kellita the señorita the ibby dibby dow: Are you a virgin?

Aah the intricacies of languages. During our first night enjoying our beach bungalow, we were having a discussion about serious stuff. Let me rephrase that. Juliana and Hosana were having this conversation in Portuguese and every once in a while Ju would translate, and I would give my two cents. The topic moved to religion, and I knew Hosana was talking about the Catholic church. I was slightly surprised when Ju then turned to me and asked, "are you a virgin?". Sometimes people ask strange questions. One thing I've learned while traveling is that some things we think of as private in the US are not so in South America. So, I answered without blinking. Enter an outsider to the conversation, Ju's boyfriend Gu (who I shall refer to as the U team) who thinks my nonchellant answer to this quesiton is hilarious. "What Ju means to say is are you a Virgo", he clarified. Oh. Well. Now everybody knows my personal business.

The beach house crew was the U Team, Ju's boss Decko, his wife Hosana and their son, and Gu's friend Bruno and girlfriend Ana. We arrived Saturday night despite a jarring plane landing, a scary 90-minute head-in-my-hands airport shuttle ride with a driver who puts Guatemalan chicken bus drivers to shame, and a mix-up about the right bungalow. Always excitement around here. After more fascinating conversations like the one mentioned above, mostly in Portuguese, we all found our way to our private mosquito-netted bedrooms. Gu's house is like an eco resort, surrounded by greenery and only the sounds of croaking frogs. To say it's beautiful would be an understatement, and I marveled again at my traveling luck to land in such a nice place free-of-charge.

Having lost my alarm clock I am trying to learn to naturally will myself to wake up without it. Sometimes it works better than others, but the first day I was up and at 'em with time for some yoga and a quiet solo breakfast, made with love by the maid, Bea. The next crew up was Decko and his family, all of whom speak as many English words as I do Portuguese, but couldn't possibly be any nicer. We spent a lot of time hand-gesturing and I thought we decided to meet at the beach. I was slightly embarassed to find them still waiting for me when I emerged from my room 30 minuntes later having taken my sweet ass time getting ready.

Do you ever get sick of hearing me say things like, “it was the most beautiful (fill in blank here) I’ve ever seen”? Cause if so, maybe skip this post. But this beach is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. Seriously.

We spent the day at the beach, mostly at the Pousada restaurant where the boys drank beers all day until we headed up for "lunch" at 5:30. After dinner everyone took a nap, showered, rested, whatever, then we all regrouped on the upper deck balcony for drinks and star-gazing. This is more or less how we passed all 3.5 glorious days at the beach.