Nicaragua - Day 3

Surf was smaller today - whew.  We both went out (took turns, with Little M on the beach).

So frustrating sometimes.  I am in a crux of my surfing.  I'm on a 6'6", but am not able to duck dive it much, but I'm not sure my level of surfing is great for much shorter of a board.  Getting out past the break gets ugly sometimes.  I have a great dislike for surfing around others - my greatest fear is losing my board and someone getting hit.  Timing is my friend; waiting for a lull, trying to be smart about staying in the channel.  Paddle my ass off, get out and recover.  Then I have spaghetti arms which makes catching waves ridiculous.

I think hubby and I have taken maybe three vacations in ten years together that didn't involve surfing, so we've traveled a lot to do this - Mexico five times, Costa Rica, Nicaragua twice now, the coast of California road trip, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Japan, Tofino is our home spot.  It is what we love.  But there is a very consistently aggravating result of surfing on vacation.  You gain strength the first week or so, begin tuning up your bod/surfing, just get in a groove... and then you leave.  Months later, you start the cycle again.  Through pregnancy and early motherhood, my mind shifted (my commitment to catching each wave was a little less, self-preservation more), and compiled with some short trips afterwards (7-10 days), my confidence and ability plummeted.  This is my trip to have three. solid. weeks. to make some good steps forward.  

It is hard not to compare to past trips; the surf I have had, how I used to be, with where I am now.  It doesn't do me anything but make me negative when I get out of the water. Gotta work on mediating the negative with using it to drive commitment and motivation to keep going, even when things aren't optimal.  I'm not so good at this.

This tree was our only shade on the beach

A coworker of my husband found us, and we visited for a while.  He very kindly brought his rake to the beach and raked the sand clear of fallen twigs from the most nasty tree that ever lived.  This thing has 'thorns' one inch long in some places, that will stab right through a person's shoes in to the foot!  Especially hiding under the sand.  As my daughter says, "Not nice!". Trying to identify what kind of tree this is for a few reasons...

The ones we saw were a little longer in the neck.

Around our apartments, there are these birds "Tompeepés" they call them here.  By searching the internet, they seem similar to "Helmeted Guinea Fowl".   These things are pretty tall (around 50+cm) with a TINY noggin on top.  By day, they roam in threes and like to look at their reflections in windows.  Around sunset, they gather at the base of a tree and fly about 2.5-3metres up to the branches of the tree for safety.

Later in the evening, friends of ours who live here part time, arrived.  We met them last trip to Nicaragua and have kept in touch since.  They have two kiddos.  I'm going to call her "Chica Boom" ("Chica" for short) because I saw her shaking her tail one day making the ladies around us laugh, and I hear 'back in the day' she was a crazy, awesome dancer (still is, but just in select moments such as the above).  "Chica" means "girl" in an affectionate way too in Spanish and she is just awesome  - one of those gals who just opens her heart and you feel like you've been friends for ages.  Her hubby, I'm gonna call "Buck".  He is well-traveled, he has a somewhat tough edge, and you know he can handle himself, but he is just cowboy WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get"), and he is just really considerate of those around him.  Just a solid dude.  "Buck" fits.  hee hee!

Just good people.  All of us, kiddos, the mutual friends (coworker of my husband and his wife), had a great evening of gabbing away, Tona's (Nicaraguan beer) and rum and coke's. Very nice vibe.

Life is good.