BRAZIL: a barata!

I am not afraid of insects, I really don´t mind most of them. Like the cute big green walking sticks, the giant moths, the insect that goes "DITDITDITDITDITDITDITDITDIT!!!!" like a machine gun out in the tree next to the hammock at dusk. They entertain me. But there is one insect I can´t deal with, the cockroach. I hate them so much. Last night when we were getting ready to go out, the big double doors to the porch were open and I saw a big thing fly in, I thought it was a moth. But no, it was purple-black and when it stood still on the wall, I could see what it was. It was HUGE. about 4 inches long. And it flew. Once, in Costa Rica a roach flew into my sandal but this one was bigger. I had to make sure it wouldn´t fly away and Kathy got the hotel lady to come up and kill it with some noxious fume-type insect killing spray. I cowered and acted like a baby while they killed it and took it out in a paper bag. I think the only thing worse would be a tarantula. I can´t deal with those, either. And I never want to run into those insects that lay an egg under your skin and cause a worm to hatch there, causing terrible itching. Or the worm that swims up into your system when you pee in the water.

Anyway, we are in Arrial dájuda. we arrived at 6:30AM after being on the bus all night and I was really grouchy so we didn´t get a good feel for it until last night. Our hotel is out off a side street down a dirt road, lots of loud birds and insects. We have a huge, beautiful polished wood balcony and sometimes you can smell the neighbor´s pot being smoked. The beach is really crowded with Brazilians on vacation - the last town had way more foreign tourists. They play music on the beach too, which I like. The town has no buildings over two stories and is very colonial-looking and pretty. There is an old section of town with a fascinating supermercado (I love foregn grocery stores!), and a street called broadwai that has fancy little shops and nice little intimate restaurants. It´s very hopping. We found some thai food last night, which made me very happy!

Today we went to a huge waterpark outside town. I never thought I would go to a water park on vacation but it was awesome. Went down the water slide 4X and they had a great wave pool! Kathy and I also floated down a little river in inner tubes. We were so clearly the only foreigners there. I met a Brazilian couple on the waterslide and they saw me later looking for Kathy. Never having met her before, they still knew which person was the friend I was looking for. The girl said "sara, I think I saw your friend over that way". Sure enough, there Kathy was. Yeah, we stand out!