Today was easily the best day of our trip so far. It also happens to be R's 'half' birthday.
Things started out as usual, Litte Man (Hombrecito) in quite a sweet mood, but still being a
toddler. Then he showed the signs of wanting a poo. He took Ully and his dummy and a book
and went and sat on the potty in our 'en suite', telling me he wanted some 'privacy'. I
left him to it. I came back 10 minutes later and he had been having some kind of field day
shoving toilet paper down the loo and flushing it and playing with the toilet brush (an item
I ban him from touching). Of course out here, there is a strict no paper in the toilet
policy so I baulked at the possibility that he had really screwed up the toilet. I cleaned
it and the brush and must have managed to retrieve most of the sodden paper because the loo
still worked. There was no poo but he asked for a nappy so I gave him one and before long
the nappy was full and not needed for the rest of the day.
R got into an argument with
one of the women who works at the hostel and speaks no English
about the sound a cockerel makes. He was saying it says 'cock-a-doodle-doo' which is what
we teach in the UK, but she was saying it says 'kikiriki'. To be fair to her, I have never
understood why we say cock-a-doodle-doo because every cockerel I've ever listened to says
'cock-a-doodle'. There's no 'doo'. Nobody won the argument but it went on for quite some
time.
A man comes into the hostel with a big sack of beans to sell. After some negotiation with the owners, they disappear for a moment, leaving him in my vicinity. He looks at me and I'm pretty sure he says (in Spanish) 'The heart is as deep as the sea.' I am dumbstruck. I did not expect such profundity from the bean man and I ask him if I can take his picture (which you may notice is from hammock level and was framed in my usual 0.4 seconds).
We pop out in the morning with the pushchair and it occurs to me that there is no culture of
wheels for kids here like we have at home. No pushchairs, no scooters, no little bikes.
I've seen three or four plastic cars with hard handles for pushing kids along and a few
pushchairs but that's it. I also realised why they have such pushchair unfriendly
pavements: it's because of the rainy season. With the amount it rains in even an hour, a UK
town would be underwater - whereas here, the infrastructure is much more set up for it. Not
to mention that it's so warm that water does dry up quickly.
At the hostel I did some reading and came across a blog from a friend talking about her last
year of fertility treatment and what desperate times she has been having. Then I got
chatting to Laura. the owner of the hostel who was explaining that the two young boys who
have been around a lot the last 2 days are orphans. There's no system here to take care of
them so their neighbour who has kids, has them half the week and they live here a few days
too. They are 10 and 12. THeir father is awol and their mother died of lung disease last
year.
Laura is 5 months pregnant (with a boy) so I said I would leave some of R's clothes here as
I've brought far too many and they are summer clothes that he won't still fit next summer.
She asks me if R and I would like to join them on a day at the beach. YES! Yes please.
Yes please.
An hour later, Laura, her husband, their daughter H, the two boys, R and I pile into their
car. Five minutes after that, we pick up another guy and two more kids. Then in true
Central America style we got to the beach on masse. It's a beautiful and huge beach with no
signs of civilisation - other than a handful of surfers. R is in heaven: he has 3.5 year
old H to follow around and the other kids are brilliant at looking after the little ones.
We all share food and then the day is spent playing in sand, swimming, rock pooling and
climbing a tree.
At one point, R follows H into the sea, without his yellow float jacket on. I go within 20m
or so and though it's shallow, a wave comes in and knocks him over and his head goes under.
He comes up and paddles through it. Then the same again. I'm waiting for him to panic or
look upset, but he looks at me and says 'I'm swimming'. I can see it's taking it out of him
though so even though I'm thrilled he hasn't freaked out about being in the water about his
jacket I suggest he puts it on and he doesn't argue.
R goes off up the beach with the kids to play and you guessed it - I get a swim. And it was
heaven. I swam in the clear, blue ocean past break point to where I was out of my depth
(ha!) and all I could see were pelicans at my level and a tiny yellow jacket far away in the
distance.
And I floated on my back and I swam under waves and I flipped and turned and even did some
front crawl. After I hugged Laura and thanked her for making it possible.
No one wants to read all the detail about someone's fantastic day at the beach, so I won't
go on and on and on. But I know anyone who's been reading regularly will know how much this
meant. And R flagged his wees all day.
R doesn't have a sleep so I know he'll be shattered when we get back and I handle him with
great care. We get through dinner and bedtime with minimal meltdown but I do permit bunny
and dummy a bit early.
R passes out within 5 minutes of going to bed and I go to the courtyard to write. Jordan is
still here, recovering from the weekend's excesses and there are three new guys, sitting
round the table chatting. Two are from Canada: one is a Hedge fund administrator and the
other an engineer. I ask them why they are staying in a hostel and they say it's because
you meet by far the best people and have the best time. Hotels are boring and stuffy. They
are 31 mind you. The third guy is an Austrian taxi driver and coke fiend. He is super proud
of being Austrian, says they are the most twisted nation in the world and reminds us all
that Hitler was not German, he was Austrian.
It's nice to swap stories and engage in banter a bit. They ask me my 'story' and I say how
far back do you want to go? They say, just a few months. So I say, in that case, I'm
travelling for a month with my son who's 2. I'm reluctant to label myself just as a 'mum'
but so it is and so it goes.
They thankfully don't ask me what it's like travelling with a kid, but they do find out that
he wakes every mornign at 6am. They say with incredulity: so you wake up at 6 too? Yes.
Goodnight boys.