I spent the morning trying to get to the bottom of my bank fiasco. Yesterday I went to two bank machines thinking the first one was out of order, but neither of them gave me any money. I had the bright idea to check my bank account online and sure enough, the money was withdrawn. I wrote the bank and they got back to me very quickly and it turns out they changed my card to deposit only. I think the fraud squad decided since I never travel that a criminal had used my card in the PV airport. Luckily they let me use the hotel phone and I was able to dial a 1-866 number and talk to the bank people. They fixed my card pretty quickly but to get that money back in will take "an investigation." I was on the phone for half an hour, most of it trying to convince them I am who I am. After that we decided to go to crab beach. We walked along the beach and up the rocks again and there were only a few people there. I'm sure it's a well used beach in high season, but it's practically all ours right now.
We swam and read and ate chips and then a bunch of Mexican guys pulled up in a truck armed with machetes. One of them shimmied up a palm tree and cut a huge bunch of coconuts which fell heavily. They ran to avoid getting beaned by the coconuts, and then they gathered them up. If they broke when they fell they got to those ones first to try and save the water. One of the tourist police trucks also pulled up and four cops piled out to watch, all heavily armed with machines guns held casually. What kind of crazy scene is this?
The whole time we are sitting there keeping an eye on the proceedings, hundreds of crabs are crawling over the beach, moving as fast as lightening. Every so often you'd see a hermit crab lumbering along slowly. You could never get close to the ones that scurry as they dive down their holes at the least provocation.
One of the machete guys took a green coconut over to a table and started hacking all the green stuff off it until it was a little brown coconut. Then he chopped a neat little hole in the top and plugged it back up with the piece of coconut meat. He caught my eye (we were about 50 yards away) and held up the coconut and nodded. How could I resist? It doesn't get any fresher than that. I nodded back and he walked over while I pulled out my wallet. I said "how much?" and he said "nada" and handed me the coconut. The other members of his team started cleaning the beach with rakes, cleaning the seaweed, of which there was about five clumps altogether. They cleaned the beach and then they cleaned the clearing to the beach. The police watched all this with their guns hanging off them, and then they got in their car and drove away. The coconut guys put all their cleaned coconuts in garbage bags and piled them up ready to take home.
Suddenly a huge rogue wave started coming up the beach and threatening our little camp. I yelled for Sal to grab stuff and run and there I was with about half a second to decide which to save - my $2000 camera or my coconut so of course I grabbed the coconut and ran. Luckily the wave didn't get to my bag, but soaked my book. By the time the next wave came I was ready and got the rest of our stuff. We set up a few feet up the beach and resumed our reading/coconut drinking. At about 4 we headed back to town and this time we followed a dirt road back in and discovered it comes out RIGHT at the back of our hotel. So now we know the easy way there. Then I went to a bank machine and it finally worked. I was totally broke and a bit worried.
We are not the artists, but whoever did it was talented - life size!
Also I forgot to add during the walk through the cemetery we saw a beautiful blue parrot like bird but I could not get a picture of it. It's this one:
http://www.bird-stamps.org/books/82.htm
Oh, and if you are reading this, feel free to comment!
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