We took a long walk to Playa Blanca. The way leads along the beach past the side of the disused baseball stadium at the edge of the town. It got built, used and never repaired. But building it literally next to the ocean also doesn’t really help to keep it in a good shape.
The bridge over the river was also broken – apparently it gets washed out during big storms and then slowly repaired again, meaning that most of the time there is no bridge. At any rate there was a boat to take us across, though we had to wait for some time because there was a radio interview with the boat guy. The beach we went to was nice and quiet – a few other people relaxing on the beach and a couple of guys coming through to swim out and go spear-fishing.
A masseuse that Rafael knows, who we had bumped into on our way to the beach, turned up in the middle of the afternoon. Obviously she didn’t have many customers at the beach she was at in the morning so came and joined us and Eliot had an hour massage on the beach for 6 CUC. I thought it was pretty cool, but Eliot said that the accompanying sand peeling meant he would have preferred it back at the Casa though it was very good all the same.
Afterwards, the long walk back to town was hotter than it had been in the morning and we both got a bit sunburned around the nose.
Back in town we wanted an ice cream, but there was none to be found. The peso shop was closed and the Casa del Chocolate didn’t have any either. Apparently the heat had given everyone the same idea. Instead we got some snacks from a couple of little bakeries (bakery here meaning basically just a counter onto the street, behind which there are racks of one, or at most two products) – bread and some sort of cake and cookies, about 10 pesos in total.
We had dinner in the Casa again. Goat (which we had made a special request for) and for the first time rice with beans. Eliot got another salsa lesson and I another Spanish lesson. We also visited Rafael’s dad again. Even we are foreigners it feels like home here – just cross the street to visit friends and get well cared for in your Casa.