Where I went this weekend and why you are crazy if you are considering not visiting me.

Monday was Dia de la Mercedes, one of the many holidays dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and in order to aprovechar the long weekend (as my colleagues kept encouraging me to do – one thing I love about Latin America is how much support I find for engaging enjoyment), I went to the northern coast with my roommate, Andres, and a few other kids from his study abroad program. We went to Rio San Juan, a little fishing village which has grown substantially with the growth in tourism, and which one day will probably host an all-inclusive resort. Luckily for us, it is still somewhat off the beaten path, and therefore doesn’t feel all Disney-fied as of yet. In fact, at the beach we went to on Sunday we were the only gringos in sight.

We stayed in a hotel located at the end of the “beach” in town – a tiny little strip of sand that goes under water at high tide, but which is full of swimmers and sunbathers during the day. The hotel is white-washed, and perches on a rocky cliff of sorts, hanging out over the Atlantic Ocean. The wall separating the cliff from the ground floor shows rusty strips in the places where the ocean has worn away the paint. The hotel faces almost due west, so from our third floor balcony we could sit in worn deck chairs and watch the sun go down.

We spent a good part of the weekend sitting in those chairs, in the early morning, during the sunset, and at night under stars, just sitting and talking. It felt deeply relaxing to spend so many hours in front of the ocean, just sitting and following a meandering conversation.

We took a boat tour through a mangrove swamp completely full with tropical

birds and wooden houses hidden among the spindly trees.

The tour also went out into the open ocean and toured a small cave and several beaches, but one of the most interesting things we saw were these white heads – they looked like the mannequin heads used by wig makers – wearing crowns of something that look like silver coral reef. We were sharing our boat with a German family and a Dominican family but no one really seemed to have much information about the heads – the most I could gather from the tour guide was that they were sites of Indian worship.

We spent one whole day at the beach, and it was pretty much perfection – the truth is that I keep thinking of it as a representation of “beach” instead of an actual beach – white sand, crystal clear, turquoise water out for yards before it becomes deep enough that you have to swim, gentle waves that picked up enough at the edges of the bay to provide light surfing, all ringed by a crescent of palm trees. We got there early and so had our pick of spots and a quiet morning alone, swimming and lying in the sun, but by 12 cars started pulling up to the edges of the palms trees, opening all their doors and blasting music. Each car had a slightly different idea of what it wanted to listen to however, so if you walked down the sand you would go in and out of bachata, Latin pop, and reggaeton. By 4 when we started packing up there was a serious party happening to our left with a huge group of 20-somethings grilling and drinking beer, and several families were unpacking coolers to our right.

Now I'm back to the city - my main project this week is sealing the deal on my apartment - keep your fingers crossed for me!