This weekend, I took a little mini holiday to the coast a little spot called Salinas Grande. I´m not sure who Salina is, and what she had that would be considered grande, I didn´t work up the courage to ask! I have a friend who lives there, and ex-PeaceCorps volunteer. Went went over the first couple steps of surfing, (ie staying on the board while paddling, actually way harder than it looks!) We paid a local guy to take us down the river, through the mangroves which was a phenominal experience. I forgot how much I love the environment and learning about our natural world, I had an environmental concentration to my undergrad degree for a reason! Our informal guide is a ranger-guard in the reserve where we were. He showed us how the mangrove trees are seeded in the ground, how the seeds are weighted, and have to land just so in the soil to germinate. He also told us there are crocdiles 5 meters long that live in the river (a bit bigger than our little outboard) but they´re afraid of the noise of the engines on the boats (I imagine that weren´t-no-fish-tale). Periodically sharks are pulled in from the fishing boats, and on discovery channel for the last week I watched many many shark attack dramatizations, I´m not gonna lie, I was a little apprehensive to be in water over waist deep. But it was a fabulous weekend, and when the turtles come to nest next month, I´m definately going to try to get back!


Oh the last photo was from a quincenera (not sure how to spell is) Its like a sweet sixteen they do here for the girls.