way home we had to stop for a herd of cows coming down the road. There was a man at the back of the pack herding them along and the cows were just trudging along right down the middle of the road. It was a main road too! We had to laugh at the cars trying to weave through the cows to get by.
I did manage to get pictures this time, woohoo! We made it back to base and stopped by the post office, Saturday is the big mail day when the plane comes in from the US to deliver our mail. Of course we cannot pick anything up on a Sunday, but we did have four package notices in our box, score! Guess we’ll be going to the post office tomorrow and anything that didn’t come in these packages we’ll have to wait until next Sunday/Monday for! LOL
The flowers however, are amazing. There are hydrangea bushes ALL OVER the place, they grow wild and everywhere. There are also a lot of calla lilies growing and a couple other types of flowers I do not know the names of yet. We drove on the Via Rapida, which is the only highway on the island and it runs for maybe 10 miles, tops. The speed limit on it is 100 kmh, which is about 55 mph, LOL Very different from our German autobahn experience.
Today while driving we stumbled through an old town and on the steps of the church there were many people dressed up. Being Sunday and all we didn’t think too much of it. Up the hill and just around the curve we hit the brakes to slow down as we passed a parade of people all in traditional dress walking down the road towards the church. My guess is a wedding and I am so mad I didn’t have my camera out and ready to snap a picture. The dresses were very pretty and there was a man in old clothes carrying a yoke with wooden pails on the end. I hope we get to see another one in our time on the island, I want pictures! We also passed an old man, riding sideways on the back of a donkey up the road and strapped to the donkey was an old, metal milk can. We’ve seen several of those metal milk cans around here, in the backs of trucks, being delivered and such. It the States it’s an antique and here they use it on a daily basis. I’m so sorry I did not get to snap a picture of him riding the donkey, by the time I had the camera out we were right up on him with the car and I didn’t want to embarrass or offend him taking his picture.
We found a few scenic pullouts and then stopped at a beach to do some walking. There are not really any sandy beaches here, and if there are they are manmade. The ends of the island are pretty jagged and tall and drop off as cliffs into the ocean. The beach we discovered today you went down several stairs to some cemented areas that serve as sitting room. There is a network of stairs and rocks that create tide pools and places to get wet and play on the rocks.
The weather was lousy today so the beach was empty and we pretty much had it all to ourselves to explore. Colin had a blast throwing stones in the water and picking snails off the rocks to throw in the water and feed the fish we could see in the tide pools. We saw crabs, shrimp, barnacle snails and lots of fish, I can only imagine all you’d see on a good sunny day with plenty of light to see down deeper.
On the way home we had to stop for a herd of cows coming down the road. There was a man at the back of the pack herding them along and the cows were just trudging along right down the middle of the road. It was a main road too! We had to laugh at the cars trying to weave through the cows to get by.
I did manage to get pictures this time, woohoo! We made it back to base and stopped by the post office, Saturday is the big mail day when the plane comes in from the US to deliver our mail. Of course we cannot pick anything up on a Sunday, but we did have four package notices in our box, score! Guess we’ll be going to the post office tomorrow and anything that didn’t come in these packages we’ll have to wait until next Sunday/Monday for! LOL
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