At the Beach
I have certainly been taking it easy lately, and I´m topping it all off with a week at the beach. I am in Mancora, a surfing pueblita (little town), in northern Peru. I´m sitting at a table on the beach just steps from the water, waiting for ceviche and cerveza and watching the surfers. I have already made some friends who are out there somewhere catching some of these 8-12 foot waves. I keep saying I´m going to try surfing, but these waves are huge and I´m more scared of their size and strength than my usual fear of what lives in the water. I hear there are no sharks here, by the way, or that they´re rare. But with my luck lately, I´ll probably run into one.
Remember how in every city I visit I have something that goes wrong with me health-wise? Well Mancora has not failed me…I´m now fighting of lice. Yes, I now have bugs in my hair. And I should take a picture of my legs, becauseI have at least 50 mosquito bites (not exaggerating). In Peru, you put your face close to other people´s faces a lot. It is polite and the common style of greeting to do the single cheek kiss. Men don´t really do it to other men (but in Argentina they do). But women do it with everyone, so I´m contstantly meeting new people and not always getting the their name, but getting the “hi, what´s up” and cheek kiss. So I think it was somewhere on Wednesday, among all the cheek kisses, including those of some beach hippies, that a brave louse made the jump to my head. By Friday, I had a disgusting little community of lice. Now, I know what you´re thinking, “sure, Jess, it was only from innocent cheek kisses.” Sad to say, yes only from cheek kisses, as I haven´t had the fortunate experience of hanky panky here yet. (At the very least I could´ve been having a whole lot of fun while getting infested. But, like I said, no luck lately.)
No matter, though. I´m enjoying the weather, while using powerfully smelling head lotion and shampoo, and trying out the fashionable beach head scarf. This should clear up by tomorrow, and then I will try surfing. I´m really trying to talk myself into it, as I am pretty intimdated by the waves. All my friends who surf here, which is everybody, say that I can learn and there´s really nothing to be so scared about as long as I can swim. I can swim just fine.
I keep saying that I will be healthy here at the beach among beautifully tanned and athletic bodies and all. But I just can´t help getting up every day and having a cerveza in the afternoon with my ceviche–really, beer in the perfect compliment. Everyday I feel like Will Farrell in Old School…it´s so good when it touches my lips. Luckily there are enough beachcside bars to meet my needs. Mancora is like Rio, with it´s outdoor, often in the street, parties. When thinking of where to move and live first, this type of environment is so tempting.
The water is coming up the beach more now and almost washed away me and my plastic table. Even some internet places are right on the beach–one good storm and bye bye computers. About every twenty minutes there are killer waves this afternoon. I could probably handle the ones in between. There are families and teenagers and couples and vacationers all over the beach. And the kids are great. They usually annoy me, but I think I am just jealous of their carefree inhibition. This is me practicing my observation skills more…perhaps they´re moreso analyzing skills.
Estoy demasiado sola con mis pensimientos. Quiero parar mi mente y estar tranquilla con mi vida. Pero parace que es casi impossible. Quizas el punto de mi vida es a pensar. Y pensar y pensar y pensar. Sin resultados.
If I have the chance to do nothing but think every once and a while, perhaps I am lucky. To be alive is lucky. To be at the beach right now is lucky. To live at the beach would be a dream, but I´d definitely have to get a hobby and stop drinking so much beer. I know…bird watching! The birds at this beach look like darker seagulls with thinner bodies and angled wings, like they have elbows. They hover over the ocean by the handful and dive for birds. Ah, nature. It´s interesting; sometimes boring, but nice.
…Mas cerveza!
