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Sunday, November 16, 2008

Quiet weekend in Tumaco

We had another nice day here on Saturday. It began with a trip to the mercado municipal which, for a city this size, was surprisingly small with a limited but sufficient selection of fruits and vegetables and was not as nice as the one in Bahia de Caraquez. We then visited several outboard motor shops as John would love to find a good deal on a new 15HP two-stroke engine for our dinghy. Yamaha, Mercury, and Suzuki motors are available here for prices a few hundred dollars less then those in the US. But more interesting than the details of price and availability of the various motors was the conversations we were able to have with the vendors. In one very large shop we had the full attention of Montoya and Fabio, and Eric and John were able to talk at length with them while Sherrell and I mostly listened and tried to follow what was being said. After being a bit lost for awhile we both immediately perked up when we were asked about Obama becoming president, and our enthusiastic responses were returned in kind by our new friends. Those are the kind of great moments travelers live for.

We made another trip to the commercial super market, followed by almuerzo just down the street, and then more internet. We took the bus to Hotel La Barranquilla at Playa Morro to pick up our bags of laundry, and the boys couldn't resist the lure of Club Colombia beers at a beach palapa across the street. After quickly becoming accustomed to fifty cent beers here they had sticker shock when the bar tab was over double that, but that's par for the course at beach bars.

After a short bus ride back to the pier, we loaded everything into the dinghy and called it another good day of cruising.

Today we're spending a quiet day on the boat doing chores and taking it easy. Eric and Sherrell were visited by a panga full of Colombian tourists who climbed aboard Sarana to have their photos taken. We were all prepared to be next, but they must have felt one sailboat souvenir picture was enough.

Linda and John