“Gringo Day”

Tomorrow is Gringo Day in La Manzanilla. Of course, everyday is gringo day for me. It’s difficult to escape. Sure my skin grows pinker, redder and then darker and my hair more sun torn and flaxen. But once a gringo always a...well you get it. Anyway as of tomorrow, Gringo Day, I’ve been here a week. I told someone on the beach today I arrived three or four days ago. It’s been a week. And time keeps slowing down, elongating...slipping.

They call this ‘the great sand suck”.

I’m here being gringo in La Manzanilla as the grateful guest of Gustavo “Angel” Caballero and John Fraticelli who granted me their beautiful home, Casa Piedra Del Mar, http://www.casa-piedradelmar.com/. 

Casa Piedra Del Mar (Stones from the Ocean for all you gringos) sits on the hills above the southern most tip of the village of La Manzanilla. I’ve got the best sunsets in town above a crescent shaped bay of the Costa Alegre sweeping north and then nodding west into the sea. With all the grandeur and perspective I should be able to keep an eye on the sand suck vortex below but I’ve had no such luck. Its even more pervasive than sand, that gritty find every nook, cranny, and orifice on your body substance. Sand Suck is in the air, in the dusty streets, in the breeze, music, taco stands, and absolute blessed normalcy of the place. This perch hasn’t made it better, it has made it happily worse.

From everything I’ve heard from locals and expats the one and single iron-glad criteria of Gringo Day is to pay the 18 dollar U.S. cover for a small bit of food and all the beer you can drink. This appears to be the only requirement to register, as and become, a full-fledged gringo, be you canadian, german, austrian, dutch, or from the united states. You pay...you drink, you gringo. I checked my pesos earlier today to be sure I’ll have enough for cover charge.

In another hour our two I’ll slip slip off the hill to the Fiesta and parade which kicks off both Gringo Day tomorrow and fours days of the Rodeo starting the following day. From everything I’ve heard, read and seen La Manzanilla has about 1000-2000 residence. I have not met everyone but faces have already started to look oddly familiar, and mine to them as well. The fisherman at the cooperative, the old man at the base of the hill who sits outside his tiny store, morning, noon and night, and even the rusty old hang dog down the street. He barked wildly at me on day one but now ignores me motionless more like a cold blooded reptile than a canine. Sand Suck got that ol dawg long time ago.

So tonight, lots of new faces as the community congregates for music, procession and revelry.

All good things,
Wig