sand-poopy towers

A couple of days ago, Amber and I decided that wet sand is really fun. After splashing around in the obscenely-beautiful clear Caribbean waters for a bit, we plopped ourselves onto a wet bit of sand on the far end of the cove. And we started playing with the wet sand, making little mounds and castles, which would get washed away every few minutes when a larger wave would hit.

Accepting the ephemeral nature of our sand structures, we started to build them sloppily out of incredibly wet sand. If you take a handful of wet sand and squeeze it, it sort of looks like your hand is pooping. So we starting making sand-poopy towers. We started flinging wet sand-poopy at each other, too. Lots of fun, until we started to get sunburnt. Then we went back to our hotel.

The next morning, we decided to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to go for a walk in the jungle (on a lightly-traveled, paved road--nothing too adventurous). It was the only time of day cool enough to take a tolerable walk.

We were joined by a dog, who started following us on the edge of town. Two hours later, he was still trotting alongside us...not begging, not barking, not being annoying--just along for the ride. We called him our tour guide. We met a gigantic hummingbird--easily the size of, say, a robin--and saw lots of sensitive plants lining the roads (you know, the type of fern that closes when something touches the leaves). I thought that those were the coolest thing ever when I was a kid, but I'd only seen them in pots--never guessed that I'd see fields of them in the wild.

After two and a half hours of wandering, we drank the most coffee we'd had in a week, and watched crappy TV all day. Yay for vacation.

Today is Friday, and we're out of here on Monday. Since life will be a lot trickier in Venezuela and Brazil, we're working hard (ha) to be degenerates while we have the chance.