7 Days of Playa Marsella in Two Posts! Part I July 8, 2012
I'm going to combine an entire week of our stay at the beach in Playa Marsella, Nicaragua into 2 posts. There are a few reasons for this. 1) I'm WAY behind on posts and 2) We didn't really do much at the beach, intending the week to be a relaxing, non-active week on our butts (mission accomplished).
So, why am I behind on my blog? I had a leisurely week at the beach during which time I could have written like mad. Well, I was lazy. Nothing creative. No adventures to keep me too busy to write. Just laziness. Every time I'd think to write, I'd pull up Facebook or the Internet instead. Or read. And since we were so lazy, there were really no good adventures to write about.
BUT...there's always something nutty in our world, so there were some things I think I can creatively described that happened during the week!
We arrived Playa Marsella on the southwest coast of Nicaragua after a 1.25 hour cab ride from Granada. The property manager for the house we were to rent met us and drove us the 20 minutes out to the beach where the property actually is. And what was the first thing I noticed:
Green pool.
`What the heck? Did I miss something when searching for places on the Internet? Did I have the color incorrectly adjusted on my monitor? I mean, the pools LOOKED freakin' blue on the websites! But so far, we were 2 for 2 on green pools that should be blue.
An inauspicious start, to say the least.
I also noticed no air conditioning. OK...that one's on me. But the error of my ways was not yet apparent. "Oh, we'll have gentle Pacific breezes! We won't NEED air-conditioning." Hmpf. Famous last word!
(Disclaimer: As I write this, I KNOW it's 165 degrees back in the States, but I'm still going to whine about my situation!)
Anyway, no A/C, green pool. What next?
So "Harry" kinda shows us around and leaves me with a cell phone I can use to reach him if needed. Cool. Then he goes outside to talk to Giselle, the property caretaker, about something. Ten minutes later, I hear gravel crunching and he's off.
No information. No nothing. "Where's a store? How often does Giselle clean? Where's the trash can? WHY IS THE STINKIN' POOL GREEN AND WHEN WILL IT BE BLUE?" Ya know...questions like that. Oh, and when I said "Hola" to Giselle, she just grunted. Great...she hates Gringos.
Luckily, we had brought along some food, so for dinner we had peanut butter and jelly and boiled noodles. Yum. This was NOT going to work.
The kids were excited about the beach and their first look at the Pacific. Well, Grady was. Annie is kinda like Polly and not a big fan of the ocean. You can't see the bottom and everything in it wants to bite, sting, poke, poison, scrape, pinch or eat you. Or all of the above. Fair enough...there is some truth to that. But Grady and I like catching the crabs on the beach and jumping in the waves, so we were good to go.
As it got later, it was time to settle in for the night. Hot, humid, no A/C, no washer and dryer, no food, no beer. Things were not starting off well. Sure, I'm whining, but by gosh, I wanted comfort and I WASN'T GETTING IT!
So, we finally got a shower and got in bed. Hot and humid. Toss and turn. Gripe and whine. Both kids wake up sweating which means they wake me up. Polly gets up and goes and sleeps in the other room.
Dogs barking, blinds banging into windows, lizards croaking (and those were the ones IN the house!) and visions of machete-wielding banditos attacking the house, kidnapping the kids, and demanding my iPad in return had me TERRIFIED. I mean, I LOVE my iPad! What?
3:30 a.m.: We DO have Internet which gives me an idea. Onto Delta.com to see what it would cost to move up our departure date. An e-mail to our next destination in Costa Rica to see what they charge if we came 5 days earlier. I had a plan and by gosh, we were LEAVING, I didn't care WHAT it cost!!
I finally fell asleep at about 4:00 a.m., just hoping that if banditos DID steal the children, they would be quiet about it and perhaps clean the pool on their way out.
I don't remember what time I woke up, but I hurried to check my e-mail. No, I can't change my Delta airline tickets, but yes, we could get into our next place early if we wanted. Hmmmmm....I wonder what the Finance Nazi would think.
"No. Suck it up, you sniveling whiner. The kids are fine. I'm fine. You'll be fine."
That went well.
So, long story short, we adjusted. We figured out how to open the windows to cool off at night. We jacked up the ceiling fans. We found "The Discovery Channel" in English. And we played on the beach. I lived.
End of Part 1: Part 2: "I Come from the Land Down Under!"
I'm going to combine an entire week of our stay at the beach in Playa Marsella, Nicaragua into 2 posts. There are a few reasons for this. 1) I'm WAY behind on posts and 2) We didn't really do much at the beach, intending the week to be a relaxing, non-active week on our butts (mission accomplished).
So, why am I behind on my blog? I had a leisurely week at the beach during which time I could have written like mad. Well, I was lazy. Nothing creative. No adventures to keep me too busy to write. Just laziness. Every time I'd think to write, I'd pull up Facebook or the Internet instead. Or read. And since we were so lazy, there were really no good adventures to write about.
BUT...there's always something nutty in our world, so there were some things I think I can creatively described that happened during the week!
We arrived Playa Marsella on the southwest coast of Nicaragua after a 1.25 hour cab ride from Granada. The property manager for the house we were to rent met us and drove us the 20 minutes out to the beach where the property actually is. And what was the first thing I noticed:
Green pool.
`What the heck? Did I miss something when searching for places on the Internet? Did I have the color incorrectly adjusted on my monitor? I mean, the pools LOOKED freakin' blue on the websites! But so far, we were 2 for 2 on green pools that should be blue.
An inauspicious start, to say the least.
I also noticed no air conditioning. OK...that one's on me. But the error of my ways was not yet apparent. "Oh, we'll have gentle Pacific breezes! We won't NEED air-conditioning." Hmpf. Famous last word!
(Disclaimer: As I write this, I KNOW it's 165 degrees back in the States, but I'm still going to whine about my situation!)
Anyway, no A/C, green pool. What next?
So "Harry" kinda shows us around and leaves me with a cell phone I can use to reach him if needed. Cool. Then he goes outside to talk to Giselle, the property caretaker, about something. Ten minutes later, I hear gravel crunching and he's off.
No information. No nothing. "Where's a store? How often does Giselle clean? Where's the trash can? WHY IS THE STINKIN' POOL GREEN AND WHEN WILL IT BE BLUE?" Ya know...questions like that. Oh, and when I said "Hola" to Giselle, she just grunted. Great...she hates Gringos.
Luckily, we had brought along some food, so for dinner we had peanut butter and jelly and boiled noodles. Yum. This was NOT going to work.
The kids were excited about the beach and their first look at the Pacific. Well, Grady was. Annie is kinda like Polly and not a big fan of the ocean. You can't see the bottom and everything in it wants to bite, sting, poke, poison, scrape, pinch or eat you. Or all of the above. Fair enough...there is some truth to that. But Grady and I like catching the crabs on the beach and jumping in the waves, so we were good to go.
As it got later, it was time to settle in for the night. Hot, humid, no A/C, no washer and dryer, no food, no beer. Things were not starting off well. Sure, I'm whining, but by gosh, I wanted comfort and I WASN'T GETTING IT!
So, we finally got a shower and got in bed. Hot and humid. Toss and turn. Gripe and whine. Both kids wake up sweating which means they wake me up. Polly gets up and goes and sleeps in the other room.
Dogs barking, blinds banging into windows, lizards croaking (and those were the ones IN the house!) and visions of machete-wielding banditos attacking the house, kidnapping the kids, and demanding my iPad in return had me TERRIFIED. I mean, I LOVE my iPad! What?
3:30 a.m.: We DO have Internet which gives me an idea. Onto Delta.com to see what it would cost to move up our departure date. An e-mail to our next destination in Costa Rica to see what they charge if we came 5 days earlier. I had a plan and by gosh, we were LEAVING, I didn't care WHAT it cost!!
I finally fell asleep at about 4:00 a.m., just hoping that if banditos DID steal the children, they would be quiet about it and perhaps clean the pool on their way out.
I don't remember what time I woke up, but I hurried to check my e-mail. No, I can't change my Delta airline tickets, but yes, we could get into our next place early if we wanted. Hmmmmm....I wonder what the Finance Nazi would think.
"No. Suck it up, you sniveling whiner. The kids are fine. I'm fine. You'll be fine."
That went well.
So, long story short, we adjusted. We figured out how to open the windows to cool off at night. We jacked up the ceiling fans. We found "The Discovery Channel" in English. And we played on the beach. I lived.
End of Part 1: Part 2: "I Come from the Land Down Under!"
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