I’ve always wanted dreadlocks
Somewhere, deep inside of me, is a tall, thin black woman with a beautiful set of dreads, yearning to break free. Well, I’m not tall, thin, or black, but I do have dreadlocks! It all started with a little sign posted on the beach near Manuel Antonio State Park. GET YOUR DREADLOCKS HERE - ASK FOR TONY. Well, Tony didn’t have dreadlocks, and he wasn’t answering my questions very well, but the guy who was selling bags and bracelets next to Tony had marvelous long dreadlocks and said he did dreads, also. He answered all my questions, so we struck a deal and I met Judah at the beach at 10:00 the next day. A mere 8 hours of scalp-yanking fun later, and I am dreaded! It takes a couple of months for dreads to get “locked”, and you kind of have to mess with them every day until they do so. It can take up to a year for them to look really good. The myth is that people with dreadlocks don’t wash their hair, but it’s not true. Clean hair locks up faster than dirty hair - you just need to use a shampoo with no fragrance or residue. Molly and Jessie and Jim are helping me work on my hair every day. Right now, there are rubber bands on the ends, but they will come off in about a month when the hair binds up on its own. What better place than on a boat in the middle of the ocean to get your dreads locked up?
Molly and Jessie and Jim took a surf lesson on that same day. They had two young “surfer dude” instructors who were very good, and all three of them got up after one or two tries. It is much harder than it looks, going from being flat on your stomach to standing up straight in a twinkling of an eye, while your board is climbing up an undulating wave. Plus, you have to smile for the camera. There are some good pics in the media gallery of our day on the beach.
Manuel Antonio State Park covers 1700 acres. This tropical wet forest has an annual rainfall of 150 inches, and is home to many animals like squirrel monkeys, three and two-toed sloths, wild boars, coatamundis and iridescent moths and butterflies. We hiked through the park for about 5 hours, and saw lots of animals and amazing trees and plants. We anchored right in front of the park, and could hear monkeys and birds throughout the night. One thing we have not seen is parrots or exotic birds. I thought Costa Rica would be full of them, but maybe we aren’t exploring early enough in the morning to see them.
Our next stop was a little bay called Uvita. It has an unspoiled charm about it, and a very nice beach. A short walk from the beach is the little town of La Bahia. We were wandering through town on Sunday morning, and I was wishing I could be in church. Just a couple of blocks up the main road was an English-speaking community church, who had only put their sign up the day before! Church started at 10:00, which is exactly what time it was, so we went in and had a great time. The pastor had Jim get up and tell about our family and what we are doing, we got to sing some familiar songs, and no one mentioned my weird hairdo. I think no matter where you are, you feel like you are with family in God’s house.
We are currently in Golfito, the jumping off point for our trip to the Galapagos. We will check out of the country here and head west. It may be more difficult to update our website after this - we’ll do our best.
I have heard the definition of cruising is “Doing boat projects in exotic ports”. That certainly seems true. If you check Jim’s update, you will see a list of all we need to do during the 5 days we have in Golfito. It is so hot and humid here, it’s hard to stay motivated to get through that big list. Molly and Jessie are having a hard time concentrating in school, so I have been assigning more homework, and shorter school hours. That way they can work at their own pace, and find a cool spot to work.
I am nervous about leaving these Spanish-speaking countries, and moving toward the islands where French is spoken. I was just getting comfortable with the lilting tones of the Latinos. I still have trouble in grocery stores, trying to figure out what I am buying. I’ve made a few humorous errors, but I haven’t killed anyone yet. I thought for a long time that ferrets must be the most popular pet in all of Latin America, and there were stores where you could buy them in every town we visited. When I finally looked it up, I discovered that “ferreteria” means hardware store…
Our e-mail is working well now, so feel free to drop us a line. We can’t take attachments or forwards, but greetings will always be welcome! Have a great spring!