Susan, Sequoia, and Todd go sailing

We anchored in the Barra de Navidad lagoon for a little over a week. We had a great time hanging out at the cruiser-friendly Sands Hotel, walking on the beach, and visiting the nearby town of Melaque, all in the company of other “kid boats”. It’s great when Koiya has other kids to play with, and fun for us all to have excursion buddies.

One quaint aspect of Barra is the French Baker, who tours the marina and lagoon in a panga (small boat) every morning, delivering freshly-made croissants, pies and baguettes. He gets on the radio and announces, his location in his fabulous French accent, “‘Ello, dis is your Frrench Bake-ah, entering de lah-goon”. Though spendy, we couldn’t resist treating ourselves once!

Almost every afternoon, we ended up at the Sands Hotel. The kids loved it for the pool, playing Marco Polo and just messing around. The adults loved the cheap wireless internet ($2/day) and the bar (2-for-1 drinks). The 2-for-1 drinks encouraged socializing, as we always wanted to find someone to split with… that is, until Capn Coupon’s Spanish miraculously improved, and he convinced the bartender to let him pay for two Pacificos, take one cold, and get a slip of paper to redeem for the second (so it wouldn’t get warm while he drank the first one).

One day, we took a bus trip to Las Hadas (near Manzanillo) to visit our friends on Imagine. It was great seeing them again! They are doing the “puddle jump”, making the 28-day crossing to the Marquesas. We really hope our paths cross again!

Thursday is market day in Barra. We had a fun morning of retail therapy, Mexican style. Koiya desperately needed a new swim suit, and we found a great one for $8, which is a good price, but… it still had a Thrift Town tag on it! I was slightly offended at the mark-up; as a long-time Thrift Town shopper, I know it probably cost $2 there. Still, I had to admire the industriousness and the irony. Some Mexican in California went into Thrift Town and said to herself, “Man, this stuff is so cheap here, I could buy a bunch, ship it home, and sell it for 5 times what I paid!” It’s exactly what I think when I see the beautiful hand-made crafts down here.

Well, we coughed up the 80 pesos for the one suit, then found another stall where suits were 40 pesos each, so we got her two more! She was most excited about the Mexican shave ice, though. Toro got a new battery for his watch, so now we’ll know what day it is. And we got two DVDs for just $1 each; we know they are legal copies because they were wrapped in cellophane.

While all the puddle-jumpers were madly preparing their boats and provisioning for their long passages, we settled into a comfortable groove. We remembered the hectic days of preparing for our journey south, and were glad to have no “To Do” lists. We’d reached our southern-most point on our trip, so even though on the way back north we’ll be stopping in places we haven’t visited yet, we had the feeling of returning to familiar territory. Gone was the urge to press on to see what the next bay is like.

Oh, and just in case I wasn’t relaxed enough, Todd got me a massage for my birthday! Go Toro! See all of our Barra photos here:

20080317BarraDeNavidad

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.