Did you notice the use of Spanish and latin there? Man, I’m smart. Cascaras de cocos means coconut shells or husks or what ever.
There have been a lot of mosquitos here lately, so we bought some bug coils and bug spray. They help but we still get bitten frequently, not only by mosquitos. So we decided to do it the Mexican way. Down here they burn coconut husks and shells to create a smudge pot.
We mentioned this to Mike and he suggested that we go out into the country and pick some up at the side of the road. Well, we’re too lazy for that so we asked Omar about it as he seems to take a lot of coconuts from here. He told us that he throws all his away but that we could get some from a place down near Cihuatlan. We had passed this site before but hadn’t taken too much notice.
Needing an afternoon road trip, we loaded up the car (Rosalie, me and a plastic tub) and away we went.
Having found the place we tentatively drove in. There was a guy loading great scoops of the stuff into the back of a truck. As soon as he saw us he stopped and came our way. In our best Spanish we asked if we could buy some coconut husks. He said no! But we could help ourselves. He then helped load our plastic container. We gave him a tip and were soon on our way.
Being in a somewhat positive mood after this little coupe we went looking for a couple of loungers. Not having a lot of luck there, we somehow ended up at Papa Gallo’s on the beach where they forced a couple of margaritas on us.
Our favourite waiter, Rafael was happy to see us again and we had a great conversation with him. He told us that he and his wife were caught in the flood and how they had raised their bed, and their couch, onto bricks to avoid the rising water. They also elevated their fridge and the water was about an inch from it when it receded
Eventually, we staggered back to the casa and I tried out our newly found mozzie repellent. I lit a couple of the husks and the next thing we knew the place was full of smoke. No Mosquitos but (cough) a lot of smoke. I think this may work but a lot of detail will have to be given to wind direction. The fire needs to be tended to frequently but that’s okay as I need the exercise.
So far we haven’t seen a mosquito and the other bugs are staying away also. I think another trip to the coconut fields may be in our future.