Happy New Years
I can’t believe it is 2007 already. I was just thinking about some of the things that have changed over time and I can’t believe it has been 10 years since I moved from South Africa to Grass Valley. That’s a sad thing. But, it also means I’ve known Chris for 10 years now, and that’s kind of exciting. Now here we are in a whole new continent celebrating a whole new year together.
We decided to go to the coast for new years with Gretel, Karen and her friend Paul who came to visit from England. We stayed in a little surf town called Montanita. It is a fun and funky place with all kinds of interesting people. The little down town strip looks like a tropical island with buildings made or decorated with bamboo and the roofs covered with palm fronds. There are hammocks everywhere and at night a lot of hippies come out with their jembe drums and drum circles and dancing start up in the middle of the street. It wasn’t too hot even though we were just south of the equator and the waves were perfect for swimming and surfing in.
Our last attempt at surfing in Mexico was such a dismal failure it never even crossed my mind to try again, but it looked like it would be a lot easier here because the waves break so much closer to shore that the learner wouldn’t exhaust themselves by just trying to paddle out and they could actually attempt to catch a few waves. I still didn’t think I could do it, but Chris seemed to want to try again. The lessons were pretty cheap, so I convinced him to give it a go. And I was right. He was actually able to catch a few waves when he tried close to shore. He didn’t stay up for long because the waves didn’t last long, but it was a great second try. If we ever go back, I might even give it another try.
New Years Eve itself was a little crazy. I think ¼ of Ecuador was sitting on the beach with us. One of the Ecuadorian traditions is to burn effigies that represent the old year and all the bad things that happened. People apparently get really creative and spend a lot of time working on them. I knew all this, but I was really surprised to see a group of people light a giant yellow Sponge Bob on fire. I’m not sure what they had against him, but as he went up in flames all the fire crackers they put inside started going off and causing a whole lot of noise and a little danger for the ones that went off in random directions. Poor Thandi was terrified by all the commotion.
Other than the actual NY eve event, she had a blast. Thandi got to play Frisbee on the beach for hours every day. She was quite the highlight. Whenever she caught a disc the other sunbathers would cheer and clap. If the Frisbee landed by someone they would often pick it up and throw it for her. She was in dog heaven.
Well, I hope you all had a great New Years Eve and were able to burn your own personal “Sponge Bobs†and move on to have a wonderful 2007.