Mangos!!

It is finally mango season!! Yesterday Nicola (another teacher here) got some mangos down from the tree for me. Dereek cut one open (I'm kind of freaked out because I don't want to find a worm in one which is pretty common) and I ate it. It was delicious!! I have two more here and the trees are FULL of mangos. Apparently in the next week or two we are going to have more mangos than we know what to do with. Guess I've got to start looking for some recipes that include mango. We also have cashew trees. Little did I know but cashews have a fruit that you can eat. Marcelo gave me one to try, but I smelled it and decided I didn't want to try it. It really does not smell good at all, I will stick to my mangos. Unless someone wants to roast the cashews so they open up and I can get to the nut. I was told they are very oily so you can't roast them inside because they have the potential to explode and set things on fire. I really want the nut though. Until I figure out how to roast cashews I will be enjoying the abundance of mangos.

Nicola getting mangos. In case you were curious mango trees are large, you use poles to get the mangos down. If you wait until they fall they aren't good anymore.

Marcelo (my director and boss) getting mangos out of the tree for us.

Group mango picking effort.

Enjoying my mango!

Yum yum yum yum... free mangos!!! 

Sunday

Dereek and I went to the market this morning, like we do every weekend, to do some grocery shopping. Just thought I'd share our purchases. Above is a picture of everything, there is pre-cut (the guy at the market cut it) cantaloupe and pineapple, bananas, papaya, tomatoes, carrots, onions, potatoes, avocado, and 1/2 kilo of fresh chicken breast (also cut by a guy at the market for me). All this cost me under 200 BsF. Currently the "illegal" exchange rate I use is 20 BsF for 1 dollar. that means all this food cost me less than 10 dollars. Despite how everything is going here economically, it is definitely a plus that I can get the freshest produce (and chicken) for prices like that. 

Below are some other pictures just for fun. When we got back to campus we found this silly iguana hanging from a tree. He seemed really content there swinging in the wind and enjoying the sun, but you would've thought he would've liked to choose a bigger branch instead of tipping over the whole tree. Hopefully for the iguana that tiny little tree doesn't break...

Margarita Island

This is going to be a really long update. Last week was carnival here so we had a week off from school. During our week off Erin, EMak, Dereek and I decided to go to Margarita Island. We stayed at Costa Caribe, it is on the north side of the island and is an all inclusive resort. We were there from Monday through Friday and had our rooms, meals and drinks all paid for which was awesome. I'm going to take a moment to make you all jealous right now, the total cost of this 5 day/4 night trip was BsF. 2,200. Sound like a lot? Well, at the "illegal" exchange rate that we were getting at the time that works out to be about $140 USD total. Sometimes living in Venezuela has it's perks...

We left Anaco early on Monday morning. Our ferry left at noon. Supposedly the ferry was going to take three hours, it ended up taking over five because "a motor was broken." (Sometimes living in Venezuela also has some major downsides.) When we finally got to Margarita we then had to take a taxi across the island to get to our resort. In theory, this shouldn't have taken too long, but because it was carnival all the roads were closed and blocked with parades so it took quite a long time. We actually ended up literally driving through a parade. I looked out my window to see ladies dressed in sparkly costumes and a man wearing nothing but leaves and glitter. It was an interesting ride. It was late when we got to the hotel so we just had some drinks (included) and then called it an early night.

The ferry we took.

Dereek found a kitten while we were waiting for the ferry.

On Tuesday we all got up and spent the morning hanging out at the pool. It was our first full day so we wanted to take advantage of having free breakfast, lunch and drinks. During the afternoon we took a cab to the main city, Porlamar. We spent a little bit of time walking through a mall and then walked around downtown for a little. Unfortunately, most stores were closed for carnival. As it got later we lined up on the street and waited for the parade to start. And waited. And waited. We really stood there for a very long time. The parade was pretty cool, but the people around us were not. It was also a really, really long parade so we didn't watch the whole thing. After a while of being tired of getting shoved by the people behind us we decided to go find dinner. We found an outdoor pizza place and ate there. After we met some old friends of Dereek's for a little then headed back to the hotel. 

Panoramic of the pool area.

Pool!

 Lounge chairs in the shade.

Swim up bar. 

Just enjoying some drinks in the pool.

Pelicans!

Lobby panoramic.

Lobby of our hotel.

Band in the parade.

Floats with people dancing.

Some golf float.

More dancing.

Devil costume. 

There were lots more carnival pictures, but they're not great because the parade was going on during sunset/when it was dark. I also have lots of pictures of the backs of peoples' heads or the back of costumes which just isn't all that exciting. Our third day spent in Margarita was spent doing absolutely nothing besides sitting by the pool and hanging out on the beach. The most exciting parts of the day were our massages on the beach and making friends with a macaw. Massages on the beach were great. They lasted about 20 minutes and cost 150 BsF. (~$7 USD) The macaw was great also. We became excellent friends. It was so nice to have a day where we had nothing to do besides enjoy the water, weather, food and drinks.

The water

View from our beach.

Just chillen with drinks under a palm tree. Typical day in February. =P

Tough life.

View from my chair

Panoramic view from my chair

Laying on the beach all day makes me try and be artistic.

And by artistic I mean I take black and white photos.

And I call them artistic.

These parrots were super cute.

But they were only cuddly and not friendly.

This one was super friendly though!

We became best friends.

He liked to sit on my arm.

He's pretty heavy though.

He liked Erin too.

And EMak.

And Dereek (kind of) The parrot definitely likes girls more.

Pina coladas in the pool.

My friends and boyfriend do weird things sometimes. Such as pretend to be beached whales in the shallow end of the pool.

View from the bar.

Pool bar

Dereek's turn to be artsy. 

On our last full day in Margarita we spent the morning once again by the pool then used the afternoon/evening to go to the town of Juan Griego. It's a town right on the beach and is small and cute. We were going to do some shopping but didn't end up buying anything other than cocadas (a coconut slushy drink) and dinner. We drank our cocadas right next to the beach then went for a walk. We walked up to this old fort where there were awesome views of the town. After our walk we met another one of Dereek's friends from Margarita and all ate dinner together. It was a great dinner, the tables were right in the sand so we all took off our flip-flops and dug our toes in. The place was really pretty and the view at sunset was even better. It was a great end to the trip. 

Dereek bought new converse. He was very happy.

A pretty church. It was nice to see, I rarely see nice architecture here, especially in comparison to living somewhere like Spain. 

The view from where we had cocadas. 

While walking along the beach in Juan Griego there were lots of boats.

Another boat.

Almost out of town and looking back.

Heading up to the fort. It was particularly large or exciting, but the views were awesome. 

View from the fort. The city to the right is Juan Griego.

View.

view of Juan Griego from the fort.

Cannon and the city.

Dereek taking pictures. 

Not sure what this little town was called, it was on the other side of the fort.

Other town.

Again.

The table we had dinner at in Juan Griego.

Pretty nice during sunset.

Gorgeous sunset. 

We drank margaritas on Margarita Island.

On Friday morning we didn't have much time before we had to leave, but I spent the morning hours laying on that chair in the pool.

Overall, it was an excellent trip. We had a great time and got to relax which is always nice. It was a tough adjustment coming back to school today, but only one month until I go to Grenada for a visa run!! Best part of living abroad = all the traveling, both in and out of the country! =)