Bug Bites

Dear Mom and Dad,

The bugs here are horrible at night. Poor Charlie suffers the most because he doesn't wake up to them biting him and gets eaten alive. We have bought some incents to ward away the bugs via smoke and bugspray to wear before bed. Hopefully it helps. We spent all afternoon looking for a pharmacy to cure his bites and a bank. Sometimes the simplest things take forever. We got Charlie a prescription for a gel that relieves the itch and is anti-inflamatory. It seems to be working! It was a little difficult to decribe what we needed without knowing the Spanish words. My sentences went something like this "bugs ate his back. we have bug repellent. we need something for (show Charlie's back at this point)....whatever works.

There are NO banks here in Mancora. This wouldn't be a problem because they have atm's that do accept our debit cards, but the atms depense $100 soles at a time, and no place will take over $20 and even then it's a stress for them, and they act all put out. How do you not have a bank with a teller in a town? What are the people supposed to do with their hard earned money that wasn't stollen from tourists? We have found we can take American dollars out of the atms and exchange them in local stores for smaller amounts of soles. This is really tedious to do because we can only exchange small amounts in order to not get big bills. We lose about $1 american dollar by doing this because obviously the stores exchange at a lower rate in order to make a small profit. Ugh.

Here are two pictures of our hostel. The first one is looking out our door at our beautiful oceanic view. The second one is of Charlie relaxing in front of our room. Cheap...but totally worth it because we do have two functioning legs to walk to the beach front and saving money is always a plus!

Our meals here have been great. There are so many deals if you decide to live like the locals. Every restaurant has a deal that's $3 and includes a small appetizer, main meal, and a glass of juice. The selection is limited and depends on the day. Typically Charlie has been eating Ceviche (raw fish with red onions, lime juice, corn nuts, yuca, and a carrot looking plant) and I have had tequeños (their take on fried cheese sticks.) For meals, I typically have a grilled chicken dish and Charlie usually has more fish. Most dishes are accompied by white rice and fries. Every place has a slight variation, but we have been super impressed with all of our selections. Today, we made our own lunch, which consisted of mac and cheese and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. Sometimes I really miss meals from home. This was the closest we could do.

The beach is always calling our names. Here is two pictures of us enjoying the warm weather and sunning ourselves. If you look close enough or click on the first picture to make it bigger, you will have a slight idea of how bad Charlie's bug bites are just from looking at his arm. This was taken after we applied his medication and some of the redness has disappeared.

The beach always has ice cream venders. I swear they post up next to me everytime I hit the beach. Here are FOUR of them....No chance in losing weight here...

These last two pictures are of Mancora's newest beach talent...Looking to make the big bucks with these moves....

I must say the pointed toes on the last one screams "great form." He must have taken lessons from Dawn's Dance connection or had an instructor who was a former dancer ;)

Hope all is well!

Love always,

Matti Jo and Charles Dale