Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

A Day in the Life: San Juanico

January 20th, 2013 | Posted by Ian in A Day in the Life | Mexico | The Places We've Been

This is the first installment in a planned series detailing a typical day in one of our destinations. Not everything in this schedule might happen on any given day, but it should give you a good idea of our usual activities.

5:00AM – The power comes on, lighting up our bedroom with the lamps that we probably neglected to turn off the night before when the power went off. We see it as something of a built in alarm clock.

Local San Juanico Oranges

That's about two bucks worth of oranges.

7:00AM – Breakfast. Generally tea and locally grown oranges (25 pesos, or just under $2 USD, will get you about ten pounds worth in Villa Insurgentes or Ciudad Constitucion an hour and a half away).

8:00AM – Work time

9:00AM (Fridays only) – Walk to the open-air weekly town market, where we pick up any produce we will need for the coming week. The market consists of the contents of a few trucks that presumably are in a different town each day of week. They set up their fruits and vegetables of all colors, meat, seafood, dairy products, and just about anything else you might need under a tent on a basketball court in the middle of town. We have been dropping around 150 pesos ($12 USD) each week.

12:00PM – Power goes off. On many days you might hear a muttered swear word from one or both of us, as we are suddenly cut off from whatever we were frantically trying to finish before the internet disappears for the afternoon.

12:03PM – Lunchtime. Usually leftover rice from the night before, a few scoops of beans from the giant pot we make each week, an avocado (3 pesos a piece, or $0.25 USD, in Insurgentes or Constitucion), and the most amazing flour tortillas we’ve ever had.

San Juanico Scorpion Bay Bonfire

Not a bad lunch break.

1:00PM to 4:00PM – Choose one or two of the following:

  • Surfing – Or, as the case may be, flailing around and shouting random cuss words.
  • Beach bumming – Southeast of town is twenty miles of empty beach. It’s a great place for beachcombing, reading, kicking a soccer ball, and letting the dogs get some energy out/eat random nasty things.
  • Bonfire – The sea provideth. Driftwood, that is. Lots and lots of driftwood. You can build a nice tepee in twenty minutes that will burn for two hours. On some days we bring wood back for a fire in our backyard pit instead.
  • Trips to the corner store – An onion here, an avocado there. Maybe even Panquecitos if we are feeling crazy.
  • Hammock time – Aaaaahhhhh…

4:00PM – Power comes on again. Time to get back to work, send emails, put pictures on Facebook, post blog entries, and do whatever else we need to finish up.

7:00PM – Dinner time. Usually stir fry or a dish we love consisting of a layer of beans on a bed of rice, topped with sautéed peppers and salsa, with, of course, a freshly cut avocado on the side.

8:00PM – Chose one or more of the following:

  • Work time – Yeah, you get it, we work irregular hours.
  • Reading – Brie is currently on Cutting for Stone, and I am trying to make my way through a Spanish textbook.
  • Writing – Although our recent output might not suggest it.
  • Movie – The internet here is too slow to stream anything, so we are stuck with the house’s slim DVD collection. Although I must admit, watching Under Siege and Under Siege 2 on consecutive nights was pretty amazing.
  • Fire – Underneath the lemon tree in our backyard is a brick fire pit, complete with a wooden bench facing the bay. Usually accompanied by a Tecate or two.

11:00PM – Power goes out for the night. We climb under our mountain of blankets (nights are chilly and there is no heat). One forgets what darkness really is until you don’t have the option of light. It is incredibly easy to fall asleep, the Milky Way cuts a bright path across the night sky, and midnight snacks are damn near impossible.

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