A Birthday Beach Fire

For the first time ever in my life, I got to have a fire on the beach this year for my birthday!  And was it ever nice.

We went for dinner at Papas & Burgers, and around 8pm we headed to the beach.  Joey had gotten some wood for us; and within short order we had a blazing fire going.

7 of our friends showed up and helped me celebrate.  Mike had baked me a chocolate cake and we brought that to the beach to serve.

The night was perfect; and we plan to do it all again a week from tomorrow for Mike’s birthday.

On Monday morning, Joey picked us up and off to the beach we went.  Joey and Eida wanted to try out a kayak that their thinking of buying.  We didn’t have bathing suits with us; or we would have tried it out too.  Maybe next time.

A lot of the rest of this past week (or so) has been pretty much spent the same.  We go on lots of bike rides; lots of mountain hikes; and we are spending a lot of time at the beach this year.  Being this close, plus having chairs makes a huge difference.

We’ve also been down lots of new roads in Jaco this year.  And have ridden around a few typical barrios.  All I can say, is boy do we ever have it good at “home”.  I didn’t take any picture while driving around the barrios, as I’m not yet quite co-ordinated enough to pedal a bike and operate a camera.  Maybe by the end of our stay here, I’ll get to that stage; but not yet.

Our neighbour Phil gave us the key to his place and we’ve been using his pool almost daily.  And boy is it ever nice.  No kids, private, stereo playing; and did I mention NO KIDS!!!

My front tire on my bike has been going flat since my birthday.  Mike figures it's been 30 plus years since he last fixed a flat tire; and he's done it 4-5 times in this past week.  The first time, he biked over to the bike shop and the guy fixed it for a dollar.  That lasted about an hour before it was flat again.  Next was a repair kit for about a dollar and 2 patches later, decided to get a new tube.

The new tube within an afternoon had 2 patches; so off to the store Mike went again.  This time he bought a smaller tube; and very thoroughly checked to see if there was anything sharp in the tire (there wasn't).  So far it's been a few days; and no flats!

And last night; we had another fire on the beach.  This time with some American tourists that Joey had met earlier in the week.  While enjoying the fire, and cook out, Joey and Skip both caught red snappers. 

The first one, was caught by Skip and Joey was planning on turning it into Ceviche for them; the second one; was served within short order.  Joey took the fish to his place, cleaned and gutted it.  Then he lined some tin foil with salt, put the fish on that; covered it with more salt and sealed the tin foil.

Back to the beach and onto the fire.  An hour later, the fish was done and boy oh boy was it ever good!  You don’t get much fresher than that.  They even had melted garlic butter to dip the fish into and mmm mmm tasty!

So, all in all it’s been a couple of nice weeks, again, in Jaco.  Please click here to look at our pictures.