Monday, March 21, 2022

I hoped I would wake up feeling better this morning, but I didn’t. And the internet still was not working. I texted my host to let them know about the internet, but I didn’t feel very useful anyways. I laid in bed watching the sunrise over the ocean. Of all places to be sick, I picked a pretty good one. I didn’t have to go anywhere to enjoy the best of what this island had to offer.

Bike Riding

After a while, I grabbed one of the bicycles and started riding around. I felt like I had to make the most of my situation. I went down to the southern point of the island only a couple of kilometers away. They wanted you to pay to enter the final 50m of the “park”. Instead, I walked around a bit, snapped my photos, and kept riding. I rode up the southern coast before cutting over to head back up to the centrally located Airbnb. I noticed when I rode my bike I felt better, and when I was stationary I felt worse.

After riding around for an hour or two, I decided to head north to the beach. I figured I could either lay around in bed or lay around on the beach. So I stopped by my Airbnb to grab my swimsuit and a towel, then tried to eat. Still no internet.

Playa Norte

I stopped by Paulo’s Mango Cafe and ate half my lunch. Not sure if that was a great idea or not. I pushed on to the northern part of the island, the touristy part. Playa Norte, the most famous beach, truly was beautiful. I took a photo for a couple and accidentally got my foot wet. Guess I’ll find out if it’s ready for water or not.

I found a spot on the beach and cooked myself. I was still concerned about putting my toe underwater since the wound was still fairly fresh. After doing a little Googling I found that symptoms of wound infection include upset stomach, diarrhea, etc. Pretty much a lot of the same symptoms they had been experiencing for the last couple of days. So now I’m not sure if I really have/had food poisoning or if my toe was infected and causing other symptoms. Still leaning towards food poisoning. But the information about infecting it kept me out of the water.

Once I was sufficiently cooked, I rode back to my Airbnb. I scoped out places to exchange dollars for pesos as it seems every place here is cash only but unfortunately today was a national holiday. So the banks I passed were closed. The first ATM I found dispersed US dollars and the other was across from the very busy Ultramar station. I really didn’t feel like crossing all of the taxi/golfcart madness with a bike on the chance the ATM might give me pesos.

Lounging

I went back, showered, and laid around the rest of the night. With the ocean breeze flowing through my patio door and the sound of the waves crashing over the rocks it really wasn’t that bad. Oh, and they fixed the internet. So hopefully tomorrow will be more like the type of day I expected to have today. In total, I rode my bike 17 km today. Way more than I expected, but I felt best when moving. For a beach cruiser with a single gear, that’s a lot of bike-riding in one day. I am sure I will feel that tomorrow.

Daily Expenses

Amounts in Mexican Pesos

Accommodations	$2003
Transportation	$0
Food	$140
Activities	$0
Total Spend	$2143 (~$107 USD)